86-34: Arc 1: Fight the Power, Fight the Fad

by OldWorldBrony

Rating: teen
Tags: Dark, Adventure
Length: 21176

When the magic of friendship spread far and wide after the Elements of Harmony prevailed, all of Equestria rejoiced and ushered in a new age of peace, but shortly after winter was wrapped up that year, some strange trends began to surface...

Warning: Contains mild violence and sexual references.

~Pre-Reading Info~

Chronology
- Parallel with MLP Season 1, upon Spring's arrival.
Social notes
- After a pony acquires their cutie mark,they may change their name(on the assumption that Twilight Sparkle wouldn’t be Twilight Sparkle if she got a Potion cutie mark,for instance)
Tech Level
-Development centers around agriculture and industry,and less on military sectors.
- IT development is moderate. Computers and networks are available, and the EqueNet is the internet service available within the borders of Equestria.
- Since steam-powered automotive carriages were just recently developed by the zebras and see seldom use within Equestria due to high import cost of coal,most ponies are still using pony-pulled carriages as the main mode of transportation on the ground.
- Weapons have the least development of all, with mostly melee weapons like swords and spears being used by the Equestrian army. Law enforcement use clubs and batons. There are firearms, albeit rare. These were initialled operated by finger and cannot be used by ponies, and were modified to be mouth-operated(MO). These have the buttstock filed off to grip the weapon easily with the mouth. There are firing mechanisms attached to the trigger going all the way to the back of the weapon, requiring one to bite down to pull back the trigger. Same applies to other weapons such as MO rifles. The “bite-triggers” require significant force to activate,to prevent firearms from being set off unintentionally, hence they require a certain amount of skill to operate,and even more skill to aim.
Biology
-Ponies do not have a solid bone at the end of each hoof,instead, the ends are packed with dense muscle fibres, resulting in the ability to form a cleft of sorts in the center of the hoof, giving ponies the limited ability to ‘hold’ small objects(e.g apple, book, stick). These dense muscle fibres also run through the entire leg, allowing ponies to move their hooves(again, in a limited manner) in ways almost similar to reverse-jointed appendages(e.g shrugging, partially wrapping a hoof around something long,like a shovel.

~End of Pre-Reading Info~

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-08-20 14:50:03 UTC

2. New Arrivals

“I’m Perry Mic, reporting live from the site of a new research building in Fillydelphia known as Alicorp Industries. Taking their name from ‘Alicornite’,the material that makes up a unicorn’s horn,Alicorp Industries centers on the research of new spells and magic abilities of unicorns. With me is CEO QuickSilver . Tell me,Miss Quicksilver, what does your company hope to achieve?”

“We hope to discover new spells and put them to good use, in hopes that our discoveries will enhance the lives of the ponyfolk”.

Badger’s lazy eyes were fixed on the television,but with diminished interest. Nothing much here,besides her white skin and silver mane,perhaps. Also,she does have a nice flank, especially with those three silver spark marks”,he thought to himself. He was about to turn it off,when...

“So,I also heard that you have a stake in this new fad as well,is that correct?”

“That’s right. I’m sure you’ve heard of ‘shipping’,right? The term used to describe the pairing/coupling of two characters?”

“Yes,I do believe there are quite a few entries on The Equestrian Post. I’m a regular browser myself *chuckles*”.

“We’ve noticed that there are already a few with the titles,such as ‘Master of Art’ and ‘Master of Music’,so we’re going for the ‘Master of Shipping’” title.

“‘Master of Shipping’,eh? A new title,that sure is ambitious. I wish you luck with that,but why is a company like Alicorp Industries interested in this fad?”

“We just want to contribute to this growing fanbase. You know,earn a place among the followers? Plus it’s good for business *winks*.”

The reporter let out a cheesy laugh before continuing.“Yes,that surely would be a plus point for you. Well,there you have it,folk...”

This time the TV was turned off.

“Shipping? Really?”, Badger grunted.

Circuit Cut overheard Badger and said, “Actually, there were some submissions just in this morning. They were submitted by Alicorp Industries’ official online profile. Looks like they’re off to a good start.”

“Let me take a look.”

“Uh,do you really want to take a lo...?”

“Why? How bad is it?” Badger asked with suspicious eyes.

Circuit Cut paused,then his lips uttered a single word.

“Twixie.”

“Twixie? You mean ‘Trixie’,right? That unicorn who showed up in Ponyville shortly before that Ursa Minor incident?”

“No,I mean ‘Twixie’,with a T-W-I.”

“Twixie? What’s Twix......wait, do I really wanna know?”

“Probably not.”

“Damn it. What’s does that have to do with the ‘Magic of Friendship’?“

“I have no idea,but all the submissions were under an album called ‘Friendshipping is Magic’”.

Badger almost wanted to gouge out his eyes with his own hooves(if it was even possible).

“Whoa there. Take it easy,dude. You seem to be taking this a little too seriously, don’t you think?”

