After a threat to the Wonderbolts is discovered, Princess Luna sends out a special task force to deal with it before it can escalate.
The Wonderbolts are a famous stunt organisation, but not many know of their secondary function - the second most advanced military force in Equestria.
When an unknown threat arises that could not only reveal this secret to the public, but also wipe the Wonderbolts out and pave the way for an invasion of Equestria, Princess Luna sends out her secret military project - the Ghost Squad, led by her personal protégé - to deal with them
However, there's more to this threat than any could have known, and Luna may have just put her protégé and his squad in serious danger...
"Damn. Haven't seen a thing out here since we brought this guy in. Maybe they aren't coming. I mean, what do we even need with this guy anyway?" the voice of a grey unicorn mare asked as she gazed above the forest and into the night sky from the roof of a three story building, levitating a crossbow in her magic.
The first floor was a garage, with a garage door covering almost all of the front wall, and a small brown door to its right. A small drive extended out from the front and onto a dirt path, which led out of the forest. The second and third floors had two large windows that only revealed a white set of stairs leading up to the roof.
"I don't know, but I do know that if he wasn't useful to us, we wouldn't have captured him," another unicorn's deep voice calmly responded as he trotted over to the opposite side of the roof, also wielding a crossbow in his magic.
"If you say so, I guess. What about the chairman's plans?"
"What, you don't know? Doesn't surprise me that you probably slept through th-"
"What did you say?"
"Uh, Fix?"
No answer.
"Fix? Fix, come on, don't mess around here," the mare called out again, wondering why she got no reply.
"Fix!"
Worried that still no answer came from Fix, the mare trotted over to the other side of the building and peered over the side, only to find her friend lying in a pool of blood on the ground 40 feet below her, a silver arrow right in the middle of his forehead, where he had been shot.
"What the? OH F-"
A soft thud sounded out as the mare's voice suddenly ceased, and she fell onto the ground, a large silver arrow sticking through both sides of her head.
"Snipers down. Quickdraw, Speed, area's clear," whispered a small grey pegasus mare with a long, dark blue mane into the microphone of her headset, watching the building with a scoped crossbow from a rather comfortable vantage point on top of a large tree.
"Copy. Good kills Prisma," Quickdraw, a light brown pegasus stallion with a chocolate wind-swept mane, answered as he snuck into the front garden, looking for any guards around the entrance before he made his way up to the front door. "Speed, get in position on the back side of the building and wait for my mark. We'll breach at the same time from both sides, and take them by surprise."
"Copy that Boss, just leave some of 'em for me this time," Speedster quipped, earning a sly comeback from Prismatic Flare.
"Heh. Maybe if you pull your weight for once, you'd get a few kills under your belt. Oh, and watch out for Switch, we don't want to accidentally kill him, and knowing you-"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Lets just get this over with already," Speed snapped, cutting Prisma off before she could finish her sentence.
"Focus kid, you ready?" Quickdraw snapped his flustered teammate's attention back to the task at hand.
"Yeah, come on, let's do this!"
"Alright. Prisma, keep an eye out for any hostiles in the surrounding area. If you see anypony coming towards the building from any side, take them out. Don't let them blow our cover."
"Affirmative," the squad's sharpshooter responded, gripping her crossbow and aiming down the scope.
"Okay, three, two, one, go!"
Inside the garage, two unicorns stood before a beaten white pegasus stallion tied to a chair. One held a hammer in his magic, laughing manically as he struck the pegasus' left foreleg twice, before striking him in the face, breaking his muzzle. The torturee cried in pain as he felt his muzzle bend awkwardly to the side. The second unicorn, a mare, held a knife in her magic, and slashed him across his cheek. Seemingly losing her patience, she put the knife down onto the table, and demanded, "We haven't got all day, tell me what you know, or I'll-"
Her attention was rapidly drawn away as the sound of two doors being kicked down echoed throughout the room from all directions, followed by a harsh thwack and thud from the front entrance. The two unicorns looked toward the sudden commotion, gasping as they saw a muscular, brown pegasus in a black armoured flight suit, adorned with fern coloured stripes extending down each leg, pulling a tomahawk from the neck of their now deceased comrade. Before either could recover in time to shoot the pegasus with a magic blast, their heads were smashed together, the mare's horn impaling the other's eye, before their necks were both snapped, releasing two loud cracks as they dropped lifelessly.
"HAHA!" Speedster guffawed, thoroughly satisfied at the sight of the dead unicorns as he trotted over to Quickdraw, only to be silenced by him.
"Quiet! There are still ponies outside! They might hear you if you're not careful-"
"-as usual," Prisma interrupted from the two stallions' headsets-
"-and before you know it we'll get ambushed."
Both stallions' attention was drawn towards a dry cough from behind Speed, and a voice huskily called out, "Uh, A little help? Please?"
"Oh, right, yeah, sure, sorry, uhh, how you feelin', Switch?" The skinny blue pegasus stumbled over his words, a little embarrassed at the fact that he already forgot that his squadmate was even there. He swiftly flew back over to Switch and untied him from the chair, mumbling incoherent sounds to himself.
"Yeah, they didn't bang you up too bad did they?" Quickdraw followed behind, unresponsive to Switchback's bent, bloody muzzle. He instead focused on the contents of the garage, surveying it. The chair that Switch was tied to was in the middle of the room. To the left of the chair, stood a table where the unicorn mare had placed her knife, a cloth, and a gas can. On the floor next to the table was the hammer that the torturer had previously held in his telekinesis. Both the hammer and knife were lidded with blood. Quickdraw swivelled his ears towards Switch as he waited for a response.
"Nah, only broke my beautiful face- aagh!- uh, and my left foreleg. What took you guys so long? Thought I was- rrgh!- gonna have to break myself out," Switch finally replied after trying and failing to stand on said foreleg.
From listening to Switch, Quickdraw assumed that the hammer and knife were both used to torture the injured stallion, while the gas can was still sealed and the cloth was dry. Ears folding back at his imagination of Switch being waterboarded, Quickdraw was glad that his squad was at least in time to save him before that could happen.
On the other side of the room was a large board that showed the faces of different members of the Wonderbolts, with the lesser known members around the edges, and Captain Spitfire, in the middle, circled and underlined with a red marker. Quickdraw took a small camera out of the breast pouch of his flight suit, and took a picture of the board. After checking to make sure the picture was clear, he put the camera back into the breast pouch and scanned the room for anything else that could be useful. Alas, he could find nothing. Grunting in frustration, Quickdraw acknowledged Switch and Speed.
"Good. Get over it then. Let's get back to base. We need to figure out who these ponies are, and what they want with the Wonderbolts." He ordered, letting Switch lean on his right side for support as they made their way out of the garage, Speedster grimacing at the sight of blood all over the chair and hammer to the side.
"All clear boss, you're good to go," Prisma announced as she heard her leader's commands to leave the garage.
She watched as the three stallions made their way back to her, and flew down to meet them. Upon inspecting Switch's injuries, Prisma joked, "You're looking worse for wear. They treat you well?"
"Just dandy," Switch breathed a sigh of relief as he laid down to rest, and let the mare examine him further. He winced and flinched as Prisma felt around his broken foreleg and muzzle, eliciting a bop to the back of his head.
"Stop being a little filly."
At this, Switch facehoofed and grumbled to himself, "Charming as ever. What else would I have expected from you?"
Prisma heard his comment, but decided to ignore it, instead turning to Quickdraw.
"So, what did you find out?"
"We don't even know who these ponies work for, but we know that they want something with the Wonderbolts. Lets head back home first. I want to let Princess Luna know, then she can pass this on to Captain Spitfire."
The Ghost squad made their way back to the Canterlot Castle to inform Princess Luna about what they had found that night. Upon their arrival, Switchback was sent to the castle infirmary, while the remaining pegasi headed to their HQ.
The Ghosts' Headquarters were situated directly underneath the castle's throne room. Nopony had access to the area except the Princesses, a handful of lunar guards they had specifically chosen, and, of course, the Ghosts themselves. In the headquarters themselves, there were four rooms designated to each specialist, a canteen, a private gym and combat training area so that they could keep their skills as sharp as possible, and a meeting room, where the team discussed their missions and held briefs and debriefs with the Princess of the Night - the creator and leader of the Ghost organisation, despite Quickdraw being the squad's commanding officer.
Prisma and Speed left for their personal quarters to clean up and get some rest. However, Quickdraw, thinking it would be best to inform the Princess of the situation sooner rather than later, made his way to the meeting room and sent one of the guards stationed outside to find Luna and inform her that the Ghosts were back.
"Yes, sir," the guard dutifully replied before leaving.
Quickdraw entered the meeting room and placed his camera on a desk off to the side, looking for the photo of the board with Wonderbolts members before sitting down at the head of the main table for a moment, sighing and rubbing his forehead with a wing.
"One of these days Switch won't be so lucky if he carries on getting himself into situations like that," he quietly muttered to himself, before chuckling.
"Hell, if we're lucky, next time Speed will get captured twice a goddamn week, and Switch will get to save him. Maybe that way he'll realise how annoying it is to save someone who shouldn't need saving in the first place."
"We take it Specialist Switchback was captured and interrogated again?" A posh voice broke the stallion from his thoughts, startling him as he stood up straight and acknowledged his superior's presence.
"Yes, Princess. However this time he was captured by an unknown enemy. They wanted information from him about the Wonderbolts. When Specialist Speedster and I rescued him, I found some sort of plan that they have in the works, although the information is not much to go by," Quickdraw explained. He picked up the camera and connected it to a visualiser, showing the photo of the board - different members of the Wonderbolts dotted around Captain Spitfire, who was circled and underlined, showing that she was clearly of some importance to this force.
"As you can see, there is nothing other than the faces of different members of the Wonderbolts that gives away any plans, although, judging by how Specialist Switchback was being treated, I believe this organisation is most likely hostile, and has some sort of plan to attack the Wonderbolts."
Luna analysed the photo for a moment, then turned away, considering what course of action to take.
"Very peculiar," she commented, "We do not have enough evidence to assume that their intentions are hostile. However we must take into account the skill of this force. Even with Specialist Switchback's track record, Ghosts cannot be attacked and captured by just anypony-"
"Which means that what we're suppsoedly up against aren't just anypony, they're a very highly skilled military force," Quickdraw elaborated, to which Luna agreed.
"Indeed, Commander."
Luna thought for a little while longer. She was almost certain that this organisation posed a threat to the Wonderbolts, and if the Wonderbolts were under threat, then no doubt all of Equestria could be under threat. The Wonderbolt Organisation was also the Princesses' most powerful and most advanced military service after all. However, she could not make any rash decisions based on a mere assumption.
"For now, we would like your squad to investigate. Gather as much information as you can, with evidence, and report back to me. Do not engage in direct combat unless absolutely necessary. We do not want to come across as a threat to them, unless we discover that they are indeed a threat to us like we are assuming now."
Quickdraw nodded and saluted, "Yes ma'am. Should we consider a replacement member for Specialist Switchback until he recovers?"
"No, you will not be engaging in combat unless it is absolutely necessary, so his skillset is not currently required. Rest assured, as soon as he recovers, he will be rejoining you, Commander." Luna responded, sensing the hidden worry that Quickdraw had over his lifelong friend. She dismissed him and left the headquarters, allowing Quickdraw to relax for the first time in a long while.
With nothing else to do, and everypony else occupied, Quickdraw decided to give Switch a visit. Though, he couldn't figure out what to say first - should he express his relief that Switch was okay, or vent his frustration at the fact that this was now the fifth time that the impulsive meathead had done this in the past year? It certainly didn't help the fact that if there was anypony that couldn't be captured, it was supposed to be the Ghosts. They weren't called Ghosts for nothing, but Switch had been really pushing it lately. Seriously, how can somepony get himself into the same situation so many times, and not only survive, but go and do it again?
Quickdraw's thoughts came to an abrupt end as he heard a series of muffled shouts coming from the direction of the infirmary. He trotted towards the shouting, and upon hearing who it was, instantly frowned, ears folding back in frustration.
"Switch! Get back here! You're not supposed to be out of bed!"
Quickdraw opened the door to the infirmary and instnatly saw Switch being held back by three nurses, while a fourth was shouting at him from his room.
"I'm fine! Get offa me!" Switch yelled at the nurses whilst struggling to break free. Quickdraw noted that if Switch really was fine, then he would have no problem getting free. He walked up behind and placed his hoof on his friend's shoulder and spoke calmly.
"Switch, go back to bed."
Quickdraw's authority effectively silenced all those present, even Switch. Well, for a few seconds.
"Quickdraw, I'm fine. Rea -aah!- Really!"
"Really? What about this, did you really think I wouldn't hear that little moan in the middle of your sentence? Go back to bed. That's an order."
