Infiltration

CANTERLOT, EQUESTRIA.

AUGUST THE SIXTH, 1003

SECTOR SEVEN, OUTER CANTERLOT CASTLE WALLS

12:36 AM

A lone figure sit crouched up on the rooftop, the glow of his thermal scope illuminating the dark skies a lighter blue. In his crosshairs was his target: a lone airborne guard performing his rounds. He increases the magnification to times four, allowing him to spot the literal chink in his enemy's armor.

A single shot rang in the silent night, the projectile finding its mark. "Got ya."

The hidden sniper smiled as he saw the pegasus's wing cramp up, the sudden lack of propulsion causing him to fall to the ground at roughly ten miles an hour. The commando tracked his target's decent, a smirk appearing on his masked face as he saw the downed guard land in a bush with a dull thud. The bipedal scanned the area for any more potential targets but found none.

'Looks like lady luck is favoring me tonight. Lets hope it stays that way.'

The skies, now clear of clouds, allowed the lunar mass floating above him reflecting the Sun's rays onto his tinted sunglasses, created an effect that would disturb even the most battle-hardened guards. The figure, still perched up high on the roof top, looked down below and saw that all his targets were still down for the counts. They all wore the same armor, a deep purple with a crescent moon in the center of the chest piece along with a roman-style armor, though it seemed that some were tougher than others. Most of them had a lone dart sticking out of their necks or chest but some had more than a couple penetrating their skin and delivering their nasty payload.. Oddly enough, it seemed the ones without wings or horns were more resistant to the projectile's content rather the other way around.

The sharpshooter only know as 'Ghost' slung his ACR over his shoulder, careful to deactivate the scope and not to damage the expensive piece of equipment. He then pulled out a device that had saved him from what seemed like certain death on multiple occasion, though instead of escaping he was actually descending further into what was considered enemy territory. . He aimed the Grapple gun at the building directly across from the one he stood on, a high-pitched whine accompanying the cable as it sailed through the air before it impacted the designated wall and the one behind him.The tempered-steel claws dug into the stone structures, minuscule cracks appearing around them. With an experimental tug, he test the line and knew that it was secure and ready to use. The Task Force 141 agent pressed a button on the bottom side of the Grapple gun, causing two spring-loaded steel handles to pop out. He grabbed onto them and slowly walked over to the edge of the roof, gauging when to let go.

After a moment of  concentration, he was able to guess when to release his grip on the only thing keeping him from falling to a bloody and pathetic death. "Alright, let's do this."

Ghost backed up as far as he could, taking a deep breath before bursting into a full-on sprint. He felt the winds tearing at his  clothed face as he sped through the air, traversing roughly a dozen meters in less than ten seconds. The sharpshooter released his grip on the bars mere moments before the Grapple gun's base came into contact with the wall, performing a forward roll as he made contact with the ground. His eyes sweeped the area, his pistol already drawn and ready to fire on anything that had come to investigate. When he heard the distinct lack of thundering footsteps or CO barking orders, Ghost gave himself a moment to take a breath.

'Good, now it's time to get to work.'

The masked commando ceased his squatting after taking a deep breath, sheathing his pistol but leaving it ready to draw at a moment's notice. Ghost quickly sprinted across the courtyard, his footsteps muffled and quiet by the padding on his boots.. The sharpshooter occasionally ducked behind one of the many tree posts decorating the area, scanning the area up ahead before continuing his advance. He looked at his mini-map and checked his position, along with the target's.

Twenty meters.

The Task Force 141 felt his pulse quicken as he saw something fly overhead, his heartbeat sensor giving off a small beep as it flew in and out of range in less then a second.

Ten meters

The designated building was now in sight, visible even without his night-vision scope. The paint that looked it had been used to cover the barrens stone walls had long-ago peeled off, giving him the feeling that this wasn't a building high up 'Repair' list if the outside was anything to go by. He looked at it for a moment and back to some of the other buildings surrounding him, looking for an open window that could give anyone the opportunity to open fire on the sharpshooter but found none. He glanced down at his mini-map and it told him that he was mere meters away, no more than ten.

'Almost there!'

Ghost took cover underneath a nearby outcropping as yet another shadow flew overhead, though this one flew much slower and read nearly eighteen feet northeast. Out of caution he drew his silenced M9, which was also equipped with the same type of ammunition as his ACR.

'Looks like this is gonna get messy...'

His heartbeat sensor's beeping became more rapid as the red dot came closer to his position, causing him to raise his silenced M9. The red blip on the screen halted mere feet from him, the round shape failing to give him information on its direction and height unknown. Moments passed and no moment was seen from the circle, causing the tense soldier to let go of a breath he didn't know he had held hostage.

"Probably just a gl-"

"HALT, CRIMINAL SCUM!" A loud, and strangely female, voice called out in the night. The trained marksmen immediately raised his pistol, aiming towards the source of the voice only for the weapon to fly out of his grip. The surprised soldier tracked the limb that had knocked his trusty M9 out of his hands and was met with a pair of reared hooves aimed well below his face.