Badger seemed to calm down a bit. ”Sorry,I just lost it a bit there. Yeah,you’re right.”

~~~

The next morning, Badger woke up from the couch to a pleasant smell in the air. In his drowsiness he could only interpret it as one thing: breakfast. Sure enough, Circuit Cut had it prepared early, as usual, and was typing away at his computer. On the menu today was a sandwich with some hot cocoa. Badger noted that Hot Shot was not around, probably out following up on some escort contracts. He bit into the bread and savored the taste of bread, butter and the sound of the crunchy vegetables.

”This is good”, he said with his mouth full.

”Really? Well then, I think you better swallow before I tell you about a little something”, Circuit Cut replied.

Badger stopped munching. There was silence. He finally broke it with a ”What is it?”

Circuit Cut shrugged slightly with his warning unheeded, and continued:

”Early in the morning, I discovered that a new site was up.”

”Another ‘The Equestrian Post’ clone?”

“Sort of…just that its, well…the opposite…or should I say a counterpart?”

”Get to the point, CC.”

”Sure you don’t want to wash that sandwich down first?”

Badger’s face sank as he gave CC a dull stare, and swallowed.

CC swiveled his chair to face the computer. With his horn, he magically moved the mouse to open a minimized tab. Badger caught sight of the heading “Wild Equestria” only for a split second before his eyes shifted to a couple of ponies at both ends of the title making ”unusual” poses. His eyes widened as he recognized the ponies as Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie.

”Yep, just as the title says.” CC scrolled down to reveal the home page, and clicked on an art gallery. He flipped through the pages, revealing content that was a bit too much for Badger to stomach.

”What…IS this?” He said with his head starting to sway slightly with confusion. CC noticed this and quickly used his horn to levitate the cup of hot cocoa to Badger’s mouth.

”Easy there. Here, drink”.

After Badger got a few gulps down, Circuit Cut continued, ”Ever since the magic of friendship went viral, a site of this size and magnitude has never been set up, apart from The Equestrian Post, which was the one-stop site for all the fans. Sure, there are cheap knock-offs but none of them came close. Wild Equestria, however, has it all: art, stories, polls, etc. This site is like the dark side of The Equestrian Post.”

“Who made it?”

”Well, the site is still new, so I’ll do a bit of digging around.”

”Yeah you do that”, Badger said as he finished his drink, and went outside.

“Ooooh, check this out” Circuit Cut said as he opened an article on TheEquestrianPost. “The Ponyville TV station will be hosting a video interview with three Masters in 3 weeks. Three Masters? Whoa. I wouldn’t wanna miss that.”

~~~

3. A Message Sent

Ponyville’s own TV station was the center where weather reports and current events were broadcasted to the other towns and cities in Equestria,and vice versa. Usually it wasn’t that busy,but today it was bustling with activity,for it was chosen for a very important event. For a video interview with three Masters,every pony wanted to make sure everything went right.

“Ugh,what do you MEAN the station’s video feeds are not working?! It’s not a video interview without video,is it?” exclaimed Scoop, a beige earth pony, with a camera cutie mark.

“Sorry,sir. The repairs have not been on schedule. But the audio and other systems are working fine. At least we’ll be able to get on with the interview,just without video feed,” replied Scoop’s personal assistant.

“Hmm,well the show must go on. Alright people, get everything sorted out. How long do we have till the show starts?”

“20 minutes and counting,sir!” a random technician on the set responded.

“Very good. Have the Masters made contact with us?”

“Still trying to reach them. Hold on...got ‘em on the line,sir!”, another technician said excitedly.

“Excellent, let me talk to them,” Scoop said with his face lit up.

”Glad you guys could make it through. Sorry about the video feed. That’s our bad.”

”It’s cool. As long as we can entertain our fans, that’s enough for us. Besides, I haven’t made much of an appearance since The Equestrian Post went up”, replied one of them.

”I appreciate that thought, thanks."

”All for the magic of friendship, right?”

”Of course.”

”Sir, the show will start in 10 minutes”, reminded one of Scoop’s PAs.

”Alright, people, final prep. Check the camera, lights, and get me some damn coffee!”

~~~

Badger, Circuit Cut and Hot Shot were all eagerly sitting on the couch, waiting for the interview to start, with Circuit Cut being in the middle.

“Man, I can’t wait to see this!”, Circuit Cut said excitedly, rubbing his hooves together.

“What are you so geared up for?” Badger asked.

“Well this IS the first time an interview is held with 3 Masters at once. Lexus, Nano-Tech-Know, and Mephisto. How is that not cool?”

“Tech-What-Now?” Badge was confused.

“Okay, let me explain”, Circuit said as he was all too happy to do so,“The first one is Lexus. He’s a Master of Music. He’s made a ton of remixes. The second is Nano-Tech-Know. He’s another Master of Music,also the co-founder of The Equestrian Post, mainly focuses on Techno-style music as his nickname suggests, and he has a position in the ER&D(Equestrian Research and Development). Last,but not least,is The Great Mephistopheles,or Mephisto for short. He’s the founder of The Equestrian Post.”

“ER&D? Are you serious?” Badger was bewildered.

“Note serious face,” Circuit Cut replied, a hoof pointing to his face.

“Oh yeah, the show’s about to start!” Hot shot said as she threw her hooves in the air as the commercial cut back to the show.

~~~

“Okay,people,we are live in 5,4,....”,shouted someone on the set,the last 3 seconds were silent.

“Good morning,Equestria! Today we have 3 very special guests with us on video. Give it up for Lexus, Nano-Tech-Know,and The Great Mephistopheles!”

“Yo.”

“Hey.”

“‘Sup,Equestria?”

