Twilight Sparkle Vs. Paintball

   Prechapter note: I am switching some things up. Thank you for reading.

IN CELESTIA'S BASE CAMP

     My eyes trailed through my stash. It was more important than my gun. More important than my own safety. It was, a cloud cake. For myself, sadly, no. It was to bribe any fillies or colts summoned into the game to join my side, as well as give me information.

     But I had to carefully cloak it, as Luna might smell it and yell her age old battle cry of 'Moon Pies' and charge in guns blazing, attempting to steal the 'moon pies' she thought I was hiding. Long story, for later.

     My personal magic sensors were tingling inside my horn, pointing me towards......the ceiling. Wait, the ceiling?

      A moment and a flood of chocolate milk later, I was drenched from horn to tail and glaring at the two draconequus siblings who were laughing so hard chocolate milk shot out of their noses.

    Next to Discord was a draconequus female with sleek black feathers instead of fur covering her body. Her meadow green eyes were clenched shut tightly as she laughed, and her mismatched limbs and horns shook with her giggling.

    A smile slowly crept its way onto my lips. "Pestilence! It's been a long time."

    Pestilence swooped down from where she and her brother were hovering in the air and gave me a hoof bump (hoof/claw bump?). "Too long," she agreed. "So, who do we shoot?"

    "Well let's see....."

/\/\/\/\/\

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IN LUNA'S BASE CAMP

   My magic was waning, but it was worth it. I saw Twilight take a breath and continue to shape the orbs of magic, adding in silencing, photorecepting, and cloaking spells in as she packed down the layers of magic until the sixty-seven orbs were no bigger than marbles.

    I wiped sweat off of my brow; Twilight wasn't called the Princess of Magic for nothing. The magical marbles would monitor the library, or could be used as distractions. They would pulse with light and whiz around, making a sort of keening sound that would hopefully draw attention.

   But that was one part of the master plan. Another was the even smaller orbs of magic Twilight had enchanted; 'Custom paintballs', she'd said. Some exploded and hissed as they created smoke screens, some lit up in a small supernova that could cause temporary blindness, some exploded on contact and sprayed the target with a 'tracking mist' that would allow us to find them anywhere in the library, and there were some more types as well.

    She'd proceeded to shoot herself in the rump with a tracker ball, thus allowing me to track her rump. Er, track her by her rump. Not track her rump.

     "Alright, I'm bringing a raiding team back." Twilight swung her rifle over her shoulder as the stairs ascended next to her.

     I blinked. "How many ponies is a raiding team?"

     Twilight paused with her head just barely above the floor. "Hmm....about ten, maybe? I don't know, but I'll count them and send you a MTM from the Gear Room."

     An MTM? Whatever. "Okay, I'll be here guarding the fort. And just a warning, I wouldn't try to recruit Sombra or Dream. They have their 'Fortress of Evilness' already set up and enchanted, they won't want to leave it."

      My purple teammate nodded and continued down the stairs, leaving me to guard the fort in the silence that came afterwards.

      A very heavy, dramatic, movie-grade silence.

/\/\/\/\/\

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IN THE GEAR ROOM (What? I couldn't resist!)

    I bobbed my head up and down in confirmation. "Yep, that just about covers it."

    A group of fillies smacked their hooves together. "CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS AND THE FANTASTIC FILLIES PAINTBALL PLAYERS, YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!"

    Subtlety, your name is Cutie Mark Crusaders and The Fantastic Fillies.

    Hoof, I'd like you to meet a personal friend of mine, Face.

/\/\/\/\/\

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FOLLOWING A VERY STEALTHY GROUP OF FOALS, AKA A HALF HOUR LATER

    So there we were, creeping down the aisle of dusty tomes, just like in one of Rainbow Dash's Daring Do books. I was in front, next to Alula Kicker, Cloud Kicker's little sister. Behind us were Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Dinky Doo, Pipsqueak, Babs, and behind us came some filly-sized adults: Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Applejack.

    We were all armed to the teeth, but I was different from the others. I'd been searching the racks of various paintball-launching tools when I'd found.....it. A wooden box the size of my head, no lock, covered in a few feet of dust. I'd pulled it out, dusted it off for about ten minutes, and slowly opened the lid.

    Sitting inside the box on a thin layer of foam was a crossbow. not just any crossbow, but a paintball crossbow. I loved it. It was weird, though, that my initials were carved neatly into the plastic near the paintball-launching part.

S. D. Scootaloo Do. So I'd taken the crossbow. It was now in my front hooves as I sighted down the tube, praying to Celestia to come a tiny bit farther to the right......

Ka-popopopopop!

  Paintballs sprayed shiny gold paint around me and the rest of the group as they exploded. We returned fire and the Princess of the Sun was sloppily painted ten colors in ten seconds. While the rest of us were silently cheering, Alula went to inspect the gear Celestia had dropped her in surprise.

   She returned while the silent cheers, hushed whispers, and hoof-bumps were winding down, everypony taking up their various guns and reloading. Cartridges and separate paintballs were unpacked and stuffed into barrels or clicked into holes; we were ready to go again.

   "Look at this," she whispered, and hoofed what she'd been carrying to me. I looked at it, a map of the library. With.....a pink paintmark high up in the upper left corner, almost off the map; a black one and a purple one in the middle, and a golden one near the bottom?

     "What is it?" I whispered back to her.

     Her cream ear twitched before she answered: "Those are fights she's gotten into."

      I looked at her, then we both grinned. "Level forty-three, history section?"

       "Definitely."

      "Move out!"