Even though he knew Quickdraw his whole life and wasn't afraid of him in the slightest, he was still a superior officer. Grunting, Switch turned back and allowed the three nurses to take him back to his bed. Quickdraw followed behind and when they entered the room, sat down on a chair beside the bed. He watched as the nurses slowly lowered him onto the bed, and when he was comfortable, checked with him to see if he needed anything before they left. Switch asked for a drink of water, so the four nurses left, and one nurse returned with a bottle in her magic, placing it on the bedside table before leaving the two alone in the room. For a while, neither of them spoke, partly because both were annoyed for different reasons, but mostly because Switch knew what was coming, and Quickdraw knew that Switch knew.
"So, this is the fifth time now," Quickdraw finally broke the silence, watching the white stallion's face scrunch up as he hid it under his jet black mane, "When are you gonna learn Switch?"
“Yeah Switch, even I know this!” a light-hearted voice snaked its way into the room, somehow unnoticed by the other two. Quickdraw sighed, the mood of the moment ruined by the newcomer. Switch, on the other hand, was befuddled.
“Speed? What are you doing here? How did I not even see you, I’m facing the damn door for Celestia’s sakes!” he questioned.
“Hey, I ain’t the squad’s infiltrator for nothin’.”
“Right, I get that, but how are you that good? I mean, I had to have seen you come in, that’s just impossible!”
Speed smiled cheekily at Switch’s comment about his antics being impossible and raised his eyebrows. “Is it?”
“Well, yeah, I’m not blind,” Switch said, not noticing the blue pegasus’ smile.
“Then how did I do it?”
“...guess you are that good then.”
Off to the side, Quickdraw, while slightly amused with Speed making a fool out of Switch as usual, was still annoyed that he ruined the mood. Looking back at Switch, he repeated his previous question. Switch sighed and turned to Quickdraw, answering sincerely (for once), "I know. Listen, I just snapped. I know I say that every time, but you know me, I don't think about what I'm doing most of the time,"
"Yeah, I do. But even you should've learned after five times now, that blindly attacking a squad that outnumbers you is one of the dumbest things somepony can do. Even with your size, you're not invincible. You need to remember this."
Switch rolled his eyes, expecting to hear the talk again, but he had to admit, Quickdraw had a point. He really needed to start thinking before acting. What he didn't expect, however, was the small praise he received immediately afterwards.
"You did a good job though, I guess. I mean, thanks to you, we learnt that the Wonderbolts might be under threat, and we have a new assignment from Luna. That doesn't mean that I'm going to let you off this time. In fact, you're gonna stick with me at all times until we're dont with it."
Switch's mood immediately fell, and he turned to Quickdraw with pleading eyes, silently begging him that this was a joke.
"I'm being serious. No more gallivanting on your own." Quickdraw confirmed that he was in fact not joking, much to Switch's demise.
"Fine."
Satisfied with Switch's acknowledgement of his 'punishment', Quickdraw got up and turned to leave. He wanted to tell Switch that it wasn't as bad as he thought, but he also felt that he needed the punishment to seem as horrid as Switch thought it could possibly be, so that perhaps this time he would learn his lesson. Just before he closed the door, he turned back and looked at Switch with an abnormal amount of emotion present in his eyes.
"Get some rest. I'll be back to check on you tomorrow. And please, I don't want to see someone so close being hospitalized so much. One of these days you won't be so lucky. I don't want to have to bury you, bro."
With that, he closed the door and headed back to his quarters.
Switch smiled to himself as Quickdraw left.
"Huh, sounded like the old you for a second there-"
“-Daddy has to hold your hoof from now on? Awwwww, little Switchy’s been a naughty colt, hehehehaha!”
“...damn it.”
How Switch forgot Speed was even there, he will never know.
Prisma lay still in her bed, thinking over the conversation she overheard between Quickdraw and Luna. They probably wouldn't be deployed for the rest of the weekend, so she thought it would be a good idea to catch up on some aim practice tomorrow.
I really need to get better at hoof to hoof combat, she thought to herself, but truth be told, she just much preferred fighting from a distance. She always felt more in control of the situation that way, and felt that if she ever engaged in hoof to hoof, she would panic too much.
That's the point, dipshit. If you got better at it you would panic less.
She argued with herself in her head for the next few minutes. Eventually, she sat up and started preening her wings out of silent irritability as she couldn't think of what to do tomorrow.
Screw it, I don't need to practice my aim, Prisma concluded. With that, she decided it would be best to get some sleep. There was no point stressing over what she should practice, when she should be worrying about who these new ponies were.
It was getting quite late. The moon had replaced the sun long before they made it back to the castle in the first place - she would be lucky if she got around three or four hours of sleep at this point, assuming her insomnia won't keep her up.
At least Speed doesn't worry about everything all the time. That kid doesn't give a shit. I wish I could be like that sometimes.
The deafening sound of an alarm startled Prisma from her sleep. Moaning, she groggily slapped the alarm, turning it off before shaking her head to wake up. Today was a free day, which meant that the Ghosts could spend their time training and keeping their skills as sharp as possible or properly planning their next missions instead of doing it on the fly. They didn't get many days like this, since they were almost always out in the field, so they never wasted any free days. Prisma decided last night that she would focus on hoof to hoof combat, and she could really do with some help from Speed, since Quickdraw was most likely going to be occupied with his own special training - which was far too harsh for the others.
Bringing herself back to reality, she glanced at the clock. It read 6 AM, which was enough time for her to get ready and grab some breakfast, but also meant that she only had about three hours of sleep. She would definitely need to grab a coffee before training today.
Meanwhile, Quickdraw was already up and making his way to the canteen. Being the commander, he was used to sleeping less than 2 hours most nights - it came with the job. He grabbed a plate of oatmeal and eggs, and a cup of espresso, and sat down on a nearby table. Some of the guards that were stationed in the HQ were present, talking amongst themselves and also eating breakfast. Only some would come and talk to Quickdraw - he never looked like the most welcoming pony, so most were intimidated by him and his prowess, though they would never admit it. However, those that actually spoke to him knew that he was actually very polite. He was just very serious most of, if not all the time. Switch was the only pony who had ever seen the side of Quickdraw that actually showed emotion, and even he hadn't seen that side for a few years since they first became ghosts, barring last night.
"Boss! How are you?" Prisma called out as she sat down across the table from Quickdraw. She waited as Quickdraw slowly looked up from his plate, admittedly taking a while to fully wake up this morning.
"I'm alright, little drowsy this morning. How are you? You're up early today," he answered.
"Couldn't get much sleep last night, as usual. I've been dealing with insomnia the past few months to be perfectly honest with you."
Quickdraw narrowed his eyes, a subtle sign of concern for his fellow squadmate. "You could go to the infirmary, they might be able to give you some sleeping pills to help you out. Can't have you passing out from sleep deprivation in the field and letting us get killed."
Prisma snorted, "Is that your way of showing that you care?"
With a sigh, Quickdraw admitted, "Yes, it is. It's hard enough to see one of my closest friends in a state like that, not to mention it's hard enough to do our job with one member down, let alone two. By the way, that's about as much care as you will ever get from me, in case you were wondering. I already showed you too much just now as it is."
Prisma nodded, amused by Quickdraw's attitude, and the two ate in silence for a few minutes. Eventually, Quickdraw spoke up again. "What are you planning on doing today? We only have today until we're deployed."
"Well, I was gonna practice my aim, but I think I really need to work on my hoof to hoof combat skills. You know, in case I get into that sort of situation, cause I kind of suck at it right now. Plus, my aims good enough as it is," the mare answered. Quickdraw's ears perked up at the mention of hoof to hoof.
"You want me to help train you today? I was going to train on my own, but I reckon I could help you out. Beware, it isn't going to be pretty."
The grey mare was admittedly very surprised that Quickdraw would actually be willing to help personally. Usually, he would just give them instructions on what to do if they needed any, and get on with his own training schedule, although the prospect of his training not being 'pretty' did scare her a little. After giving it some thought, she answered,
"Sure! I could definitely use your help! I was gonna train with Speed, maybe he'll want to work with us aswell?"
Quickdraw scoffed, "That's assuming he will even wake up before we finish."
"Heard you two talking shit about me, hows about you say it to my face huh?" Speed suddenly appeared behind Quickdraw, whispering into his ear and causing him to lean away in disgust.
"How do you do that? It's like you literally appear out of nowhere and know everything thats going on!" Prisma questioned the blue stallion. She was indeed quite curious, he just seemed so different than everypony else.
"Wouldn't you like to know? I'm afraid that's a secret. Come tell me it if you ever break the rules of reality, heeheehee!"
"...Riiight," Prisma answered skeptically before Quickdraw cleared his throat,
"So I'm assuming you heard everything, so are you in or not?"
"-Oh, I don't know about your training with Prisma later today? Sure, I'm in." Speed interrupted with a sly grin, countering Quickdraw and therefore re-proving Prisma's thoughts right, causing her jaw to slightly drop with shock.
"You are something else entirely, kid, we are lucky to have you on the squad, whether we like it or not," Quickdraw muttered the last part.
"You, uhh, you not gonna have breakfast then?" Prisma piped up, only to be scared out of her fur as Speed disappeared and reappeared next to her, slamming his plate on the table (somehow not breaking it) and making an excruciatingly loud CLANG that drew the attention of everypony else in the canteen but Quickdraw, who was completely unfazed.
"No, breakfast is for pussies," Speed said sarcastically before devouring his food like a rabid animal. Prisma decided to follow Quickdraw's lead and ignore him, instead focusing on her own food. She smiled inwardly, thinking about how Quickdraw always seemed to set an example for his squad to follow, even in situations where it wasn't needed, like right now.
Prisma fell onto haunches, panting and sweating profusely.
"You're not tired already are you?" Quickdraw asked as he landed in front of her, not affected at all by the ten minute sparring session they just had together. Prisma was putting everything she had into it and couldn't land a single hit on Quickdraw, who wasn't even trying. She couldn't get her head around how he was so good at everything. Looking to the side, she noticed that Speed was still lying on his back and panting as well, even though he finished sparring with Quickdraw twenty minutes ago. And Prisma thought Speed was good with his hooves. Quickdraw was a machine.
"Come on, let's work on your technique some more. Speed, you too, get over here!" Quickdraw shouted. In the blink of an eye, Speed was in front of him saluting, looking like he fully recovered; a complete contrast to a moment ago. Prisma, however, took almost two full minutes just to stand up straight. It certainly didn't help her that Quickdraw got the two going as soon as she was up.
"Alright, let's work on your defense. Block all of my punches," as soon as he spoke, Quickdraw sent a flurry of punches at both Prisma and Speed at the same time. While Speed was doing well, Prisma kept getting hit. Thank Celestia he's not punching hard, she thought as she began ducking and weaving instead to avoid getting pummeled any further. Repeated blows to the face and body started to hurt her, even if they weren't very strong.
Quickdraw noticed that Prisma wasn't exactly blocking his punches, so he started to push forward, backing her and Speed up against the wall so neither could escape. Soon, both were backed up against a wall, forced to block and parry instead of dodging. Quickdraw was really pushing their abilities beyond their limit. This was what he wanted - they had to know that their enemies are relentless and will not stop until they were dead or unconscious.
"Slow down, I can't keep up!" Prisma started to panic as she started to lose her breath, fearing that Quickdraw was actually going to seriously hurt her. This only made Quickdraw attack faster. At this point, even Speed was faltering, and was hit in the muzzle by a right hook, sending him careening to the left, down for the count. This caused Prisma to lose her concentration completely; it wasn't long until she shared the same fate, but with an uppercut that sent her upwards, hitting the wall at an awkward angle and falling onto the floor, dazed both from the uppercut and overexertion.
Speed looked up and grimaced as he saw Prisma hitting the ground. Sweet Celestia, Quickdraw is evil! He's pushing it a bit too far though. he thought. Quickdraw suddenly turned to face him and answered his thought.
"Yeah, I'm pushing it too far. I'm going hard on you. You both need to know how relentless the enemy is. In hoof to hoof combat, your opponent will not stop until you are knocked out, or worse. This goes for all combat types aswell. The most important part of combat is self defense. You must be able to defend both yourself, and other ponies that cannot defend themselves, if you are to win a fight. Understand?"
"How did you...? I mean, understood sir!" Speed answered as he got to his hooves, facing his tutor and saluting. Prisma regained her consciousness soon after and joined Speed by his side, saluting Quickdraw.
"Good. Now that you've got a taste of how hard the enemy can push you and how stressful being defenseless can be, let's work on how to block and counter an attack"
The rest of the training session went smoothly, and ended with three rounds of sparring between Speed and Prisma. Quickdraw noted that for Prisma's confidence (or lack thereof) in her ability, she was performing exceptionally, now that she knew how to properly defend herself. She could keep up with Speed, and even managed to stun him with a counter attack during the last round. What Prisma didn't know, however, was that Speed was taking it easy on Prisma - he didn't want her to feel inadequate compared to the rest of the Ghosts.