“Fillies and gentlecolts, there has been a slight technical difficulty with the video feed, but the show can still go on. Now,to start things off, what have you colts been doing lately? Al,you first. Working on the latest mix track I presume?”

“Night and day. Don’t wanna disappoint my fans. I’ve been working real hard on this latest piece”.

“Any idea on when it’s gonna be out?”

“Well, I can’t make any promises,but soon,I assure you.”

“I’m sure we all can’t wait for that. Now,moving on to Nano-Tech-Know. What's on your techno-to-do list,NTK?”

“Nothing much at the moment. I’m mainly focusing on my job.”

“Ah, working on some new gizmo in that department of yours,eh?”

“Always finding ways to enhance the lives of ponies,as usual.”

“And we appreciate your effort so far. Keep it up. And,finally,the head honcho himself. Must be tough running the most popular site on the EqueNet, eh,Mephisto?

“Yeah, it takes a lot of work, but most of it is taken care of you guys, the ones who give us much support in what we do. That alone is a great feat,and we at The Equestrian Post can’t express our gratitude enough.”

“Well,that really is quite moving. Don’t worry, I’m sure your site won’t run out of fans any time soon. Now, fillies and gentlecolts, as promised, we’ll be taking questions from callers,so keep those calls coming. Wow,that was fast. Caller number 1,you’re on the line.”

“Oh my gosh this is SOOO AWESOME! I’m such a huge fan of...all three of you! *fan-filly scream* ok, so, when are you guys gonna do a full length movie directed by Mephisto, featuring Lexus’s music, and Techno’s gadgets ?!”

“That’s an interesting idea you got there. We’ll consider it”, responded Lexus.

“Thank you,Caller 1. Caller 2,you’re on the line”, said Scoop, keeping the show moving swiftly. This time it was a colt.

“Hey,Tech-Know. I’m a huge fan of your work. I too have a list of my own designs. Where should I upload them?”

“You have your own ideas? Cool. Upload ‘em to The Equestrian Post and I’ll have a look at them.”

“Thank you,Caller 2. Caller 3,you’re up next.”

“Mephiiii! You should totally write a shipping fic starring you and me! We’d be like...”

Caller 3’s line was cut and replaced by another voice, this one being electronic.

“Well, I’m glad we didn’t have to listen to that.”

“Who is this?”, asked Mephisto.

“Me? I’m a fan,too, and I sure like to ask a few questions.”

“You only get one,pal.”

“I don’t think that’s an option.”

“What in the world?” Circuit Cut’s eyes widened as they remained glued to the TV.

Scoop tried to cut the call off,but failed. “What the buck’s going on?”

“My first question: why did you butcher The magic of friendship?”

“Butchered it?” Mephisto repeated. “Far from it. We are the reason it has spread far and wide across Equestria.”

“More like over-popularized it, and in doing so,you depreciated its true value. This is not something to make the cool kids stand out.”

“You’re completely missing the point,” Lexus intervened.

“Am I, Mr-I-like-videos-and-they-become-overnight-sensations?”

Lexus went silent.

“Second question: what is up with shipping?”

“Nothing. It’s just harmless fun,not anything serious or offensive”, responded Mephisto.

“Harmless? Fun? More like disrespectful and derogatory.”

“We would never disrespect anypony in any way,especially not the Six.”

“Oh yeah,what about Wild Equestria?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about. What of it?”.

“I think you do,since you’re the one running it and all.”

The entire studio gasped. Mephisto took a deep breath as he replied. “The EqueNet is somewhere ponies can express their innermost desires, and sometimes those desires can be out of the norm. I kept that from the masses so as not make it a shock and merely an exclusive to the minority.” This time,NTK interjected, “Meph,what are you...?”

“No, I’m not giving in to this guy. Wild Equestria has no relation to what we do.”

The electronic voice responded,“Minority? You and I both know that’s a load of crap. You spread things like ‘friendshipping’, and this is wrong on so many levels.”

The entire studio fell silent as the electronic voice continued to talk.

“In the last month alone there’s already a surge in similar content, and at the rate this is going, it will become an entity of it’s own, and the very meaning of “friendship” will either have dark lining at best, or be changed forever at worst. You are Masters. You’re supposed to set an example for all these ponies, but by helping to create this entity, you’ve failed.”

“I don’t need you to tell me what to do!” Mephisto retorted.

“Oh,I’m not,just giving you a little heads-up: some of us do not approve of your methods. Actually,there are more of us than you think. Now,you better get back on the saddle,or else...”

“Or else what?”

The call went dead.

The entire studio, as well as Circuit Cut and Hot Shot were still very silent from shock.

“Go to commercial! Go to commercial!” Scoop shouted, and sure enough, the studio feed was cut,an ad playing on screen.

Suddenly Badger burst out laughing. “BAAAAHA HA HA. Did you see the whole crowd gasp when the voice revealed Mephisto was running Wild Equestria? That means they all are frequent visitors of the sit-” He tried to laugh but no voice came out for a few seconds, his mouth gaping open. “That is priceless. Oh, my flanks. I guess you were right, CC. How can something like this not be cool?” Badger continued laughing as he slapped Circuit Cut on the back with a hoof.

“Your attention to even the most minute of details, is sometimes disturbing,” Circuit Cut said, his smile drooping. “Also, I guess when I said Wild Equestria was like the dark side of TheEquestrianPost, it probably looked that way because Mephisto was the one running it the whole time.”