"I'll be buggered." Was all Ghost managed to get out before he felt his lungs collapse, the breath knocked out of them by a force equal to a small car ramming him at full speed. The blow sent him flying into the brick wall behind him, a sickening sound filling the air as his body bounced off of it. The marksmen swore mentally as he noticed the familiar copper taste of blood coat his tongue, telling him that he wasn't likely to survivie another direct hit like that. The injured soldier tried to move forward but his body once again made contact with the wall, a dark limb pinning him to it.

"Well well well, what do we have here? Some mutt sneaking around the castle grounds, trying to steal from the Royal Treasury? Or perhaps you're an assassin, sent here to poison the Princesses's food. I doubt its the latter but either way, you're a fool for thinking you could get away with it."

Ghost said silent, taking the rare moment of opportunity to get a better grasp of what exactly stood before him. She, as that was clearly her gender judging from her voice, looking very similar to the miniature horses he had seen all over the country though there were quite a few differences that set them apart. Instead of having feathered wings and normal pupils, she had leathery wings and reptile-like eyes which shone like the sun and burned through him with the same intensity. What also caught his attention was that her armor was also a darker purple than he had the other Guards' armor and the helmet she wore was more like a samurai's rather than a roman soldier's. An eye-catching bright-blue eyeball was present at the center of her armor (slitted of course), while a crescent moon was mounted on the front of her headgear.

'Different species, different armor. Perhaps special forces...?'

Ghost grinned slightly at this last thought, his mind conjuring a small team of the blasted horses dressed up in modern combat gear and armed to the teeth with weapons. However, this action caused him to cough heavily again, the taste of copper once again alerting his taste buds that this was no time to make up silly image in his head. Ghost stared at the strange bat-horse thing for a moment, his sunglasses giving him the advance of analyzing her gear without alerting her. He chuckled lightly upon noticing that she was completely unarmed, which in turn disturbed the female pinning him.

"W-why are you chuckling?"

"Because I have the upper hand in this situation." He replied, his cold and calculating tone sending visible shivers through his would-be captor.

"What!? No you d-" The strangely draconic horse-thing started to speak but was cut off as Ghost hooked his left hand around the dragon-pegasus's limb, gripping the knight-samurai's face simultaneously with his right and redirected them both into the wall on his left. The marksmen heard a satisfying crack as the armor made contact with the wall as he brought his elbow up for a blow to the head. The strike connected with the back of her head and caused her snout to slam into the bricks, blood streaming out of it as her entire body came into contact with the floor.

"Bit more blood then I'd like but it'll do." Ghost said to himself aloud as walked over to his pistol (which had landed a few feet away from where the fight had taken place), picking it up and examining it for damage. When none was found he checked the clip and fired, a dull thump was the only audible sound in the area that was heard as the projectile soared out of the silenced weapon and right into her unarmored neck.  After that he just stood there for a moment, his gaze unwavering from the unconscious (and now sleeping) sleeping form of the combatant.

The british commando felt a memory rise to the front of his mind, one that had been buried long ago. Ghost felt the heat of the roaring flames lick his face as he raced towards a crashed Black Hawk, a lone body visible in the bright colors of yellow and red. It reaches out for him, a lone hand extended and begging for help but he watches in horror as the chopper burst into flames. He screams, but no sounds comes out the fuel tanks follow suit. The hand, along with its owner, is incinerated in the explosion, leaving nothing left. The Brit shouts that they're still hope for her. That they can still save Kat, but they don't listen.

The marksmen shook his head, ridding himself of the haunting memories. He looked down again at the limp body, sprawled out like a corpse.

"Never again."

Ghost went over to where the unconscious guard was and picked her up, grunting a bit as he struggled to moved the body into a storage closet that he had been to busy to notice during the fight. The british commando propped her against the wall, taking a hand-full of clothes from a nearby shelf and went to work stopping the bleed and removing the dried blood. Ghost removed her helmet and let out a sigh when he saw that the wound was not serious. He did his best to bandage her up, cleaning the wounds the best he could before resuming his mission.

"I may be a soldier, but I'm not a heartless one."

Ghost shut the door but stopped before it clicked, his gaze still locked on the unconscious form of the strange creature he had met moments before. The british commando shook his head before he continued making his way over to the designated building, his prize located inside..  In front of him was a tall set of double doors, roughly half a meter taller than him. Holding them shut was a shiny, steel lock that looked like it had been recently replaced. His little fight had caused more noise that he liked and wanted to make this quick in case more guards were on their way.

