Minor Scouting

Twilight turned to see Shadowhide begin his scouting. “Hey Shadowhide, may I join you?” she asked.

Shadowhide turned in confusion. “Uh, sure Lieutenant.” Twilight smiled and ran up ahead to meet Nightshade. “Hold up, you got a Dream Unit?”

“A Dream Unit?” Twilight asked.

It’s a stealth device all Nightshade classes use. You do not have one, by the way.

“I got an extra in case of emergencies, please give it back when we are done, please,” Shadowhide said, giving the purple mare an uneasy smile.

Twilight returned the smile and took the Dream Unit, attaching it to her belt. “One tap, and you’ll be invisible, another will remove the cloaking. Got it?” Shadowhide asked, receiving a nod from his commanding officer. “Spellblades with cloaking devices, that feels like cheating to me,” he laughed as they carefully moved along the snow, several feet from the enemy base.

Twilight looked around to see a few griffons and black creatures wearing similar armor to the rest, yet they had no mane and large blue eyes; a creature Twilight recalled from the wedding. “The Sunset has griffons and changelings? We should be careful,” Twilight uttered.

“They look like emissaries, and while I can understand the griffons, I don’t understand why the changelings are here; they don’t like anything that isn’t themselves,” Shadowhide said. They continued around the base to find a way in, which proved difficult since Shadowhide told Twilight that the gates are programmed to nullify enemy cloaking devices.

From the far corner, they noticed something rather odd. The largest tent in the camp opened to reveal an old stallion with a long beard bundled up in robes, a tall black female changeling with various knives strapped to herself and a small black crown on her head, then a large diamond dog, much larger than the stallion or the changeling, walked behind them, larger gauntlets covered each hand, his eyes were covered by thick goggles.

“Chrysalis…” Twilight uttered coldly, watching the changeling queen converse with the diamond dog and the elder stallion.

“Seems like she’s helping them out, but why is Bonez here? He’s a pacifist, and I don’t see any of his guards around,” Shadowhide commented. “That would mean that the old colt there is the Black Sun Leader, Dark Star.”

Twilight focused on the old stallion talking with Bonez and Chrysalis. She felt like he held a lot of magic in his body, his eyes glowed black, only to dim when he blinks. “What do you know about him?”

“Dark Star use to be Princess Celestia’s Archmage, Starswirl the Bearded, but he went rogue a few years ago after we took Griffonia, saying that we are no better than the griffons,” Shadowhide explained.

Database Updated: Dark Star the Sundowner

Twilight grimaced at the title Gigavolt gave to her childhood icon. She turned her head to see something rather shiny on the ground, and decided to investigate it. She stepped closer and brushed some of the snow off, curiosity changed to horror as she saw the corpse of Lieutenant Greenmane. “Shadowhide,” she whispered. Shadowhide turned his head and walked towards the purple mare, sharing her expression upon finding Greenmane.

They looked around to see that the rest of the squad were not too far away, all dead. “But how? Most of us aren’t just greenhorns fresh from the bus, she should have at least heard gunfire or fighting,” Shadowhide muttered.

Twilight just stood there, baffled by what had happened. Unaware that Shadowhide left her alone for a moment. The silence was broken by Shadowhide, “Lieutenant, I think you need to see this.”

Twilight shook her head and walked over. What Shadowhide had found was a small campsite with a fire that has been put out recently. “Who was here before, though?” Twilight asked, unable to comprehend the situation.

Seeing as war isn’t a strong suit for anypony that lived roughly seven hundred years ago, I’m just going to let you know that this was most obviously an ambush.

“Were we ambushed?” Twilight whispered. Shadowhide turned to the purple mare. He blinked a few times before realization took over.

“They knew we’d be here, we walked into a suicide mission,” the stallion said.

Twilight simply nodded. “We need to get back to base; hopefully Sky Line and Cherry Slim have everything covered.”

The two slowly made their way back, only to hear a gunshot in the distance; they turned to see a pony falling off one of the guard towers. “A shot? Sky Line!” Twilight exclaimed, now running towards the base. Shadowhide managed to follow her.

Twilight turned her head to see various ponies and griffons marching towards Skyline, each shot the cocky pegasus took brought a member of the group down.

The base was still well hidden, but the enemy knew where it was; they continued their march, barely flinching when a sentry turret emerged from the snow to fire at them.

Twilight and Shadowhide managed to beat the enemy there. Sky Line was still sniping and Applebloom was calibrating a turret, but Cherry Slim was shaking, scared that they were under attack.

“Get ready everypony, this will not end well,” Twilight called out, walking towards Cherry. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I...I… I dunno, I’ve never fought before.” Cherry Slim was scared, sitting in the corner of the cave.

Twilight put a reassuring hand on Cherry’s back. “It’ll be okay, we’ll get through this.”

“Maybe we can call Greenmane and his group to help,” Applebloom called out.

“Greenmane and his group are dead,” Shadowmane said. The statement caused Cherry to squeak in fear while Applebloom stopped moving, fear over taking her.

“I managed to get a few of them, but we still got eighteen soldiers roughly three minutes away from us,” Sky Line called from above. A shot told Twilight that the number was reduced to seventeen.

The Spellblade took a deep breath and turned to her subordinates. “Now is not the time to panic! Now listen up: Cherry Slim and I will take point; Shadowhide, I want you to do what you do best and take any ranged hostiles out, quickly; Applebloom you stay back with Sky Line and pick them off, provide me and Cherry cover. Everypony got that?” She received three nods, and another round fired, only to hear a muttered ‘shit’.