“Well, I didn’t see that one coming”, Hot Shot finally spoke, turning to the other two,“and since we’re in such a good mode, thought I’d share this piece of news right away: We got a new contract.”

“A new contract? So-weeeet!” Circuit Cut exclaimed with joy. “So, who’s it from?”

“A coincidence, that’s for sure. Alicorp Industries. They want us to escort a carriage from their research facility from Fillydelphia to Manehattan Outskirts. The payoff is 1500 bits up front, and 2500 bits when the carriage reaches it’s destination. They’ll start moving in two days.

“Two days? Well, we better not waste time. Let’s pack our stuff,” Badger replied.

~~~

4. Convoy Escort

“Alright,so let’s go over this once”, the coachmaster said, “The carriage will leave Fillydelphia and head to Manehattan Outskirts via Ponyville. You get 1.5k up front, and 2.5k when it reaches safely. Any questions?”

“A suggestion if I may?” Badger said as he raised his hoof. “My team will escort the carriage on the ground while I provide aerial recon from above.”

“However you protect the cargo is up to you. Just make sure it reaches it’s destination safely,” the guard replied.

Badger nodded as his team and the coachmaster and a guard(both unicorns) prepared to head out. “Mercs  think they’re so smart,” he heard one of them mutter.

They proceeded north towards Ponyville, and then westwards towards Manehattan. The sunlight was a little too hot for the spring weather.

“I think Celestia should cut back on the light intensity. It’s spring, not summer”, Circuit Cut complained, as he and Hot Shot walked along with the carriage. “Oh, what’s the matter? The heat getting to you already?” she replied.

“Easy for you to say. You’re already hot.”

“I take that as compliment.”

Badger, flying high, came down to the coachmaster who was sitting at the carriage’s front.“We’re almost there, just over another hill and the Outskirts should be in sight”, Badge reported. “Keep an eye out. We’re nearing some woods.”

The coachmaster nodded and knocked on the carriage floor with his forehoof. The other guard came out of the carriage. They exchanged some words before the first guard turned to Badger “yeah thanks for the heads up. We’ll watch the front while your team watches the rear.”

Hot Shot and Circuit Cut pulled back, while the guard walked alongside the horses pulling the carriage. Badger continued to circle the air, his eyes trying to pick up anything out of the ordinary. He was about to turn around when up ahead, a glint came from the woods. The glint of a sniper scope.

“Look out! Left side!” he exclaimed. Circuit Cut and Hot shot took cover behind the carriage, with the two guards on alert. Badger raced toward the glint in a zig-zag pattern when a shot rang out. It hit a concealed glass container near the road. It shattered, releasing a purple cloud of gas just in front of the carriage. The purple cloud engulfed the pulling horses and guards, and all fell unconscious. The sniper spread a pair of wings to escape, but Badger was too fast. The pegasus got a few feet off the ground before Badger tackled it into a tree. The sniper fell to the ground, knocked out cold. Back at the carriage, Hot Shot already got out her trusty MO revolver. it had a scope on it which she unfolded, ready to pick off anypony who came within range. Without warning, two pegasi flew out of the treeline and headed straight for the carriage, wielding MO guns.

“Incoming!” Circuit Cut said from behind the carriage as he projected a transparent dome shield with a blue tinge around himself. Two shots rang out and made ricochet sounds as they hit the shield. Hot Shot popped out from behind the shield, took aim and fired a shot. It hit a wing and one pegasus crashed into the ground behind them. The other flew up for another pass but was exposed as it turned it’s back. Another shot rang out, tearing through a wing, and the second pegasus fell to the ground as well.

Circuit Cut and Hot Shot were rounding up and tying the three unconscious assailants when Badger flew down. “I don’t see any sign of reinforcements, but let’s just be on our toes.” It was then he got a good look at the sniper. He had white skin, and a red mane, and his cutie mark were two red arrows forming a circle clockwise, with a pair of wings spreading from the middle. Badger then went to check on the guards and pulling horses. They were still out cold.

“Well, guess we aren’t going anywhere for a while. ”, Badger said as he came back to Hot Shot and Circuit Cut. “Damn, they thought of everything, didn’t they?”

“Well one thing they forgot to factor into their ‘ingenious plan’ is us”, Circuit Cut said, triumphantly.

“Yeah, those guards don’t seem so smart when they were caught off guard.”

A stir among the prisoners caught their attention. The sniper was regaining consciousness, and tried to wrestle free of his restrains.

“Damn you”, he said under his breath, “When I get out of these I’ll teach you a lesson, you shippers.”

Badger’s face suddenly lit up like a red flag was raised. “Shippers?”

“You heard me. Ponies like you have nothing better to do than desecrate something as pure as the magic of friendship.”

Badger’ became puzzled, but then an idea struck him. “Hmmm, I’m gonna go on a limb here and assume you had something to do with that little fiasco at the Ponyville TV station.”

The sniper stopped struggling, looked straight at him.

Bingo, Badger thought. “Because if you did, that was pretty badass. I mean you made them shit their pants...if they were wearing some, that is. Heck, if I had the chance, I would have gave them a piece of my mind too. A lot less radical and harsh, but yeah, you get what I mean.”

“So what if I had something to do wit-wait, what did you just say?”

“What did I just say?”

“You said if you had the chance, you’d want to give them a piece of your mind.”

“Well, yeah. I think what they’re doing is pretty screwed up too.”

The sniper looked to the ground, his hooves and wings still bound. He seemed to be in thought.

“So, why did you want to hit this particular carriage?”

“I’m not telling you that.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure it’s because of some super secret stuff they carrying, eh?”