While Prisma and Quickdraw went to wash up and rest, Speed decided to give Switch another visit. He still had some time before Quickdraw said to meet them for a briefing of tomorrow's mission anyway. Before heading down to the infirmary, however, he thought it might be a good idea to bring Switch some food from the canteen. After all, the chefs were serving Spaghetti, which was Switch's favourite.
After grabbing a serving, Speed took a daisy sandwich for himself and devoured it on his way to the infirmary.
Switch was, for the first time, behaving himself in the infirmary, much to the relief of the nurses. He was too busy thinking about what Quickdraw said yesterday to do anything else anyway.
"...Please, I don't want to see someone so close being hospitalized so much. One of these days you won't be so lucky. I don't want to have to bury you, bro..."
These words echoed continuously in his mind. Switch would never admit this, but it struck him like a wrecking ball and clung to him. He hadn't seen Quickdraw express genuine worry for anypony since before Speed joined the team. Since his older brother, Live Wire, died in his hooves, he thought. Was it possible that Quickdraw thought of Switch as somepony as close to him as his own brother? Switch had always known Quickdraw to not 'give a shit' about anypony after all.
Too stuck inside his head, he didn't notice a familiar small blue pony slowly inching their muzzle closer and closer to his ear.
"YOUR PIZZA'S HERE! THAT'LL BE FIFTEEN BITS!" Speed bellowed down his ear before slapping a bowl of spaghetti on his chest.
When Switch's ears stopped ringing, he shouted back, "SPEED! One of these days I'm gonna make sure you never use your goddamn voice again!" he then looked down to see what was sitting on top of him. "AND THIS ISN'T EVEN PIZZA- ooh, spaghetti, yes!"
The sight of his favourite food instantly calmed Switch down and started munching on his food, looking as happy and innocent as a foal. Speed snickered as he watched him.
Switch finished his bowl almost instantly, letting out a loud belch and sighing in contentment. Remembering that it was in fact Speed who brought his food to him, Switch turned to face him and asked him how he was doing and how his day went. Speed answered by explaining how training went with Quickdraw and Prisma.
"-And, get this, he looked me right in the eye and answered my thoughts as if I said it out loud! I swear that stallion is part god or something!" Speed finished his recount.
"Yeah, he's basically supernatural," Switch commented, "I've known him pretty much my entire life, he always seemed to have some sort of superpowers."
"Yeah man, Quickdraw's insane, you're lucky you've known him for so long."
"He's the boss for a reason," Switch added.
Speed looked up at the clock, reading 6:55 PM. Realising that the briefing was in five minutes, he cursed, turning to Switch.
"Shit, I just remembered I got a briefing with the squad in five. Gotta bounce!" He shot towards the door-
"oh, Wait!"
Speed turned back to Switch.
"Thanks... you know, for seeing me, a-and talking to me. Celestia knows how boring being a vegetable is all the time." he joked.
"No problem, I had plenty of time to kill and nothing else to do, don't sweat it bro. I know how bored I'd be if I was you!"
Speed left the 'vegetable' alone to dwell on Quickdraw's concern once again. If Quickdraw really felt that way, then Switch really needed to change his ways.
"Let's go over the plan before we get back to this base," Quickdraw said to Speed and Prisma as they flew over the forest in search of the building they raided a few days ago to save Switch.
"By now ponies will have noticed their dead colleagues in the garage, and considering they had their plans strewn about there, they're most likely going to have reinforcements guarding the area. That means we can gather more intel from one of them."
"Prisma, you're going to set up in the same tree and provide overwatch for us again. Make sure nopony sees us. Speed, you will infiltrate the building and see if theres any solid intel you can gather. I'm going to eavesdrop on the ponies, see what they are saying. Hopefully we can find out a little more about this group, locations of bases, the group's hierarchy, anything."
"Yes sir," Speed and Prisma replied in unison.
A few moments later, the target building came into view. Prisma broke formation and nestled into the same tree as last time, grabbing her crossbow that was slung over her shoulder and aiming at the compound, making a quick mental note of where guards and snipers were positioned, what areas they would have sights on, and where her two squadmates were also positioned. She watched as Speed snapped a lone soldier's neck and hid the body under a tree before entering the building, dagger held in his right wing. She then switched her focus to Quickdraw, who landed in a large bush near two other guards stationed at the outskirts of the area and stayed put for a while.
Quickdraw eavesdropped on the two ponies ahead of him.
"I wonder who the ponies were that broke that stallion out. Who do you think they could be?"
"Not a clue. The stallion didn't say anything about who he was, and if he did, the Blood twins were killed before they could tell anypony else what he said, so we're in the dark."
"Think they were Wonderbolts? General's after them after all."
"Nah, Strider said the stallion they grabbed was wearing a black and green armoured suit, definitely not Wonderbolts."
"Huh."
The conversation ended there.
Quickdraw sighed inwardly. He was hoping they would reveal more, but it was a start. Though, he wondered who this 'Strider' was.
The two ponies then separated, and the one who mentioned this 'Strider' was left on his own, his back turned to Quickdraw. A perfect opportunity presented itself. There was nopony else around that Quickdraw could see, but he had to be sure.
"Prisma, is there anypony near me and the tango ahead of me that could hear us?" He asked.
"Negative, you're all good. I'll warn you if anypony comes near." Prisma confirmed. Now all that was left was to interrogate the stallion.
Silently and swiftly, Quickdraw hovered up behind the stallion and covered his mouth. He dragged him back to the bush he was hiding in and held him in place, whispering into his ear, "Alright punk, this is what's gonna happen. You're gonna cooperate with me and answer any questions that I ask you, and I'm not gonna waste my energy killing you. Got it?"
"MMRPH! MM MLL KLL MM!" came the stallion's muffled reply. Quickdraw answered by punching the back of his head.
"That doesn't sound like cooperation. Now lets try this again. Got it?" he repeated. He got no answer. Sighing, Quickdraw stomped on the stallion's left foreleg, smashing the bone in half and causing the stallion to let out a muffled shriek of pain.
"You gonna cooperate or am I gonna have to persuade you a little more?" he asked once again. This time, the stallion nodded his head vigorously. That's better, Quickdraw thought to himself.
"Now, when I let go of your mouth, you will not make a sound until I ask you to, and when you do, you whisper loud enough only for me to hear, okay? I don't want to have to tell you what I'll do if you do."
The stallion nodded again.
This was more like it. Quickdraw let go of his mouth and demanded, "Now, first of all, who is this 'Strider' you mentioned? Is he a powerful figure in your little organisation here?"
"Strider? N-no, he's just another grunt like me, nopony special," the stallion responded.
"Okay then. Who is special then?"
"P-pardon?"
Quickdraw covered the stallion's mouth and punched the back of his head again.
"Mmrph!"
"Who's the general? Does he have any captains? Who would they be?"
"I don't know who they are-"
CRACK
"AUGH!"
"Wrong answer, pal."
The stallion panicked. He didn't know what else to say to make Quickdraw believe him.
"I swear, I swear, I don't know who any of the leaders are! Please, you've gotta believe me!"
Quickdraw did not respond. For a few moments, the stallion felt as though Quickdraw would spare him and-
"I don't."
With a loud snap, the stallion fell to the ground and lay there, lifeless.
Quickdraw moved on, shifting behind a wall next to the bushes and sneaking around the corner. He saw another group of ponies, this time three of them. Quickdraw looked around for somewhere closer to hide since he couldn't hear what they were saying from this far back, but there was nothing around that he could use for cover, so he ruled the group out, instead fixating on a pair of unicorns that were talking near a sniper tower. Could listen to them from the tower, he thought, but there was a problem - there was a sniper in the tower that he would have to kill, and if he did kill her, he would run the risk of being loud enough for the two below to hear him.
Screw it. If they hear me, I'll kill them too and find somepony else, he decided.
Sneaking behind the two ponies on the ground, Quickdraw climbed up the ladder of the tower and drew his dagger. As he got to the top, he slowly crept up behind the sniper, covering her mouth as he stabbed the back of her neck through to the front, before laying her down to the side. Luckily, he made little to no noise, so nopony around heard. With that out of the way, Quickdraw listened to the two.
"Riot's gonna go ham on the ponies that killed the Blood twins."
"Yeah, I heard he's got a squad on patrol looking for them."
Got to look out for a squad that's after us, he thought to himself.
"What about Spectre and Tempo? They won't like the fact that two of their fellow commanders were killed."
"I'd rather not think about it. Who do you think the General's gonna promote? To take the Blood twins' place I mean."
"He won't promote anypony. He only trusts Riot, Tempo, Spectre and the Blood Twins. That's why they are, or were, the only commanders."
"Fair enough."
Quickdraw knew he was right to not believe what the stallion from earlier had said - if the General didn't trust anypony enough to even reveal the captain's identities, then why would these three ponies know? Then again, one of them did also say the same thing about trust. Maybe he wasn't fully lying. Still, Quickdraw thought, he deserved to die.
"Hey, your mom's visiting."
"Wha-"
SHLICK
THUD
Speed hid now the fourth pony he killed under an opaque wooden table. He didn't find anything on the first and second floor, and was now on the third. However, after looking in one of the offices, Speed stumbled on a goldmine of information. There were files strewn about all over the room. If he had time, Speed would have spent some time going through them, but unfortunately he didn't have all day. Then something else caught his eye - a large board on the wall that looked the same as the one in the garage, however this one not only had the same Wonderbolt plan, but also had what looked like a presentation of who this group was for some reason.
"Wraith Weapons and Security," Speed read the organisation's name out loud from the board, before reading the rest of what was on it. They were a private military organisation that worked for the highest payer, but there was no information as to who the payer for this Wonderbolt contract. Fortunately, there was information about the actual contract. Speed's eyes widened as he read it. Perhaps it wasn't so fortunate of him to find out. The Wonderbolts were Wraith's primary target, but not their only one. Below the names of all the Wonderbolt leaders' names, was a statement written and underlined in red:
KILL PRINCESSES TAKE OVER EQUESTRIA
This was worse than anypony could have imagined! Why would the contractor want to invade Equestria? They would be going against the Princesses and Discord, all literal gods - surely they wouldn't have a chance, with or without Wraith!
They must have some sort of secret weapon capable of defeating the gods, Speed concluded. He took a camera out of his breast pocket and took a picture. Upon putting the camera back into his pocket, he turned his headset on, whispering to Quickdraw, "Boss, I have their pla- AH!"
Speed was suddenly grabbed from behind, and his mouth was covered by somepony's hoof. Before he could rip free, the guard tossed him at a wall and grabbed him by the throat, pinning him in place.
"ACK!" Speed sputtered. Panicking, he tried to punch the guard and break free, but he only managed to skim past the attacker's face. This only caused him to start choking Speed instead of just holding him there. Speed was trapped. He couldn't muster enough strength to throw him off due to lack of oxygen, and couldn't call for help.
"All units! We have an intruder on floor three!" the guard shouted down his mic.
Speed started to lose his consciousness.
"Boss, I have their pla-"
"Speed? Speed, come in!" Quickdraw whispered back into the mic. He got no reply. Frantically looking in each window he could see, Quickdraw tried to find Speed, but from his position in the sniper tower, he couldn't see a thing. Gritting his teeth, he called for Prisma.
"Prisma! Speed's not responding, I think he's been nabbed. Find him, now!"
The sound of a shattering window was the only reply to Quickdraw's order. He looked questioningly in the general direction of the shooter's location, "Prisma?"
"The guard holding him is down, but Speed isn't moving. That and everypony else would have heard the window shattering, so get Speed and get out of there!" Prisma shouted.
WAAAAAAAAAAAH!
WAAAAAAAAAAAH!
WAAAAAAAAAAAH!
An alarm blared throughout the compound just as Prisma finished speaking. Quickdraw looked out and saw multiple ponies rushing into the building. They would surely find and kill Speed if Quickdraw didn't move it!
"PRISMA, OPEN FIRE! GIVE SPEED SOME COVER!" he shouted, flying up to the shattered window. Before he could reach it, he was tackled from the side, both him and his attacker roughly hitting the ground. Quickdraw recovered and at breakneck speed, grabbed the attacker by the neck and snapped it, before dodging three more punches from his right side. He readied up as the second guard charged at him, aiming a punch right for his face. However, at the last second, she switched up her attack, kicking Quickdraw in the side. Quickdraw didn't budge, but narrowed his eyes into a terrifying glare as he grabbed the mare's leg and held it in place, staring into her eyes.
"Hmph."
SNAP!