Sky Line slid down to rejoin the group. “Too close to snipe. Applebloom, do you have a pistol or something? All I got is the sniper rifle,” Sky Line asked. Applebloom nodded and tossed a slightly smaller version of the gun the filly was using towards the light blue pegasus.

Cherry Slim slowly got up, shaking in fear as she readied a large hammer that materialized from her suit, clenching the weapon tightly.

Twilight took out her sword and placed a hand on the blade, sliding the hand along the sharp metal, watching the blade be consumed by fire. “Let’s go,” she ordered. The four ponies followed her into battle.

Applebloom’s turrets were still doing their job in weakening the enemy, but it was time for action. Twilight charged the enemy with her flaming blade and sliced a shocktrooper along the mid-section. She ducked down to dodge an axe attack from an enemy bulldozer.

Cherry Slim closed her eyes and ran, the jets in her heels and chest armor ignited and propelled her forwards, knocking several foes down. She swung her hammer forward to crush a griffon’s head under its weight. She didn’t even notice the shocktrooper shooter at her armor from behind.

Shadowhide slide his knife deep into the neck of a hawkeye that took cover from the turrets. He activated his stealth quickly and buried both knives into the back of a nearby nethermancer, watching the rebel unicorn fall to the ground. Sky Line took cover by a turret and fired upon the enemy. She turned to see a Bulldozer charge her, but dodged quickly and jumped on his back, thrusting the small gun into the back of his head before pulling the trigger. After brushing the dust off her armor, she went back to cover Twilight.

Applebloom threw out a grenade that began to rain lasers from above. The beams of light passed harmlessly through her comrades, but they inflicted severe injury to the enemy; one particular Spellblade stood directly beneath ready to slice at Shadowhide, but was cut to ribbons by the filly’s grenade.

Twilight sunk her blade into the ground, watching as a long spiked pillar of stone skewered two of the remaining Shocktroopers. Slightly past him was a Hawkeye who was aiming for her, he fired a round before Shadowhide gutted him. The round flew and connected with Twilight’s head, forcing her backwards into the snow; the pain was unbearable for the unicorn. She held her head as blood pooled from the wound in her forehead.

Get up you wimp, you were only shot in the head, you’ll survive. Remember that this has a HP system? You may wanna use a med though, just in case you decide to block all attacks with your skull.

Twilight swallowed an insult and a lecture as she got up, pulling out a small needle and stabbing her arm with it. As the red liquid disappeared into Twilight’s blood veins, the hole in her head closed up. Throwing the empty needle away, she charged a Bulldozer that had knocked Cherry down, ready to strike her down with his own hammer.

She slashed at the armored pony’s head, only to watch it deflect and shatter his helmet. He reared his head up to strike the purple mare, only to shower her in blood when his head exploded. “Sorry Twilight, my bad,” Applebloom called out, reloading her weapon.

A Griffon leaped at the blue pegasus with blades in claws. Cherry managed to grab the offending creature by his wing before throwing him into the dirt. “Thanks kid, you going to finish it?” Sky Line asked.

“Fi-finish it?” Cherry said, unsure that she could do it.

Sky Line rolled her eyes and shot several rounds into the griffon’s head. “Like that,” she said, patting Cherry on her armored shoulder before running off to find more cover.

Shadowhide threw a snowball at an enemy nethermancer, ruining his cast just long enough for the Nightshade to slit his throat.

Twilight managed to catch a few Nightshades approaching Applebloom and Sky Line, and slew them quickly, stabbing on through the torso before slashing the second’s head off. She performed her Rising Lance spell once again, dealing heavy damage to the last bulldozer. This stagger gave Shadowhide enough time to bury a knife in his skull.

“Runners!” Sky Line called out, pulling out her sniper rifle. She managed to pick off the two shocktroopers that ran, but the Nightshade entered stealth before she could get him.

“Good job, but we are not out of this yet,” Twilight uttered. Her group stood among several dead ponies and griffons, the snow all around them had gone red early into the fight.

Cherry fell to the ground, dropping her hammer. Applebloom walked over and gave what Twilight believed to be words of encouragement to the distressed mare.

“What we know is that the enemy knows where we were going to be before we got there, and that doesn’t bode well for us. So we need a plan,” Twilight called out. The mares and stallion nodded in agreement.

“I say we sneak in and blow them to Tartarus,” Sky Line commented, “We have the explosives to do so; we just need to find the sweet spots and run before the fireworks start.”

“You’ll need a distraction, though, something to keep their attention long enough for you to plant them all,” Applebloom stated.

“Then Applebloom and Cherry will distract them; Sky Line, you and Shadowhide plant the bombs, but be careful… We don’t know if Chrysalis and Bonez are still there,” Twilight warned. The two ponies nodded.

“What about you?” Shadowhide asked, causing Twilight to think carefully.

This is a rather big decision for you. I’m not supposed to say anything, but it’s pretty obvious that the team you don’t side with won’t be going home with you. You will encounter benefits and consequences for all your decisions, whether they’re immediate or prolongued.

Think carefully, Twilight. Help Shadowhide and Skyline plant the bombs, or help distract the enemy with Applebloom and Cherry Slim?

Twilight bit her lower lip as she thought, weighing what could happen and what may happen. Based on what Gigavolt just said, her decision here may carry on after this event.

Regardless of which you choose, you’ll still be fighting Dark Star as your tutorial boss.