“Hey wait a minute, you’re not wearing their uniforms. You mercs?”

“We’re ‘mercs’ who just kicked your posse’s flanks. Better show some respect”, Circuit Cut interjected.

“You’re pretty skilled for mercs. Were you soldiers? Cops? What happened? Discharged?”

“That is none of your beeswax, buddy!” Circuit Cut cut retorted, before realizing and looked away uncomfortably. Badger shook his head at his show of emotion.

“Oh, right. The budget cuts. Equestria-wide retrenchment.”

“We get by just fine, thank you”, Badger replied.

“Don’t you feel it was a bit unfair?”

“We were proud to serve for as long as we did”, Hot Shot interjected this time.

The sniper looked down again, then he looked to the guards, who were still out cold. He looked to his two comrades, who have yet to wake up. Finally, he said,“I know why you lost your jobs. I know the reason behind the budget cuts, and let me tell you, things go way back before that.”

“You getting a little desperate there, buddy?” Badger said in disbelief. “Knot’s a little too tight?”

“Actually it is. Impressive. But look here. The cuts, the fad, it’s connected. In fact, it dates back to the war.”

“The war?”

“THE war.”

The sniper lay on his side, his hooves and wings still tied behind his back. “.Shrapnel. From a grenade. A grenade only they would use. Now do you believe me?”

The three peered at his body. Just above his left cutie mark was the wound.

“Okay, so you’re a war veteran, what does that prove?” Badger asked, still not convinced.

“You and me, we serve the same ruler, the same kingdom, and for the same cause. Look what the system did for you. The only system that works right now is the system of honor. You cut me and my friends loose, and we give you our word we will no longer pursue you.”

“Huh, now you just lost it. Ain’t no way we’re gonna let you go. We may even get a reward for turning you and your posse in,” Circuit Cut said with a smile.

“And then what? You go back to running convoy escorts again? I’m giving you-” The sniper stopped as he realized his voice was rising, and he lowered his voice to a whisper, “I’m giving you a chance to change things here. Come with us. We have the means to bring back the old world.”

“Old world?” CIrcuit Cut was confused.

“After the magic of friendship became known, all of Equestria rejoiced and ushered in a new era of change. A change towards peace.. For 6 months it was like a golden age we thought we’d never have. It was so unreal it was like a new world of possibilities and hope. This is when everyone wanted to experience and capture the magic of friendship so it would be enjoyable to themselves and to others, which gave rise to the Masters. After that the financial crisis hit, and shortly after that, the Masters, gained immense power over their fans. Trends started to surface and things like Wild Equestria emerged. The fans quickly picked up on those trends and the true spirit of friendship was forsaken. At that point, that dream and direction we were heading went astray. That is the Old World we seek to bring back, and with your help, we can.”

“Ha”,Circuit Cut snorted,“you’re not actually considering it, right, Badger?....Badger?”

He turned to look at Badger, who had his hoof pressed to his chin. “From the knock out gas you used, how much time till the guards wake up?”

“We used enough to knock ‘em out for an hour, more than ample time to get in, snatch the package and get out.”

Badger continued to think for a few seconds, and finally came up with his decision.

“Cut ‘em loose.”

Hot Shot and Circuit Cut were shocked, and Badger explained, “We out-gun and out-match them. They wouldn't think to attack us again. We continue on to Manehattan and get our pay. We've got nothing to lose. ”

“But don’t you think he’ll come back with friends?” Circuit Cut pointed out.

“If he did, they would be here by now, and we’d already be done for. Call it a hunch,guys, but trust me on this.”

Circuit Cut and Hot Shot reluctantly agreed and set the three pegasi free. Circuit Cut took some water from his pouch and splashed it on the two unconscious pegasi.

“They’re out for quite a bit for just a bullet wound through the wing”, Hot Shot remarked.

“New recruits. They've only fired weapons down range and never seen a bullet fly in the other direction.”

After a few “applications” of water to their faces, they slowly awakened.

“But”, Badger said “If you decide to make another sweep at us, I can’t guarantee we won’t put a bullet right between your eyes.”

“I have no doubt you would. By the way, the name’s Cipher.”

“Cipher,huh? Badger. Nice to meet you. This Circuit Cut and Hot Shot.”

“Yo what’s up? Call me CC.”

“Pleasure to meet you, tho I wish it were under better circumstances.”

“Great”,Cipher replied, “After you've reached the Outskirts, head to this address.”

Cipher handed out a scribbled piece of paper with his mouth. Circuit Cut levitated it to read, before putting it into his pouch. Cipher and the two pegasi then took to the skies without uttering another word.

The sun started to set when the guards and horses finally came to their senses..

“Ugh, what happened?” One of them asked.

“We were ambushed”,Badger explained,“You were knocked out by some gas in that concealed container over there. We barely managed to fend ‘em off and they retreated.”

“Oh...yeah, I think I remember. How long were we out?”

“An hour,give or take.”

“Damn! We’re behind schedule. Better get moving.”

The carriage reached it’s destination just as the Sun was about to set. Manehattan Outskirts served as a railroad switching point between Ponyville to the east and Baltimare to the south. The significance of this place drew ponies towards it and a small town was born.

“Alright, we’re here,” the coachmaster announced as he got down from the carriage and gestured the guard to check on their package. After a minute, the guard came out of the carriage and gave the “all clear” nod. “Well, Cargo’s ok. So here you go, 2500 bits as promised. You've earned your bits”, the coachmaster said as he took out a bag of bits from his pouch. Circuit Cut levitated the bag into his own storage compartment.

“Pleasure doing business with you. Look us up again if you need an escort”, said Badger as he winked, and they parted ways.