Ghost undid one of the latches keeping his pockets shut and took out a blob of moldable plastic explosives before stuffing it into the lock's key hole, placing it in an optimal spot. The commando fished around one of his other pocket before he was able to find what he was looking for.Taking a stick out of one of his pockets, he plunged it into the shaped explosive and heard his transmitter give off a signal indicating it was already receiving the signal. He quickly ran for cover behind one of the rose bushes in the courtyard, confirming his decision to detonate the explosives via verbal command. Less then a second later the commando heard the sound of twisted metal flying through the air and the smell of smoke, the explosion having blown the lock clean off yet the doors remained undamaged.

Ghost  made his way over to the doors, pulling on the handles as hard as he could. Despite the new lock, it seemed that the building was not all that important as the door themselves were poorly taken care of and the hinges were rusty. It took him roughly thirty seconds of pulling  to get just one of them open half way, with the other was still stuck in its closed position. He slipped inside, his clothing snagging a bit on the rough edge of the door but became unstuck with a single twist of his torso. The inside of the building was dark, the filthy windows blocking out most of the light. Ghost brought up his ACR and activated its night vision capabilities.

As the commando went farther into the building, familiar scent filled the commando's nose. It was the smell of cooked flesh, (preferably of the pig and cow kind), something he hadn't had in months due to the inhabitants of 'Equestria' being largely herbivores. The building, from what he had heard, was an old army one dating back to when the equine nation had employed carnivores in its ranks. It had been built especially to cater to their meat-eating needs and was, in fact, a mess hall. All around him where sets of armor and weapons hung against the wall, obviously trophies from past victories. One shield looked like it was composed of lizard, or perhaps dragon, scales.  He considered snatching one of those later when something caught his eye. It was something that appeared to glow, not from the light but it appeared to actually be glowing. Sure enough, when Ghost activated the thermal feature of his scope on his ACR, it shone brighter than anything he had seen before.

Even brighter than the heart of a missile explosion. Ghost thought to himself as he removed the scope from his eye and read the plaque above the case, its name displayed in clear English.

DAWNBREAKER- USED TO SLAY THE DARK SORCERER THALGOR IN THE BATTLE OF NEIGH HAVEN

Dawnbreaker eh? Interesting....

Ghost checked the case for anything that looked like it could set off an alarm, and seeing none, opened the case. The commando carefully grabbed the hilt of the blade, expecting to feel a burning sensation but was surprised when he only felt a mild warmness spread throughout his hands. He swung it a few time, the blade cutting through the air like butter and felt lighter than a carbon-fiber pistol. The marksmen turned sword-carrier performed a few moves with the Dawn Breaker, accidentally slicing one of the tables in half and setting it on fire.

"Bollocks." Ghost quickly put the weapon back in its display case and ran into the kitchen, looking for anything that could be used to put out the flames. He spotted a large towel and dosed it in water from one of the sinks before running back over to the burning table and covering the flames with it. After a while the fire eventually died out, its oxygen supply depleted. When the british commando removed the towel, he used the towel to dissipate the cloud of smoke that was all that remained of the burnt table. He looked down at where the fire had been been and saw that there was a gaping circle in the wooden table.

"Man, talk about choosing between crispy and extra crunchy. I'm lucky I didn't get burned."

The marksmen, learning from his past mistake, looked around for a scabbard to put Dawnbreaker in. He noticed one already in use by one of the many sword decorating the wall and pull it off, revealing a dull ball beneath it.

"Would ya look at that: fakes. Should've known guessing by the quality of some theses things. Luckily I picked a good one."

Ghost went over to the open case and carefully grabbed the blade, taking his time to slide the blade into its new home. Again, he was surprised when he saw that it didn't burst into flames. Ghost undid his belt and slid the scabbard onto it, his leg feeling a bit warmer than usual due to the nature of the blade. Checking around for the shield he had seen earlier, the commando saw that it too had its' own plaque.

IRONHIDE- CRAFTED BY BLACK SMITH AND USED IN THE RECLAMATION OF GRYFFINDOR.

"Wicked, but I'm noticing a play on words here. CANTERLOT-horses, Gryffindor-Griffins.. What's next? Draconia?" The shield-bearing soldier rolled his eyes at the thought, walking over to where the kitchen was. He rubbed his hands together and pushed the door open.

The room was filled to the brim with meat of every shape and size. Massive legs hung from twine on wracks like Christmas decorations, waiting to be taken off and to never be seen again. Steaks of every type were neatly organized by size and how well it was cooked. Ghost made his way over to the steaks  and unwrapped a medium rare one, taking notice of how the wrapper had an odd glow to it which eventually faded. He grabbed a nearby knife and fork (but not before cleaning them off with his slightly-less-then-dirty undershirt) and hungrily devoured the finely-prepare meat with great joy and pleasure. The wrappers must have some sort of preservative in them because the meat tasted like it had just been cooked, the warm juices filling his mouth with rich flavor. It was a huge step from what he had been eating since his rations had been exhausted a few weeks ago, reducing him to eating meager meals made up of whatever he could find.