"AUGH!" the mare screeched as her leg was snapped and bent at an almost 90° angle. Quickdraw followed up with a devastating blow square into the mare's face, and she careened back the way she came from and tumbled to a stop, not moving.
"Boss, get Speed out of there, now! I can't hold them off for much longer, they have snipers shooting at me!" Prisma's voice sounded through the headset.
Quickdraw was faced with a dilemma. He had to save Speed now, but he was swarmed.
"Damn it," he cursed to himself.
Time almost came to a full stop for Quickdraw as he analysed the situation.
***
He would have approximately twenty seconds to save Speed if Prisma was covering him, but she had her own problems to deal with. That left him with about five seconds, if that. There were nine pegasus guards charging at him from the sky at his ten and two o'clock. That left a small opening between them. If he flew through the gap, he could incapacitate the two in the middle just before he passed, leaving a bigger, safer gap for him to pass through. Then it would be a matter of outpacing the guards. That, however, would undoubtedly cause him to be surrounded when he got to Speed if he considered the others rushing up to the third floor. One of the windows on the third floor was shattered - a result of Prisma shooting through to kill the guard that knocked Speed out in the first place. Instead of entering through that window, he could use it as an escape route. That meant that he would have to smash another window to get in. Good, the guard in the middle left was carrying a knife. At the right angle, Quickdraw could easily break it with said knife.
"Fuck it."
***
"Prisma, get out of there and meet me at HQ."
Prisma was shocked at what Quickdraw just ordered her to do.
"Boss, are you serious? You're severely outnumbered!" She questioned, worry and panic overtaking her.
"Yes."
She didn't know what to do. Prisma wanted to help Quickdraw - surely he had no chance, he was one to at least twenty down there!
Then again, he was the commander of a military squad so deadly, that they could take down an entire country in one night. Something in Prisma's gut told her that he would be fine. And she was taught by that same commander to always trust her gut. Sighing, she jumped out of the tree and left them behind, dodging each arrow as they flew past her.
As the guards rushed, a black and fern blur met them head on in the blink of an eye. The two guards in the middle suddenly dropped like rocks, freezing the others in their spots. Before they could even look back in the general direction they saw the intruder from, a window shattered again behind them, followed by lots of shouting coming from inside the building.
"WHERE'D HE GO?!"
"HE WAS RIGHT THERE!"
"THERE! HE'S GETTING AWAY! GET AFTER THEM!"
The remaining seven pegasi looked into the distance, and saw the same colours, but this time they saw a pony carrying a body in their arms. They gave chase, but could not catch up to them. Soon, the ponies were reduced to small dots in the distance and disappeared. They turned and flew back towards the compound, entering the building through one of the shattered windows. There, they were met with quite a sight. Many were dispersing under the command of a red pegasus with a yellow spikey, blown back mane, there was a flipped table, files and glass shards were all over the place, and a dead body in the corner. As soon as they landed, the red pegasus turned to them.
"Well?!"
The soldiers questioned all hesitated, looking to one another as if expecting the other to reply. This only irritated the pony questioning them, and he pulled out a dagger, stabbing one of them in the shoulder.
"AAAAAAAH! RGHHHHH!"
The others flinched as he looked around at them once more.
"WELL?!"
One of them gulped and spoke up.
"T-they, umm, they g-got away, Commander Riot."
Riot sighed and closed his eyes. To the others, it looked as though he had calmed down. Until he opened them again, revealing a look of absolute fury as he slit the same pony's throat and kicked him through the shattered window, that was.
"Get out of my sight. Now," he ordered them. To his surprise, they all stood still, unsure of whether or not they should actually listen to him. He looked at all of them questioningly, "I just killed one of your squadmates because I was angry, and you all stand there? Do you want me to kill you too? Because I will! Now GET OUT OF HERE!" he bellowed. This time, they all complied instantly, some whimpering like foals.
"That's more like it," he muttered to himself as he surveyed the mess left behind by the two infiltrators.
Prisma stopped flying and landed in an open field, pacing about. She was far away from the combat now, but still nowhere near Canterlot castle. It didn't matter - she would see Quickdraw flying in her direction with Speed in tow soon enough. And if she didn't...
She shook the thought out of her head. She was going to see them. They did escape. And they were going to see her when they flew by.
After what felt like hours, she spotted Quickdraw flying towards her with Speed at his side. They came to a stop in front of her, Quickdraw putting his flight goggles on his head and giving her a stern glare.
"I said go back to HQ. This isn't HQ," he inquired.
"No, but I didn't want to leave you behind," Prisma answered.
"You did. You just didn't do it properly," Quickdraw berated her.
"Guys, what are you talking abou-"
"What's that supposed to mean? I'm not allowed to worry about my commander?" Prisma cut Speed off, firing back at Quickdraw angrily.
"What about Speed?" Quickdraw asked. Prisma pointed at his face, seething.
"Don’t give me that shit! When you're surrounded by ponies trying to kill you and tell me to leave, how am I supposed to feel? You could've been killed or captured! I would lose two of my best friends! My family, for that matter!" She belted.
Quickdraw remained silent, letting Prisma calm down for a minute as she sat down, staring at the ground, gritting her teeth and shaking. Quickdraw joined her and sat down aswell.
“Prisma, what have I taught you about trusting your gut?” He asked calmly.
“To always trust it.”
"Did your gut tell you to leave me behind?”
“Yes.”
“Did I make it out with Speed okay?”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t worry. That there is proof that you should always trust your gut. If your gut told you to stay behind and help me, then by all means, stay behind and help. But your gut told you that Speed and I would be okay, and we are. Don’t worry about what could be, but focus on what is. Okay?”
Prisma looked up at Quickdraw once again. He was right, as usual. She nodded her head slowly, sniffling once. Quickdraw gave her a curious look, one that changed to surprise when she hugged him, sobbing into his chest. He patted her head, not really knowing what caused her emotional outburst.
"SNRK."
Quickdraw turned to Speed, giving him the harshest glare he had ever seen in his life.
“UHH, Ahem, umm,” Speed panicked a little, realising he was being inappropriate, and stayed silent instead.
After a few moments, Prisma let go of Quickdraw and wiped the tears out of her eyes, sniffling once.
“Sorry about that. It's just hard. You know, after losing my parents to the same sort of thing,” she spoke quietly. Quickdraw didn't know what to say to comfort her. Fortunately for him, he didn’t have to.
"Hey, it's okay. We get it. It must have been hard to go through something like that. And for it to possibly repeat, well, we don't blame you for worrying about us so much, even if hardass over here gets angry at you for it," Speed comforted Prisma. She smiled sweetly in response.
“Yeah, thanks,” she then turned to Quickdraw. “No thanks to you, hardass,” she joked.
“Was I not offering my shoulder to lean on just then?” He asked defensively.
“Okay, okay, calm down. You’re right about the whole ‘don’t worry about what could be’ stuff. Let’s just get to Luna and tell her whatever it is you two found out.” Prisma said, the three taking off in the direction of Canterlot. “You never told me what that is, actually.”
Speed gritted his teeth. Just thinking about what he found out really pissed him off. “Yeah, about that. Oh boy, I sure hope Switch makes a speedy recovery.”
The three Ghosts were silent on the way back to Canterlot after Speed's comment about the recovery of Switch. Quickdraw and Prisma were expecting him to elaborate, but he remained silent, instead facing straight forwards with a blank look on his face, no jokes, quips or anything. After a few minutes of waiting, Prisma finally spoke up.
"So, what did you find out then?"
Speed took a moment to answer. "These guys are part of an organisation called Wraith Weapons and Security, and they're working for some high paying client." Speed answered. "They, erm..." He then hesitated, thinking of how to tell them.
"And?" Quickdraw prodded.
"And, that client wants them to kill the Wonderbolts, kill the Princesses, and then take over Equestria."
Prisma gasped, flabbergasted at the news, whereas Quickdraw, other than slightly raising his eyebrows, did not react. Speed continued before the others could interrupt him. "The client can't be stupid enough to think their army can take the Princesses on their own, which means they have to have some sort of secret super weapon that can kill them."
"That certainly makes sense." Quickdraw added, "You got evidence of all this for Luna?"
Speed patted his breast pocket, indicating to Quickdraw that all the evidence he had was in the camera. Quickdraw responded with a nod.
Prisma kept staring ahead as the other two had their conversation. "Wow. Just... Wow," she muttered to herself. In her entire career as a Ghost, she had never been in a situation as dire as this. They were talking about a future war. Needless to say, Prisma did not feel ready for anything like this. She however kept this thought to herself. Equestria needed her and the Ghosts, whether she liked it or not, and she didn't need Quickdraw relieving her of her duty over her worries.
The rest of the flight was silent - neither Speed or Prisma wanted to talk about today, and Quickdraw was too busy thinking of how to stop Wraith before they could plunge Equestria into a state of war. He was mainly thinking they should just kill everyone, but he needed clearance to do so. That, and it would probably take too long to do so.
By nightfall, the three touched down at the castle, and Quickdraw sent one of the guards to find Luna and Celestia and bring them both to HQ.
"Have you heard from your secret squad yet?" Celestia asked her sister as they slowly made their way to their bedrooms.
"Not yet, though I suspect I will very soon. They are quick at completing their tasks, I suspect I will not have to wait long for an update, sister," Luna answered.
"Good. I have to admit I'm quite worried. What do these mystery ponies want with the Wonderbolts?" Celestia pondered, briefly tapping her chin with her hoof. Luna clarified for her,
"Whatever it is, I am sure it is not good."
"Indeed sister. I hope your Ghosts have this under control."
The two sisters were cut off as a guard kneeled in front of them. "Your majesties, Commander Quickdraw requests your presence in the Ghost HQ conference room."
Celestia, confused, asked, "Me too?"
"Yes, your majesty."
Celestia hesitated for a moment before sighing. "Very well, you may resume your duties."
The guard nodded and trotted back to his post. When he left the two's sights, Celestia and luna turned to each other. They knew that if Celestia was also involved, then there was a serious problem. She had never been involved in Luna's Ghost project; that was Luna's personal expertise.
"Well sister, let's go." Celestia said to Luna.
Together, Quickdraw, Prisma and Speed all sat in their respective seats in the meeting room, waiting for the Princesses. The three all agreed that since their current mission now involved preventing a war in Equestria, that Celestia should also know about the situation.
Speed had his camera out on the table, and was leaning back in his seat, balancing on the back two chairlegs. He stared ahead, zoned out completely while somehow maintaining perfect balance so as to not fall over. Prisma, on the other hand, was fidgeting around, visibly nervous at this point. Although she was trying very hard to keep calm and not worry about the future, it was abundantly clear to the other two that she was panicking a little. While Prisma and Speed waited patiently, Quickdraw decided to go through the photos that had been taken at the compound they raided. He picked up Speed's camera and turned it on, looking through the pictures that were taken.
There were three photos. One of the entire room, files strewn about with the board in the back, one of the pictures of the most well known Wonderbolt members on the top half of the board, and one of the 'TAKE OVER EQUESTRIA' statement underneath the pictures. Assuming he was correct about Wraith having some secret super weapons, Quickdraw knew he would need the team to be at full strength - Prisma needed to be calmed down or replaced, and Switch needed to recover soon.
After what felt like hours had passed, Celestia and Luna entered the meeting room, prompting the three Ghosts to stand to attention and salute.
"At ease Ghost Squad," Luna said, "Commander Quickdraw - report."
Relaxing a little, Quickdraw answered, "Yes ma'am. My operatives and I raided the compound we initially saved operative Switch from in order to see if they left any information behind that would prove useful to us. What we found is rather alarming. Speed?" he motioned for Speed to take over, since he found the evidence.
"Yes sir," Speed saluted. He then picked up his camera and connected it to the visualizer, showing first the photo of the entire room. "I found this office room on the third floor of the compound, full to the brim with information I could use to work out the organisation's grand plans. However, I didn't have enough time to go through all the files, and therefore had to refer to the board you see in the back of the room here," he pointed to the board for a moment, and then scrolled to the photo of the board.
"As you can see here, the board contains photos of Wonderbolt icons, such as Soarin," he pointed to the picture of Soarin, "Fleetfoot," he pointed at the picture of Fleetfoot, "and Captain Spitfire," he pointed to the picture of Spitfire. "Initially I thought: what do they want with the Wonderbolts? Then I saw this statement in bold red below."
Speed scrolled to the picture of the statement and turned to the Princesses. Celestia gasped, eyes opening wide, while Luna narrowed her eyes, showing little to no emotion.
"My goodness! Why would they want to do that?" Celestia asked, or more accurately, whispered.
"It does not matter. They will not stand a chance against us, even if they rule the rest of Equestria," Luna firmly replied.