~~~

5. Answers

“You sure this is the place, Badger?” Circuit Cut asked as they stood in front of an old carriage workshop in the streets of Manehattan.

“Yeah, this is the place”, Badger replied as he moved to the door and knocked on it.

The door opened and an orange unicorn greeted them. He had a sprocket for a cutie mark. “Welcome. Cipher said he was expecting you guys. I’m Ratchet and this is my shop.”

The workshop was a mess. Tools were strewn all over the floor and the desk was swamped with paperwork.

Ratchet led them to the back room, where they found Cipher going through some reports.

“Ah, Badger, Circuit Cut, Hot Shot. Nice to meet you all.”

“Hi. So about those answers you promised?” Badger reminded Cipher.

“Straight to the point. I like it”, replied Cipher. “Alright, gather around. First, time for a history lesson.”

“Well, I’ll be getting back to work. Call me if ya need anything,” said Ratchet as he trotted out of the room..

“You guys are familiar with the bloodshed that took place a year ago, right?” Cipher began with a question. “I’m sure every pony remembered it”, Badger remarked, as thoughts began playing in his head. Equestria consists of oceans and landmasses but ultimately enclosed by mountains which are too high to climb and the weather being too harsh to fly over. One day some colts went playing by the mountain side and discover a passage through the mountains. Next thing you know the whole of Equestria wants to go through it to see what’s on the other side. What they didn’t expect were the mountain trolls deep within the terrain.

“Yeah, that was the first time Equestria saw war, but are you aware of why we incurred so many loses?”

“Uh, was the fact that mountain trolls were 3 times taller and 5 times stronger than any pony?” Circuit Cut said, raising his hoof.

“Well, true”,replied Cipher as he continued,“It was not only their brute strength, but their technology as well. Our swords and spears could not match their guns. Their guns proved so effective, even we’re using them now, though they’re modified versions the ones the mountain trolls used, and they could wield them easily because unlike us, they had fingers. Not only that, the harsh and cold weather dealt a blow to morale as ponies faced the thought of either dying at the hands of a mountain troll or freezing to death. Due to the high casualty rate, the Equestrian Relief Force (ERF) was formed, and I was a member of the first batch. The group consisted of pegasi combat medics, the best from Cloudsdale, as we were in charge of airlifting and healing wounded soldiers in the battlefield. However, these still were not the main contributors to the high death toll. You see, the trolls pushed us back only till the mountain range’s entrance and not beyond that. It was then that Equestria’s top brass, Canterlot High Command(CHC) decided to counterattack with the intention of taking and holding the mountains, and sent in the KampfHoofen, Germane’s elite military division, to accomplish this task. We patched up many of the KampfHoofen personnel, mostly because they were more likely to survive till we patched ‘em up, but still many more of them were lost during the initial counterattack and defense of key points along the mountain’s passage. No amount of weaponry or cold would cause such widespread death if only we withdrew as we should have. From there, we knew that CHC would place their own goals ahead of the ponies of Equestria, so after the war finally ended(due to the lack of troops), the remaining ERF and KampHoofen members left the military to watch over Equestria from the shadows, donning the name Old World Legion(OWL), to reflect in our attempt to bring Equestria back to its former self. We sure did have our hands full, as there was much unrest after the war, and CHC even sealed off the mountain passageway to prevent it from being used ever again.”

“So, long story short, you guys were unhappy at CHC’s decisions and then decided to become vigilantes?” Badger said.

“We had to. The riot in Flankfurt was about to get worse as some ponies managed to get guns into the city, and we stopped ‘em before they got passed around.”

“Oh yeah, I remember the riot of Flankfurt. One of the worst at the time”, Badger remarked.

“So, my point is, we managed to thwart potentially dangerous plots from developing. Then a few months later we heard of how Twilight and her friends defeated Nightmare Moon, which became an inspiration to us. Finally there was hope, something greater than any weapon: the magic of friendship. We knew that this was a key component in bringing back the old world. But then, some strange things began to happen: First was the budget cuts and widespread downsizing of military and law enforcement. CHC justified that Equestria was entering a new age of peace, and the existing size of peacekeeping forces were not necessary. Second was the weird trends sprouting from the theme of friendship, examples being shipping and the emergence of Wild Equestria. This was unlike the culture of ponies to act crudely towards something of great significance. Now, we think the two are related, and we need your help to prove it.

“Our help? Why us?” Circuit Cut asked, puzzled.

“Because you believe in the same vision as us, and that what’s going on now is wrong. That is enough. Also, you’ve associated with them before, so they’ll be inclined to enlist your help again, especially after you’ve done well in the previous mission they assigned you.”

“...alright, I’ll bite. What’s the deal?” Badger asked, mildly interested.