"One would think that, your majesties, however we must take into account the fact that nopony is stupid enough to attack you unless they had a means of winning the fight. Commander Quickdraw believe that this military force - by the name of Wraith Weapons and Security - must have a secret weapon that can rival your powers. If this is true, we must proceed with extreme caution and make sure they are stopped before that weapon can be used against anypony." Speed countered.
Luna and Celestia both seemed lost in thought for a moment. Celestia then spoke up, sounding disheartened at first, but becoming more determined. "If what you say is true, then this marks Wraith as an enemy of not just us, but all of Equestria."
Luna started after Celestia, "Commander Quickdraw."
Quickdraw perked up and stood to attention beside Speed.
"You and your squad hereby have clearance to eliminate the enemy using any means necessary. Once operative Switch is recovered, he will join you in battle. The nurses say that he will be ready to rejoin your force within the next few days if his recovery rate upholds."
"Very well. I will bring Switch up to speed on everything, as soon as my squad and I are dismissed, ma'am." Quickdraw dutifully responded. Quickdraw, Speed and Luna then conversed some more about the task while Celestia hung back.
Celestia felt very out of place with Luna and the Ghosts. She could handle the guards and Equestrian Army, but secret black ops forces (or whatever they are, she thought) was always Luna's specialty. However, Celestia also knew that she wasn't the only one feeling this. She glanced over at Prisma, who stood aside from the rest of them and kept quiet throughout the whole ordeal. She looked very uncomfortable, nervous and in definite need of some comfort. As the rest kept conversing, Celestia slowly walked over to Prisma, trying to look as calm and approachable as she could.
Prisma noticed Celestia walking towards her and froze. She began panicking, her eyes darting around as she thought of what to say. She wasn't used to talking to Cekestia like she could to Luna; the two had never spoken much. Celestia picked up on this right away and stopped walking. She looked over her shoulder at the other three. They had their backs turned to her and Prisma, so Celestia thought she would quietly take the little nervewreck out of the room, where she could talk to her somewhere more private. "Prisma?" she asked quietly, trying very hard not to startle her. Prisma's eyes widened, and she muttered "oh no" under her breath as she tried to steel herself.
"Prisma, it's alright, I can see how uncomfortable you are. Trust me, I know the feeling" Celestia spoke lightheartedly whilst putting her hoof on her chest, only speaking loud enough for the two to hear. "Come, let's get out of here. You can speak to me about what's on your mind."
Prisma still hadn't spoke. She was still staring wide-eyed at Celestia, completely locked up. Celestia wrapped her hoof around Prisma's neck in a gentle embrace similar to that of a mother and child, symbolising that she shouldn't be afraid of her. It seemed to be working, as Celestia could feel her breathing slow down a little. After a while, Prisma merely nodded her head, and together they snuck out of the meeting room.
The two walked down the halls for a little while. Celestia watched Prisma with concern; she looked like she was on the verge of a breakdown. Her suspicions were confirmed when Prisma exhaled heavily and sat down on the floor, shivering.
"What now? Now all of Equestria's in danger. We could be at war. We could die. Ponies could die, lots of ponies could die." Prisma rambled on rapidly, sounding borderline insane. She then turned towards Celestia and grabbed her, "If we don't succeed, we could lose you! And Luna! What then? Wraith's client takes over? Then what'll they do? Oh God I wasn't built for this!" she waffled.
"Enough, Prisma." Celstia grabbed Prisma and hugged her lightly, trying to calm her down. "You won't fail. I have faith in you. Talk to me, what's on your mind?"
"I don't know. Nothing. Everything. Like the chances of one or all of us dying. Quite high, right? And how does Quickdraw handle everything without worrying about it? He doesn't show any emotions at all, like he doesn't even care. And Speed, he just jokes about everything. And then there's me and my anxiety. There's so much at stake, and it doesn't help!" Prisma rambled on again.
"Prisma, calm down. Breathe. It's normal for ponies to panic in situations like this. Some express their fear through jokes like Speed does, and some through worry, like you." Celestia assured her.
Prisma gave her a skeptical look, "What about Quickdraw?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why doesn't Quickdraw express fear?"
Celestia was taken aback. "You mean you don't know?"
"Well I guess not," Prisma responded, sounding a little peeved at this now.
"Ask Switch, tell him I told you to, and it will help you cope with everything going on." Celestia turned and started walking down the halls again whilst motioning for Prisma to follow. Prisma made a mental note to find out what Quickdraw's deal was, and trotted up to Celestia. They carried on walking down the halls in silence for a while. Eventually, Celestia spoke up once more.
"How are you feeling about what is being asked of you? Remember, take it slow, don't ramble."
Prisma took a deep breath and held it in for a few seconds, before exhaling slowly. "I'm just worried about the future of Equestria, whether we succeed or fail. And I'm worried about me and my squad. My family. What if one of us took a hit and didn't recover? What if I did. I love being a Ghost, but before it felt pretty much guaranteed that we would come out of our missions in one piece. Well, other than Switch, but still."
"In my entire career as a Ghost, we only had to take on a few powerful ponies that posed a threat, but now we're facing somepony with the potential firepower to take you out. Not only that, but an entire army that's working for them aswell. If they have such powerful weaponry, what's stopping them from crushing us? We're a deadly force, but I don't think even Quickdraw could take somepony with that much power alone. Bottom line is, I'm scared."
"You'd be surprised with Quickdraw's capabilities," Celestia remarked. Prisma tilted her head in confusion, then furrowed her brow in annoyance.
"Ok, what's the deal with Quickdraw? Is he a god like you?" She asked.
"No," Celestia chuckled, "Just ask Switch. He knows all the details. It's not something I can tell you."
"Quickdraw aside, you will do fine. Just stick to what you do best, and focus on saving Equestria. I know it is daunting to think that all of Equestria's fate lies in your hooves, but it can also be a tremendous motivator. Use it in that way, and believe in yourself. That will make you unstoppable. I can promise you that."
Prisma stared ahead, her brain processing the wisdom that Celestia's words spouted. "Use it as a motivator... Believe in yourself... You will be unstoppable..." she repeated. She then stopped walking and smiled, putting on a determined face.
"Heh... what's an army and a god-killing machine to the Ghosts anyway?"
Celestia winced a little. Prisma just went from a nervous wreck to perhaps a little too confident. "I wouldn't go that far. It will still be dangerous, don't get too cocky. Too much confidence can result in your downfall too, you know."
Prisma turned to Celestia. "I know! But I feel much better, thanks to you," she said cheerily, "Really, thank you." Prisma smiled widely at Celestia.
"You are most welcome. Now go and ask Switch about Quickdraw. I'll tell the others where you went." Celestia smiled.
Feeling a 180° turn in her mood, Prisma trotted away from Celestia and made her way to the infirmary. She just had to know Quickdraw's backstory. In fact, she was surprised she didn't know it already, considering how long they had worked together.
"So the plan, summarised, is to find out who the higher powers are through the interrogation of those that we believe have valuable information. We then use that information to exploit those powers' weaknesses and take them out, thus crippling Wraith's defenses, before launching an assault at the leader's base location, once we found out where it is," Quickdraw simplified Luna's plan, showing he understands, but mainly to make it easier for Speed to understand aswell.
"Yes. I give you permission to use the most vile of tactics. This is for Equestria's safety, after all," Luna replied.
"Very well. We will make sure Wraith and their client will not succeed, ma'am."
"Good. Make preparations tonight, and then embark on your mission tomorrow when you are ready. Return once a week to report your progress, but come back in three to four days to pick Switch up from the infirmary. I will warn Captain Spitfire and the rest of the Wonderbolts of the situation. You are dismissed."
Luna started to turn around when she noticed that neither Celestia nor Prisma were present. She turned back to Quickdraw.
"Do you know where Prisma and my sister went? I did not know they were absent."
Quickdraw responded casually, "No, I didn't see them either. Why did they leave?"
"Well, Prisma didn't look too happy. She was really quiet too, didn't say a word the entire time." Speed speculated, looking towards Quickdraw.
"We're gonna have to speak to her later," Quickdraw said, but what he meant was that Speed was going to have to talk to her, and Speed knew that.
All three's ears perked up when the door being opened could be heard. Looking over at the door, they watched as Celestia returned, trying not to disturb their discussion that she didn't know had just ended. She flinched when she saw all eyes on her, before clearing her throat and explaining that she took Prisma away to calm her down.
"If Prisma isn't ready, she doesn't have to come with us. We have others that can serve." Quickdraw suggested.
"There is no need. I can assure you, Prisma is ready," Celestia insisted, to which Quickdraw agreed. He didn't really care, to be honest. As long as we can complete the mission, he thought to himself.
"Sister, we are done here. Let's go," Luna said, "Quickdraw, Speed, you are again dismissed."
The two sisters left the two Ghosts alone in the meeting room. Quickdraw turned to Speed with a stern face.
"So you can be serious for more than ten minutes? That's good to know," he 'commended' Speed. Or at least, that's how Speed took it.
"I know right? I can be a jokester, and I can be all 'Quickdraw' serious! Great combo!" He bragged, putting on a gruff voice when he said Quickdraw's name. Quickdraw sighed.
"'Quickdraw' serious, really..."
"Uh huh!"
Quickdraw turned towards the door to leave, assuming Speed would follow, which he did. They left the meeting room and walked down the halls.
"So, where are we going?" Speed asked.
"I'm going to the canteen to get some food," Quickdraw said monotonously, "I'm hungry."
Switch lay in his bed, throwing a ball at the wall and catching it in his wing as it bounced back. He had been doing this for three hours now. Eventually he lobbed the ball at almost full power in a bored rage fit, which proved to be a mistake as the ball ricocheted off the wall directly back into his face with an almighty SLAP.
"For fuck sake!" he shouted, and a nurse came rushing into his room, assuming he hurt himself.
"Switch, what did you do now?" the nurse queried.
"Nothing, just launched the ball and it hit my face," Switch grumbled, looking away.
"SNRK! Uh, ahem, be careful next time please. We don't need you hurting yourself any more than you normally do." The nurse was trying really hard not to laugh at the red mark on Switch's forehead accompanied with his miserable face. Switch looked down at his hooves, noticing the nurse trying not to laugh as his cheeks flushed red, although his facial expression remained annoyed.
"It's not funny."
"Sorry, what was that?"
"It's not funny! I was just... umm..."
Switch's face made a full colour change from whitish-pink to a deeper red. His sudden outburst seemed to make the nurse try even harder not to laugh, which was extremely embarrassing.
"I'm going to go," she giggled, "Just don't hurt yourself- oh! And you have a visitor."
Switch looked up, expecting Quickdraw, Speed or both to enter. However he was surprised when Prisma came into view.
"Hey, wasn't expecting you to come visit. Welcome to my humble abode! It makes me want to die," he greeted her in a frustrated tone.
"Nice. You and me both then, kind of. The shit we found out today, heh..."
Over the next hour, Prisma explained how Speed 'pulled off a Switch move' (as she called it) and went from infiltrating the compound building to getting knocked out and needing to be rescued from twenty to thirty odd enemy soldiers. She then explained how they were told by Luna that they were pretty much at war now, and how Celestia had to pull her out of the meeting room to calm her down.
"...And that's where we are now."
"Huh. That's... a lot to take in," Switch murmured.
"Oh! Quickdraw! Can you tell me about him?" Prisma suddenly asked. Switch tilted his head, acting confused.
"What do you mean 'can you tell me about him'?"
"You know what I mean. Celestia told me to ask," Prisma clarified aggressively.
Switch sighed, and remained silent for a while. Eventually, he spoke up. "Fine. You want to know why Quickdraw just in general 'doens't seem to give a shit'?"
"Yeah."
"It's because he doesn't. He doesn't care about anypony or anything. He doesn't show any emotions because he doesn’t have any. The shit that made him this way, the shit he's been through? I don't blame him. I saw it all happen..."
Quickdraw had been missing for months. Switch had no idea where he went or what happened to him. He was there one day, playing games with Switch after school while their parents watched and conversed each other, and the next day, he was nowhere to be seen.
But now they had a lead. Quickdraw's older unicorn brother, Live Wire, had found out that somepony had taken him. Live Wire was Princess Luna's protégé for a special military force that was currently under production. It was supposed to be so deadly that it only needed four operatives, and together they could take down an entire empire in one or two nights. They were still looking for other members, and the force didn't have a name yet. Live Wire was given permission from Luna to find and save his younger brother, no matter the cost. Luna saw it as more of a test to see if he was worthy, but for Live Wire, it was much more personal. It didn't matter what Luna said to him anyway; he would have gone whether she let him or not.
Switch and Live Wire were headed to what they assumed was where Quickdraw was being kept. However, as they went, their surroundings became more rural; more bare. What was a town had turned into a forest. Eventually they found what they thought they were looking for: a bunker hidden between two large trees.
"Switch, stay here. I'm going in to take a look," Live Wire spoke, but Switch wasn't having it. He didn't come all this way for nothing.