“Alicorp Industries is a company for researching new magic spells and increasing spell power. They had a defence contract with CHC, but the strange part is that their main research facility in Fillydelphia is built on government land i.e land owned by CHC, and no outside pony has ever been able to acquire government land, even if they had any kind of contract with them. We want to know what Alicorp Industries is up to. I’ll need you to infiltrate their complex in Fillydelphia and acquire some data off their servers.”

“Hacking, eh? I guess that’s right up your alley, CC”, Badger remarked.

“Perfect. They only allow unicorns in,” said Cipher.

“The thing is, how am I going to get to their servers? I mean, I’m sure they don’t just let anybody near their servers, now do they?” Circuit Cut asked.

“I’ll take care of that. We have a unicorn on the inside. He’s worked his way up enough to get into the server room. Their systems are new, with many of them requiring some configuration. He will then take you to the servers where you will attempt to configure them while also accessing the information. You get the data, their servers will be configured, and both of you exit the area with smiles of gratitude seeing you out. The rest of us will then meet you at the designated rendezvous point.”

“Sounds like a plan. I’m game for it", Circuit said, somewhat excited.

“Hang on. I’m going with him”, Badger said.

“No. Too many familiar faces and they’ll suspect you. Besides, you’re not a unicorn”, Cipher replied.

“But someone has to watch out for him.”

“My contact on the inside will keep him safe. I give you my word.”

Badger thought for a moment, and then looked at Circuit Cut, who said “Hey it’ll be ok. Plus, maybe I can find some information on some of their ‘other’ endeavours.”

“Alright, then. Let’s do this”, Badger replied.

~~~

6. Infiltration

The Alicorp Industries building had more blue reflective glass panes than walls,and they glistened in the afternoon sun. Circuit Cut approached the guard house next to the front gate and saw a unicorn inside reading the newspaper..

“Hi, I’m here to do the server repairs”, he said, trying his best to sound professional.

“Really now? Hold on, I’ll get someone to come pick you up”, the guard said from behind the glass window as he pressed a few buttons on the intercom.. “Hey, Clank! the colt to fix the servers is here, get your flank down to the guard house.”

A few minutes later a brown unicorn trotted up to the guard and greeted Circuit Cut who was in the waiting room beside the guard house. He appeared to have a cutie mark consisting of a wrench and screw driver crossed together in a coat-of-arms fashion.

“Ah, you must be Circuit Cut, and that means....what’s the secret phrase?” he asked intently.

Circuit Cut sighed. “A unicorn without it’s horn...is just a horse”, he in a dull demeanor.

“Bingo”, replied the brown unicorn excitedly.

“That is so lame.”

“But if you said that within the compound, everypony would put some serious telekinetic hurtin’ on ya.”

As the entered the building, a blue unicorn greeted them in the lobby,followed by another one,with dark green skin and black hair. Both were in uniform.

“Hey, Clank, how’s it going? Who’s that new friend of yours?” the blue unicorn asked.

“Oh,he’s the guy I brought in to fix the network."

Circuit Cut gave a greeting nod.”Sup?”

“You know,” Clank added, “he was one of the ponies who fended of the convoy that got ambushed.”

The green unicorn said, “Great,they let everypony in these days,even mercs.”

“Lighten up,Chartreuse.”

“Don’t call me that. It's Snake Knot.”

“Don’t mind him,he’s just a little jumpy around strangers”, the blue unicorn replied. “I’m Blake Flake. I’m the general manager here, and I’m glad you and your friends kept our cargo safe on that last run. I appreciate it. I’ll catch you ponies later.” The blue unicorn then went on this way. Circuit Cut could hear Chartreuse’s voice trailing off.

“I’m telling you,it’s a mista....”

CC and Clank continued past the lobby and down a corridor which led to an elevator.

“It’s a good thing they have only a hoof-full of guards around here. We take this down to the basement,where the servers are stored.”

The elevator took them to the second ground floor. They stepped out of the elevator. Clank went straight and approached a door with a numerical key pad with a unicorn guard standing next to it. Slick greeted him and explained his purpose there. The guard nodded, punched in a code and the door opened. Slick and Circuit Cut entered a room that contained a tower twice their height with many flickering blue and green lights.

“*Whistles* that’s an XJ5 unit. A real powerhouse”, Circut remarked in amazement.

“Yeah. The best bits can buy. Anyway, get to it. The sooner we get the data, the sooner we can leave.”

“Alrighty”,Circuit Cut replied,taking out his hoof-pad from his saddle bag. “Cracking an XJ5. This is a chance of a lifetime.”

15 minutes later...

“I’m in.”

“Wha...?” Clank said in disbelief as he turned around.

“Hey,do you know who you’re talkin’ to?”

“Actually,uh,...I don’t,so...wow...that’s amazing. So what’s on it?”

“Well,they’re mostly company info, employee records,emails. I’ll skip the emails. Probably a bunch of office politics,anyway, aaand oh, customer records.”

“That all seems like pretty mundane stuff. Anything else?”

“Hmmm, not much else....hang on,there’s a folder here. Restricted to only admin access.”

“Can you crack it?”

“Let me try...”

10 minutes later...

“Okaaaaay got it. There are a few folders here. This one is a list of spells being developed by Alicorp Industries.”

“Great”, Clank remarked .“That will come in handy should anyone ever use  those spells against us.Copy it to your hoofpad.”

“There’s something else here. A single folder called ‘Marejestic-12’.”

Clank  turned around as Circuit Cut opened it. “Got a bunch of names and some maps in here. Marejestic-12? Hmmm,why does that ring a bell?”.

“That’s because it’s an urban myth,like Area 42”, explained Clank.

“Oh ya,some secret project,right?”

”Sort of. After the war, there was a lot of unrest, and Princess Celestia gathered the greatest minds of unicorns,earth ponies,and pegasi,to work on something.”

“And what is that ‘something’?”

“Weapons,magic,world peace,the works. There are so many conspiracy theories floating around.”

“What happened then?”

“That’s part of the myth. Nopony really knows. The probably project got shut down. Ran out of funding, perhaps.”

“So the list of names here, they’re the ponies who were part of the Marejestic-12 team?”

“Could be, but why does Alicorp Industries have this li...”

Clank’s face turned pale.

“...holy crap we gotta get outta here", Clank said when he realized it.

“Seconded.”

“Now don’t panic.” Get that data off the servers, and do the configuration which is what you came here to do.”

“Yes,sir”, Circuit Cut said as he frantically got to work on the servers configuring. “Done.”

“That was like 5 minutes.”

“Well, configuring an XJ5 unit is cake compared to hacking into it.”

“Makes sense. Let’s go.”

Clank and Circuit Cut opened the door and Clank informed the guard that the servers were working. The guard nodded and thanked them before they made their way back towards the elevator.

As they entered the lobby, they bumped into Blake Flake and the green unicorn again.

“Hey, Blake, the servers are working now. I was just escorting our friend out”, Clank said.

“Heheh, yep, the servers are fine” Circuit Cut added, trying not to give away any signs. The green unicorn saw his expression and gave him a narrow stare.

“Okay well, we’ll be going now. See ya, Blake”, Clank said as the two left. Circuit Cut looked back to see the green unicorn still staring at him.

“Man, that green pony creeps me out”, Circuit Cut remarked.

“Tell me about it. And to think he’s Blake’s right hand”, Clank said as they left the lobby.

As they approached the guard house, the same guard that greeted them on the way out. Guess he hasn’t been alerted yet,Circuit Cut thought.

The walked past the main gate and into the main street.

“Phew, that was close. Where’s the rendezvous point?” Circuit Cut asked, still somewhat nervous.

There’s an old farmhouse outside of town. Well meet up with Cipher and the rest there”, Clank replied