"I'm not gonna just sit around here while my best friend and his brother are in danger! Let me come with you!" Switch argued, his high pitched shouting not sounding very convincing.
"You're just a colt. I can't put you in danger. What will your parents think?" Live Wire countered.
"I don' care! I'm going in with you! I want to help!"
Live Wire gave in. If there was anypony as stubborn as him, it was either Quickdraw, or little Switch. After all, who was Live Wire to stop him? He would do the exact same thing. He was doing the exact same thing. "Fine, but stay behind me, and stay very close."
Together they crept in, looking for clues. The bunker was almost pitch black, the only light coming from the entrance. Live Wire emitted some light from his horn and looked around. The bunker looked abandoned - the only things around were broken furniture that somepony must have dumped here, and rubble on the ground from the cracked walls and ceiling. Other than that, the bunker was empty.
"There's nothing here. Come on, let's go," Live Wire seethed, stopping himself from bucking the wall at full power.
They were about to leave when they heard two voices coming from nearby, but... below them? They couldn't make out what was being said, but one glance at each other confirmed that neither Switch nor Live Wire were hallucinating.
"There's somepony below," Switch stated confidently, "this must be where they're keeping Quickdraw!"
Live Wire whispered warily, "Yes, but keep your voice down. They might hear us, and if they do, I have no doubt they will hurt him, or worse."
"Let's move that old couch over there," Switch suggested, pointing at a damp red couch in the back left corner of the bunker, "They might have put it there to hide the entrance to their secret lair."
Live Wire chuckled a little at the innocent 'secret lair' comment. They moved the couch to the side as quietly as possible, and found just what Switch thought: a trap door that led to an underground hallway that was lit up and clean, a complete contrast to where they were now.
Switch and Live Wire slowly and vigilantly snuck down the hallway, watching out for anypony that would see them. The hallway was dimly lit, and the walls were a clean blue colour. It looked more like a hotel than an underground bunker if Live Wire was being honest with himself.
As they turned the corner, a blue unicorn stallion walked out of a room and stood outside, smoking a cigarette. He had his back turned to the two, and Live Wire took the opportunity presented to him.
"Switch stay here. When you hear a crack or a shlick or something, come to me, okay?"
"Okay."
Switch watched as Live Wire crawled silently behind the stallion with a knife ready in his hooves. Switch stayed behind, watching as Live Wire grabbed the unicorn's mouth, silencing his shouts before he stabbed the pony's spine, the stallion going limp in his hooves. Switch didn't hear any crack or shlick, but he wasn't stupid - he cantered up to Live Wire, trying to ignore the blood on the floor, walls and Wire's hooves, and the fact that he just witnessed his best friend's brother kill somepony. The two entered the room that the now dead stallion had come out of. What they saw, they wouldn't wish their worst enemies to see. Switch wouldn't anyway.
There were seven other fillies and four colts, all hanging from the ceilings by their hooves and beaten badly, bruises, cuts and blood all over their bodies. The sight made Switch puke, while Live Wire became enraged. If that pony he just killed was the one beating them, he regretted killing him. He wished he could have kept him alive and tore each and every bone out of his body while the pony remained conscious, screaming in excruciating pain. The fillies and colts all had their mouths taped shut and were looking toward Live Wire with pleading eyes, silently begging him to release them. One in particular was excited to see him.
"Quickdraw. Fuck, what happened to you man?" Wire mumbled as he rushed to his long lost brother and set him free. Once Quickdraw could move, he hugged Wire at tightly as he could, sobbing into his chest.
"Get me out of here Wire! I don't want to be here anymore! Please!" Quickdraw begged desperately. He was so weak - everything ached. He hadn't moved on his own for weeks before now, and the sudden burst of movement nearly knocked him out straight away.
Live Wire hugged his little brother back, taking care to avoid all the visible bruises and cuts to make sure he didn't hurt him. Switch walked over after heaving out his lunch out, asking what he should do.
"Get the rest of these fillies and colts free. We can't leave them here to suffer. And make sure they stay quiet, we don't want to attract anypony here." Wire ordered, still hugging Quickdraw. As Switch turned to do as he was told, Wire whispered softly into Quickdraw's ear,
"Listen little bro, I'm here. You're safe now. I need you to stay as quiet as a mouse, okay?"
Quickdraw nodded and Wire gently placed him on his back with his magic, Quickdraw holding onto his neck for dear life once he was settled. Wire joined Switch in setting the rest of the foals free. Once the last colt was free, Wire ordered them to stay close and Switch to make sure they're okay. They were about to leave the room, when another voice called out, slowly getting louder, suggesting that he was walking towards the room.
"Hey, Valiant, where are you? You were supposed to deliver that brown pegasus colt to the boss, remember? Or are you too busy beating him up?"
Live Wire had to kill him to get past. He tried to keep cool, knowing that the pony was talking about Quickdraw. He waited for the stallion to walk up close to the corpse before performing the same move on him, instead stabbing him in the back of the neck.
With the second stallion now dead, the coast seemed clear for the moment. Live Wire and the rest of the foals snuck back up the hallway and around the corner. There was another pony, this time an orange pegasus, coming out of a room to the left side of the hallway. Wire put his hoof up at the foals, signalling them to stay put. He however kept Quickdraw on his back, needing to speak with him in private about what was going on so as to not make too much noise with the other foals. The orange pegasus was a good distance down the hall, which granted Wire the opportunity to speak without being heard, assuming nopony else was around.
"Quick, what were they doing to you all? This doesn't seem like no pony trafficking system to me," he whispered.
"They were doing some experiments on us with some weird machinery and spells, trying to turn us into some sort of 'super ponies' and make us work for them. They told us that we were special and had the potential to be more than just ponies. They also said that we needed to be tortured for the thingys inside us to activate. I don't know what its called," Quickdraw explained grimly, "We weren't awake for most of it. But it hurt a lot all over every time I woke up. They used me for their experiments more than anypony else,"
So not only did these cretins take his little brother, but they tortured him more than the rest of them? That was it. When his force was fully operational, Live Wire decided that every pony associated with this abhorrent business was going to die a slow, gruesome death.
Live Wire discerned afterwards, more rationally this time, that the ponies taking these foals were using them to build up an army of physically enhanced ponies for some reason. He would have to report this to Luna.
With gritted teeth and a temper that was extremely close to being lost, Wire set Quickdraw down and wrapped his hooves around the orange pegasus' neck in a chokehold, causing the pegasus to steadily and painfully suffocate. The pegasus tried to fight back and throw Wire off, but his lack of oxygen was preventing him from having the strength to do so. As his consciousness faded, Wire whispered in his ear,
"Have fun in hell."
Live Wire grabbed the back of the stallion's head and smashed it against the wall before he snapped the pony's neck and dropped him on the floor, spitting on his corpse. He turned back to Quickdraw and quietly called for him to signal the others to catch up. Soon they were following behind Wire again, and were making their way back up the stairs and out of the bunker. They were home free. However, what they didn't know was that a large grey pegasus with a green fiery-shaped mane was watching from afar after being called out to handle the situation. He was watching Live Wire and Switch lead the foals out of the bunker and into safety. More importantly, he was keeping his eyes on Quickdraw - his prize test subject.
With an immaculate amount of speed, the pegasus launched himself towards the group, specifically towards their only defender, Live Wire, who didn't see him coming until it was too late. He threw his right shoulder into Wire's chest, sending him backwards a few feet, before throwing a left hook at his face, knocking him out cold.
The group of foals couldn't believe what they just saw. That happened way too quickly. Quickdraw and Switch especially couldn't believe it. Live Wire, a special forces commander and exceptional fighter, was knocked out in a single blow. Quickdraw tried to formulate a plan in his head, but the stallion whipped his head around and stared into Quickdraw's eyes, breaking his concentration completely. Quickdraw panicked - he was being targeted.
"Quickdraw, my favourite test subject. We're not done with you yet. We're not done with any of you." The stallion said in a crazed tone, walking towards him. "Now your brother went and got himself into a heap of trouble after making me come all the way out here. We're gonna make sure somepony pays for the trouble that I had to get involved in."
Quickdraw was shivering in fear, stepping away from the stallion as he walked slowly towards him. His lifeless brown eyes stared menacingly into Quickdraw and drew out every ounce of fear, every ounce of panic, his large muscles making Quickdraw imagine his body being beaten to a bloody mess before being further experimented on. The other foals cowered away, but the stallion wasn't interested in them at all. He had his eyes squarely on Quickdraw. As a result, he didn't see Switch flying towards him from behind with a hoof pulled back from the side after he somehow snuck away.
He also didn't need to. In the blink of an eye, he snapped his head towards Switch and grabbed him by the throat as he got close.
"ACK! HHRGH!"
He stared into Switch's eyes with a completely deranged look, before smiling widely, from ear to ear.
"What do we have here? You're a fearless one. My name is Zenith, and as you can see, you're no match for me." he spoke sinisterly, gripping Switch's throat harder and restricting his airflow almost completely. He kept just enough pressure for Switch to stay conscious and feel the pain of suffocating.
"HHHHHHHhhhrrrr..." Switch tried to breathe, but all that came were occasional wheezes. He grabbed and pulled Zenith's hoof, trying desperately to escape, which pleased Zenith immensely in a sick, twisted way. He then turned to Quickdraw with the same look he gave the young white pegasus in his hoof, breaking whatever willpower Quickdraw had left in an instant. "He a friend of yours? He certainly has heart, another prize test subject for me. You two will be my best pieces of work."
Zenith threw Switch over his back, launching him past the still unconscious Live Wire, and started walking towards Quickdraw once again.
Every step Zenith took made Quickdraw want to throw up. Every stomp that echoed from his hooves made Quickdraw almost pass out from fear. Quickdraw had nowhere to go, and he thought his life was going to end real soon. He backed up into a tree, his eyes full of tears and his breath escaping him. Soon Zenith was right in front of him and grabbing him by the throat the same way he did to Switch.
"You will survive my experiments. I want to see you in the worst pain imaginable. I want to see you break, not in the way you have now, but physically and mentally, like me!" Zenith's eyes snapped wide open as he finished his sentence.
Quickdraw didn't have a clue what Zenith meant, but he wasn't at all eager to ask for an elaboration. Just the thought made him wish he was dead instead.
"Hey, about the breaking thing..." a voice called out behind them. Zenith looked back at where he heard the voice, but there was nopony around.
"What...?"
Zenith kept looking in the direction of the voice, trying to find whatever it was that spoke. He didn't notice that Live Wire's still body was no longer where he left it.
"Over here buddy!"
The voice came this time from his left. Zenith whipped his head around to look, only to be pulverized with a metal rod Wire picked up from inside the bunker. Zenith was sent backwards a few steps, dropping Quickdraw on the ground, and Live Wire attacked.
He threw punch after punch at Zenith's face, each one connecting and sending him back a few steps each, further disorientating him. Live Wire couldn't believe how many punches he was taking, and how hard his face was. It felt like punching a brick wall. He threw a haymaker, and Zenith was launched backwards, landing on his back.
"Ow..." Wire winced. His hooves felt broken after throwing so many punches. He decided not to let up, and dived at Zenith for another round before he could recover.
Unfortunately for Wire, it was already too late. Zenith recovered much quicker than he anticipated. He stood up straight, facing Wire as he flew towards him. As Wire aimed a left hook, Zenith rolled under it, grabbing Wire's hoof and face at the same time, pulling him back first towards him. Zenith held him there for a few moments and whispered into his ear,
"So much effort, yielding so little success."
"I'm not finished yet!" Wire shouted back, before pushing himself backwards with both his back legs and his telekinesis, the two falling to the ground. They both got back up at the same time and started trading punch for punch repeatedly and rapidly, each and every strike hitting its mark.
Quickdraw watched his brother hold his ground against the mad pony. His willpower was slowly coming back with each second he watched the fight, and he soon found himself heading towards the two to join in the battle, fighting for both his and Wire's life. Quickdraw thought he was crazy, but he remembered once telling his older brother that he would do anything with him as brothers for life. This was no exception. As Zenith turned his back on Quickdraw, he jumped on his back, grabbing his neck and pulling as hard backwards as he could with a ferocious war cry.
His efforts, however, were useless against Zenith. The only thing it did was distract him briefly, allowing Wire to uppercut him. Zenith was unaffected by the uppercut and grabbed Wire's hoof as he threw another, tossing him to the side with ease. That left just Quickdraw and Zenith to fight.
The fight ended as abruptly as it started, as Zenith grabbed Quickdraw from his back and punched him straight in the face, breaking his snout.
"Impudent little BASTARD!" he shouted, before turning to Wire and throwing Quickdraw at him with as much power as he could muster.
As Live Wire looked up, he saw Quickdraw careening towards him. With amazing reflexes, Wire grabbed Quickdraw before the two could collide, the two turning their backs towards Zenith. He then noticed how bent Quickdraw's snout was.
"Shit, Quickdraw, that was stupid! Are you okay?!" Wire scolded him. Quickdraw nodded, but clearly was in excruciating pain.
"Stay put and let me fight hi-" Wire was cut off as he was grabbed from behind by Zenith and put in a full choke hold.
"Aah!" he shouted, trying to get free.
But he couldn't fight back from his position - all he could do was pray.
Quickdraw could see it too. There was nothing anypony could do.
With teary eyes, Quickdraw and Live Wire looked at each other for one last time.
Zenith snapped his neck with a loud crack.
Quickdraw's breath caught in his throat as he watched his brother fall to the ground, all light leaving his eyes.
He couldn't see anything else. Zenith had disappeared, his surroundings had disappeared, everything was gone from his vision. All he could see was his big brother, Live Wire, now taken brutally from him. He stared at his body for what felt like hours, maybe even days, his mind going completely blank, failing to register anything around him. His mind had snapped.
"Now, Quickdraw, where were we?"
Quickdraw's vision snapped back to reality and he looked back at Zenith. However, the Quickdraw that now looked at him was not the same colt that cowered in his presence earlier.
Zenith's smile faltered.
This new Quickdraw had no facial expressions to show. His bent snout and bloody body only made him that much more intimidating as he stood perfectly calm and still, and stared into Zenith's eyes with no light, no life behind them.
Zenith's smile was now wiped from his face. He had succeeded, to his demise.
He had created a monster.
And in an instant Quickdraw was gone, as if he had teleported. Before Zenith could fathom what just happened, his head snapped backwards, followed by his entire body. He careened through the air, tumbling uncontrollably, before landing hard on his stomach a good fifteen meters behind where he stood just a moment ago. There was also an immense pain that spread across his face. No amount of damage, not even Live Wire's assault, had caused him so much pain. Zenith looked up at Quickdraw. That was when he felt something he had never felt before. Fear.
Zenith was afraid.
He just made a severe mistake, and he knew it. He could no longer fight this battle.
Quickdraw stood still in the same spot that Zenith previously occupied. He watched as Zenith's demeanor completely crumpled, while his own upheld. To the rest of the foals, it looked as though the two had swapped minds. Like Zenith plucked all life out of Quickdraw and placed it within himself.
Zenith got up, spread his wings and took off, his body reducing into a blur in seconds. Quickdraw watched him leave with no reaction.
Switch stared at his best friend, and at the same time, wondered where he had gone. This was no longer the Quickdraw that he knew and loved like family.
"Q-Quickdraw?" Switch asked timidly. In truth, he was afraid of him. "Quickdraw, I'm sorry about your-"
"We should get out of here before anypony else shows up," Quickdraw interrupted him with a muffled monotonous voice, his bent snout not affecting him in the slightest. Switch flinched, not sure what else to say.
"What... what about your brother?"
"He's dead. Nothing we can do for him now. Come on, let's go home."
Quickdraw started walking away, leaving Switch and the other foals behind. Switch gave Live Wire's body one last melancholy look, and gathered the foals before following behind Quickdraw.
Live Wire wasn't the only good pony that died that day.
"And then after that, Quickdraw went rampant when he fully recovered and killed a lot of ponies looking for Zenith. He was eventually stopped by Luna, who instead of punishing him, took him in, trained him and, well, 'tamed' him. She saw him as the perfect new candidate for her Ghost program, as long as he was under control. I followed behind Quickdraw without a second thought. Even though the Quickdraw I previously knew was long gone, this was still my best friend. Without Luna, he would be completely unhinged, killing everypony in sight just to get his way. And that, Prisma, is why Quickdraw doesn't give a shit."
An hour had passed since Switch had started telling Prisma the whole story, and she was shocked. No, horrified, at what happened. How could somepony go through something so tragic?
She stared at her hooves for minutes, trying and failing to fathom how Quickdraw was still functioning. When she looked back up at Switch, she was stopped before she could even begin to speak.
"The worst thing you can do is care about what happened to Quickdraw. Take it from me, he doesn't care at all. He cares about nothing, not you, not Speed, not Equestria, not even me, his life long friend. Treat him the same way you always have, and pretend you still don't know about everything. He may be the brains behind our squad, but he is still a full blown psychopath, and with the super enhancement he has from those experiments, he is unbelievable. He needs us not to care about him like family, but to keep him in check."
"Without us, and without Luna, he would be feral. There's no other way to put it. There are no emotions or morals driving him to do what he would do. Nothing but the fact that he wants to do it. If he wanted to destroy an entire civilisation to get his way, he would. Nothing would stop him. You don't realise, but because of us, it wouldn't benefit him in any way to do such a thing, mainly because the minute he tries, Luna is going to put him in Tartarus, so instead he sticks to killing his enemies out on the field. He might tell you that he wants to complete the mission no matter the cost, but what he really wants is for the enemy to die."
Prisma listened intently. As much as she wanted to hug Quickdraw to death, she realised that it would probably only annoy him.
Wow. She thought Quickdraw was just extremely well disciplined, not borderline insane. In hindsight, after all the time they knew each other, they were still pretty much strangers.
A knock on the door followed by said door smashing against the wall snapped Prisma out of her thoughts. She looked up and saw Speed bouncing in, shouting his usual nonsense, shortly followed by Quickdraw walking in, looking around for Switch. Prisma wondered if Speed knew. If he did, he was probably too stupid to understand it.
"Switch, how long til you're out of the bed?" Quickdraw asked, getting straight to the point.
"Should be out in about three days, why?" Switch answered.
"Because we've got work to do, and we need your help."
Celestia and Luna made their way to their bedrooms together for the second time that night. There was a lingering sense of fear and anxiety regarding the whole situation with the Ghosts and Wraith, and neither of the two sisters wanted to talk about it.
Celestia did however want to talk about how Luna was handling the situation. More specifically, who she was sending to handle it. She had concerns about Quickdraw. Although he was very disciplined when on duty, his loyalty was a cause for concern and he had a tendency to lose himself. It had happened before, when Quickdraw tried to find the pony that killed his brother, and he ended up killing innocent ponies for various reasons ranging from simply being unable to distinguish between his target to killing them because they were related to said targets - it didn't matter to him, he just wanted ponies to suffer as he and the other victims of the experiments did, maybe even more. That, and he said he found it oddly satisfying to watch.
With this operation - 'White Noise' was the name they gave it - Luna ran the risk of Quickdraw going berserk again, as he did when he 'tasted' enough blood.
Celestia took a quick glance at Luna. She was looking straight ahead. Good, Celestia didn't want to give away her worry yet. She didn't quite yet know how to express her concerns without offending Luna; the subject of Quickdraw was a very sensitive one after all.
Before she ran out of time, she decided to spill it straight away and improvise from there. "Luna," she called her name.
"Yes?"
"Do you think you can actually trust Quickdraw to get this all done? The last time he was hunting down his ene-"
"He will be fine. I have the utmost faith in him to complete his mission." Luna interrupted. She didn't want to speak about Quickdraw right now - it would just kickstart her doubts about him. He had always succeeded thus far, why would he throw it all away now?
Celestia however wasn't going to let her questions go unanswered. She stopped and put her hoof out to the side, blocking Luna and making her stop too.
"Listen to me. I know you have your doubts about Quickdraw aswell. He may be our best asset, but mentally? He's deranged. That also makes him our worst asset. How many times has he almost abandoned his post because he saw an opportunity to get... whatever it is he wanted that he couldn't get if he stayed?"
"He may say that working for you has always been beneficial to his needs, but when it isn't, it takes a lot of power to stop him and get him that which he wants, or a substitute for it, without him going on a killing spree or something. You know this as well as I, sister," she ranted, not allowing Luna to interrupt again.
Luna wanted to tell her sister that she was talking nonsense, but truth be told, she knew exactly what she meant. Quickdraw was indescribable. One half of him was a well trained, stone faced soldier that would do anything in service of his superior. The other half was an unstable killer, a being incapable of mercy that would go to extremes just to satisfy his bloodlust.
There was no reasoning behind his actions, and nothing to understand about him. In either of his states, he had almost zero emotion, besides annoyance or a slight smile. That only made him more ambiguous. The only time he would display more was when the situation called for it - such as one of his comrades needing comforting after something bad happened. Most ponies, such as Prisma (until recently) thought that he just had a stiff upper lip, but they didn't know the half of it. And they were the lucky ones.
Luna knew the only way to get Celestia off her case was to agree and tell the truth.
"To be truthful, sister, I do have my doubts about Quickdraw. I know that on this mission there is no chance of Quickdraw not running rampant. However, I also know that his team will be able to stop him and bring some sense into him before he can cause any unnecessary damage or reach the point of no return. He just needs to be reminded every now and then, and nopony does a better job than operative Switch." Luna revealed, "They have been friends since the two were colts, and nopony knows him better."
Celestia gave her a look that screamed "I'm not convinced", prompting her to elaborate with a roll of her eyes.
"Look, Quickdraw's mental state may be akin to that of Tirek, or Discord, but he can be controlled. We must take this risk, his abilities are out of this world. There is no greater fighter than him because of his physical enhancements, and his primary need or want is almost always to use those enhancements to see how much harm he can inflict on the enemy, which will most certainly be met. Unless his needs change, he will not be a threat. You have my word, Tia. If worst comes to worst, I will step in and take care of him myself, but rest assured, Switch will be able to keep him focused on the task at hoof."
That seemed to suffice for Celestia, if only temporarily. She nodded her head and put her hoof down, allowing the two to start walking.
"Tirek? Discord? You have faith in him and yet you compare him to those two?" Celestia joked.
Luna simply shook her head and stayed quiet.
"That's our current plan right now. We're setting off tomorrow, but coming back in a few days to pick you up," Quickdraw fully recounted what was said in the conference room earlier that day.
Switch didn't want to admit it, but he was rather nervous about the whole thing. After a few moments' thought, he saluted half-seriously, half-jokingly, "Right, I'll be ready when you're back." As he said it, Speed appeared next to him copying his exact movements but with his eyes crossed and his tongue stuck out. Still looking at Quickdraw, Switch lifted his hoof up and slammed it down right between Speed's legs.
"AAAaargh! Why would you do that?" Speed uttered in a really high pitched tone.
"Don't make fun of me, asshat," Switch replied snarkily.
Prisma burst out laughing, much to Speed's misfortune. She wiped a few stray tears away as she watched him attempt to stand up, grimacing and almost crying himself. Quickdraw didn't laugh, but he did find it satisfying to see his comrade get what he deserved.
"You didn't... have to... hit my-aaah..." Speed squeaked, making Prisma laugh even more.
"Don't... laugh!" Speed shouted, his voice returning to normal as he gave Prisma a teary glare. "If you had balls you would know what that's-"
"-Okay, enough, Prisma doesn't need to know about that," Quickdraw interrupted, "You deserved it anyway."
"Hey, we'll see if you like it when-"
THUMP
Speed's eyes snapped wide open as Switch landed a second ballbreaker. He flopped to the floor again and stayed there, staring ahead, his eyes staying wide.
"My kids... my sweet, sweet kids..."
"PFFFFFFHAHAAA!" Prisma burst out laughing again aswell, losing her balance and falling onto Quickdraw's side.
Quickdraw flinched a little, but it wasn't noticeable to anypony else in the room. He slowly moved his eyes down to Prisma, watching her as she laughed at Speed. She was being very forward with him recently, a lot more than she ever had been. He normally wouldn't care, but it was a deep contrast to how she was not too long ago. If she fell onto his side like that a few months ago, she would be right back up and apologising for it. Also, what was she doing here after Celestia took her out of the meeting room? Celestia must've sent her here for some reason. At least she wasn't stressing over everything now, so whatever Celestia told her to do here must have worked.
Looking back up, he saw that Speed was still on the floor sulking over his newfound infertility and glaring daggers at Switch, who whistled in response.
"You started a war, Switchy... ugh," Speed muttered slowly through gritted teeth.
"Switchy?" Switch repeated in a disgusted tone. "I'll drop an anvil on your balls if you repeat that, slowpoke!"
"Goddamn slowpoke..." Speed grumbled, "I hate being called slow..."
Quickdraw looked up at the clock. It read 12:47am. Well shit, he thought. There was no way they were going to get enough sleep for tomorrow unless they set off late, and Quickdraw wasn't fond of doing that. He would have them set off at the usual time (6 o'clock), but Prisma, not to mention Speed, would be far too groggy to function properly, and that would result in them not being as effective as possible in the field. He decided to wrap things up here - they didn't need to waste any more time than they already had.
"Okay, it's late and Operation White Noise commences tomorrow. Everyone, get to bed."
Speed looked up at Quickdraw from the floor with puppy eyes. "Awww, but sleep is boring!" he whined. Quickdraw gave him a stern look, muting any more arguments from the little blue stallion in an instant.
"Now."
With a sigh, Speed got up and walked towards the door. On his way out, he pointed at Quickdraw with his wing and mouthed 'lovebirds' at him.
Confused, Quickdraw tilted his head. "What?"
A snort from Quickdraw's right then followed, which served as a reminder that there was one more pony in the room. That pony being the mare still leaning on his side. He didn't know until he looked down at her that she had actually fallen asleep on him.
"I think she's warming up to you," Switch cooed, Quickdraw moaning in response.
Not really knowing what else to do, Quickdraw tapped Prisma on the head a few times, but she wouldn't wake up. She stirred a little but stayed asleep otherwise.
Switch spoke up once again, "She ain't getting up?"
"No," Quickdraw answered.
"I guess you're gonna have to carry her to her room then."
"I'm not doing that," Quickdraw instantly retorted. He began to press down on her head a little harder in an attempt to wake her up, which still didn't work.
"Don't think you don't have a choice, Draw."
"I can see that, Captain Obvious."
Great, Quickdraw thought, Of course she's a heavy sleeper. With a grunt of frustration, Quickdraw picked Prisma up and, with Switch's help, placed her on his back, keeping her still with his wings. Afterwards, he nodded his goodbye and left the room.
After closing the door, Quickdraw muttered 'goddamn it' under his breath. He was going to draw so much unwanted attention because of this. Probably more than he was getting now, what with all the nurses looking at him.
Quickdraw looked around at all of them and slammed his hoof down, ordering them to get back to work and mind their businesses, before leaving the infirmary and heading straight towards the Ghosts' barracks. He didn't need anypony asking him about it - that would only add to the inconvenience that Quickdraw was already suffering enough from. Everypony he passed gave him a questioning stare - they knew Quickdraw would never carry a sleeping mare around. Well, they thought they knew.
After turning the corner near the stairs, Quickdraw stopped just before he ran face first into Speed, who had a goofy grin and wide eyes on his face. He was clearly waiting for Quickdraw.
"BOO!"
Quickdraw stared unamused at Speed for a few seconds, blinking. "That was a horrible attempt. What were you even trying to do?" he asked.
Speed hesitated. Clearly he didn't think this far into his plan.
"I, uh, wanted... to scare you?" he guessed, "I don't actually know." He slumped down, before springing right back up onto his hooves with a wide smile. "Sooo, Prisma clearly likes you hmm?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Enough, stop it. She was stressed out before and whatever she did with Celestia and Switch clearly calmed her down enough for her to fall asleep," Quickdraw explained. "...and not wake up."
Speed's smile widened, signalling to Quickdraw that he was in one of his 'annoy everypony' moods. "Why would she fall asleep on you though? Seems a little romantic to me, hehe!"
Quickdraw was getting bored of this. "Speed, please, just please... fuck off."
Chuckling at Quickdraw's annoyance, Speed pestered him further. "Jeez, boss, I don't think I've ever seen you this pissed off before! What's gotten into ya?"
He suddenly flinched as he saw Quickdraw's hoof reaching for his face. Speed dodged right in the nick of time, Quickdraw's hoof skimming against his cheek as he flipped around to Quickdraw's left side. "Missed me! Boy is your age slowing you down!" he taunted as the two began walking again.
"I'm only four years older than you," Quickdraw clarified, "and your name is Speed. It would be a sin if you were too slow to dodge that."
The two descended down the stairs leading to the Ghost Barracks. Upon reaching the last step, Speed scoffed, poking further. "Meh, I didn't even try. Why I bet an old mule could have dodged that-OOF!"
In a flash, Quickdraw had Speed on the floor with both front hooves holding him down, rendering him immobile. "Am I slow for my age, or do you not live up to your name?" he roasted Speed.
"Slow for your age!" Speed giddily shouted like a little colt. Quickdraw grabbed Speed's left forehoof and twisted it into a lock behind his back, tightening it immensely.
"OW OW OW! I DON'T LIVE UP TO MY NAME!" Speed cried, taking his previous statement back. "OWOWOW! STOP STOP STOP!" He started squirming underneath Quickdraw, trying to loosen his grip.
"What was that?" Quickdraw asked, tightening his grip just that little bit more, making Speed cry out more.
"I DON'T LIVE UP TO MY NAME YOU SADISTIC FUCK LET GO OF ME- AH!"
Quickdraw grinned, satisfied with his revenge. He pulled Speed up whilst keeping his forehoof locked, somehow not breaking it. He had to admit he enjoyed making Speed suffer. He watched as Speed shakily got up, keeping his left forehoof off the ground. "You always take things too far, you know that?" he managed to sound both angry and happy at the same time.
The two started heading to the barracks once again. Quickdraw could feel something moving around on his back, pushing against his wings. He tried swatting whatever it was away, but a feminine voice unexpectedly called out.
"Ah! What the...?"
Prisma's head poked out between his wings and looked around, confused and groggy.
Speed slid underneath Quickdraw's hooves and hovered next to Prisma's head. "Rise and shine sleepyhead! Enjoying your ride?"
Prisma had no idea what Speed was talking about. She didn't even know where she was, now that she thought of it.
"Speed? What's going on?" she asked.
"Your stallion's just taking you back to your room," Speed replied in a suggestive tone.
"Wha-WOAH!" Prisma jumped in shock, landing on her plot behind Quickdraw. "QUICKDRAW! What? I wasn't! Where? Wh-"
"-You fell asleep on me when we were talking to Switch and wouldn't wake up. I was taking you back to your room."
Prisma's eyes snapped open at the realisation of what she did. "I fell asleep on Quickdraw?" she thought out loud. She then flinched as Speed shouted into her left ear, practically deafening her.
"Sure did!"
"OhmygoshsorryQuickdrawIdidn'tmmeanto..." Prisma trailed off and looked down, her cheeks puffing a very deep shade of red. Quickdraw turned around to face her and sighed.
"It's fine. Just... try not to do that again."
Speed looked like he was about to say something, but was silenced by Quickdraw pointing a wing at him.
"As for you, if you even bother, I'll triple the amount of damage Switch did to your balls."
That was more than enough for Speed to comply. He flinched at Quickdraw's statement and took a step backwards, his back legs crossing. "Err, yes boss, sorry."
With Prisma now wide awake, the three set off (for Quickdraw's fourth time now) towards their quarters. Speed was silent for the rest of the journey, his concern for his balls taking over him completely.
Quickdraw had the rest of the squad up by eight in the morning, despite what he thought last night. He needed them to be up earlier anyway so that they could check if their equipment was sufficient before they left.
Each Ghost had special gear for this operation, along with a few adjustments of their own. As well as their usual black and fern suits, they each had thin metal plated body armor over their chests, designed to block arrows and withstand explosives whilst not being to heavy to carry around. They were given enhanced flight goggles - the lenses were sturdy enough to also block arrows, and they were capable of night and thermal vision.
Prisma's flight suit was made out of a special material that improved her overall grip on surfaces - perfect for keeping her steady and not slipping when she would be working from a vantage point. She also had a strap for her crossbow so that she didn't need to carry it in her hooves all the time.
Speed's face mask covered his mouth, which allowed his breaths to be quieter when he needed to infiltrate an enemy building. He had a knife holster on his left shoulder that allowed for easy access when the dagger was needed.
Switch's flight suit (for when he recovered) was prepared with extra armor around his shoulders and flank. This would allow him to act as a shield for the others if needed, and it wasn't too heavy for him because of his larger size.
Quickdraw had a belt secured around his waist that could carry two daggers, one at each side.
Currently, the Ghosts were at a workshop in a separate underground area next to their HQ. The workshop didn't belong to the Ghosts themselves but was used for all military forces within the castle.
"You're sure this armor is good enough to stop anything from breaking through?" he asked Hot Shot - a muscular cream coloured unicorn stallion with a short, swept back red mane, and the Ghosts' main arms dealer.
"Relax kiddo, ain't nuthin' gonna break through it." Hot Shot answered, confident with his abilities.
Quickdraw wasn't convinced. "Definitely? I don't want any of us to go down because your armor was faulty, like last time, if you remember?"
"Hey, that's because I gave you the weakest armor, at your request, might I conveniently add, and you went and got hit with damn rockets!" Hot Shot fired back.
Prisma was getting tired of listening to the two bicker like they always did. She thought of one way to prove Hot Shot right (or wrong), and that was a practical test. There was a crossbow hung up on the wall behind her, and a few modified arrows on a table next to it.
"We didn't know they had explosives! If we did then-"
CLANG
Quickdraw felt something small bump against his side. Upon looking, he saw a broken arrow on the floor next to him, and Prisma holding a crossbow. Giving her a stern glare, he deadpanned, "You just shot me in the side."
"As you can see, the armor works well enough. Stop bickering with our dear armorer here, and let's go." Prisma replied snarkily.
Hot Shot cut in after her. "Thank you Prisma. Now shut up and appreciate the work I put into these designs Cap'. They are perfect."
Quickdraw grunted. Turning back to face Hot Shot, he murmured, "Yeah, clearly. Thanks."
Hot Shot nodded in thanks and turned towards a metal table. There was a small gadget on the table with multiple tools strewn around it. The gadget was small and had rotors, making it capable of flight. It also had a small lens at the front, where a camera could broadcast the drone's view back to the user. He was currently programming said lens to move accordingly with a small wing-held controller.
Speed noticed what Hot Shot was doing and walked up to the device. His eyes wandered over it in curiosity before he asked, "Hey, what's this?"
"It's a new project I'm workin' on. A drone. Capable of scouting out areas without the risk of being spotted. That's if I can install this cloaking skin type thingy on to the thing first," Hot Shot explained.
"Cloaking skin?" Speed questioned.
"Yeah, assuming it works, the drone exterior will be able to bend light around it, making it invisible. Pretty cool, eh?"
Speed looked back at the drone. If the cloak could work, that would make scouting a whole lot easier. "That's pretty neat. When do you think it'll be ready?"
"No idea, kid. If you don't break any of my other stuff while you're out there and let me work on this twen'y four/ seven, then I can have it ready for y'all a lot quicker. I'm only making four though, one for each of ya. DON'T break 'em." Hot Shot emphasised the 'no breaking' rule, since it was violated almost every other time he created a new design for anything.
"Nice..." Speed commented, scanning over the drone once more.
"Speed! Let's go!" Quickdraw called from the door to the workshop, snapping Speed's concentration out of the drone. He turned and waved goodbye at Hot Shot before catching up to Quickdraw and Prisma, the three leaving the workshop.
"Alright, let's get this brief done and dusted, then let's go," Quickdraw ordered as they made their way to the conference room to meet with Luna.
While Prisma and Speed were still asleep, Luna told Quickdraw that she had a few contacts that were willing to give her some information to assist him. That information was going to be revealed as soon as Luna and the Ghosts were together in the conference room. Given the time, they would be ready to deploy by eleven at the latest, which was plenty of time for them to make sufficient progress before nightfall.
When they entered the conference room, they found that Luna was already waiting for them. Quickdraw took the initiative and apologised for making the princess wait for them.
"At ease, Commander," Luna replied with a wave of her hoof. "Our contacts have given us some information regarding Wraith patrol routes and outposts. They will aid you in finding Wraith captains and commanders and shutting their operations down."
The Ghosts gathered around the main table where Luna had laid out the information. There was a small map with some red lines on it, a few photos of the 'outposts' which were also marked on the map, and a photo of a red pegasus stallion with a spiky yellow mane and tail.
"These outposts are minor, mind, and will only have limited intel. However, the soldiers may be of use." Luna continued. "Each patrol squad has a captain that reports to any soldiers in the outposts upon their return. These soldiers then report to their superiors, and those report to the commanders."
Luna then tapped the photo of the red pegasus. "We know of one commander, name of Riot. He was in command of the compound you raided previously before it was shut down, all contents moved to another location. They are in charge of planning, and have a small involvement in the Wraith weapons operations, mainly testing. You can intercept the patrol routes or attack the outposts directly, it is up to you how you want to proceed."
Quickdraw studied the patrol routes and outpost locations; they were in the same forest as the old compound, but on the other side of it. Prisma and Speed made a note of the general location aswell, but they knew that Quickdraw would remember exactly where to go.
Quickdraw nodded to himself after a moment's thought and turned to Luna with a salute, the others following suit. "We will use this information and be able to track down Riot by the time operative Switch is ready to deploy, ma'am."
Luna smiled a little. Quickdraw's eyes showed determination - she was confident he would deliver as promised. "Very well. I will see to it that Switch is ready for deployment in three days. I expect to see you then and hear about your progress. You are dismissed."