~~~

The sun was beginning to set,but at last they approached the farm. A small vegetable patch with a barn at the other end. Badger and Hot Shot came out of the bar to greet them.

“Come on, we’ll talk inside the barn,” Badger said to them as Circuit Cut and Clank went past an old fence.

“That’s far enough!”

Circuit Cut heard a voice from behind. They turned to see the green unicorn from before, flanked by two other unicorns. All three had mouth-operated pistols levitated.

“Yeah,you see, I may be a little jumpy around strangers,but that’s why they keep me around. It's cause I’m pretty good at weeding out spies...and fear.”

“Hey, I remember you. You’re Chartreuse”, remarked Circuit Cut.

A bullet went right through CC’s left foreleg. His front legs dropped to the ground as he collapsed.

“As I’ve said before, DON’T call me that. It's Snake Knot!”

Almost instantly, another bullet tore through Snake Knot's left shoulder and he fell to the ground. The four of them took cover behind the old fence as shots whizzed past their heads. Hot Shot took out her MO revolver, and in one swift move, rose from behind the fence and shot both the guards in quick succession,center mass. The force of the bullets knocked them back as they fell to the ground, and the blood spatter from both shots was a safe bet that they wouldn't get up again.

“Its alright, I think I can walk”, groaned Circuit Cut.

Badger and Hot Shot quickly attended to Cipher. Cipher came out of the barn, an MO sniper rifle on his back. He came over to Circuit Cut, took out a syringe and injected him near the wound.

“Medication?” Badger asked curiously.

“It will speed up the wound’s healing process”, Cipher replied.

Suddenly, they heard a splutter. Apparently Snake Knot was still alive...barely. Greycolt walked towards him. Upon closer inspection, Badger noticed that the bullet entry wound went right through his heart,and blood was oozing out profusely.

“*Coughs blood* Whoever you are...you cannot...stop us. The Equestria that you know will soon be lost forever. Directive 34 WILL be carried out.”

“What’s Directive 34?”, asked Greycolt.

“...’I-If it exists...it will be defiled’...”

“Who’s behind this?”

“Dark is coming. You’re done fo....”, said Snake Knot as he coughed one last time. Cipher stared at the dead unicorn’s face.

“Cipher, we found something in the servers. It seems pretty big,” Clank said, shaking Cipher out of his stare.

“We’ll talk on the way back. Let’s bury the bodies and make sure we’re not followed”, Cipher replied.

~~~

8. Attack on Alicorp

The wagon auto-carriage pulled into the carriage repair shop. As soon as the shutter closed, Ratchet levitated a control pad and pressed a button. The platform which the carriage was on began to descend into the basement, with another platform from the ceiling taking its place.

“Okay, let’s see what we got here”, he said, rubbing his hooves together as he examined the huge box and it’s lock. “This lock seems to be Mark III Horseshoe lock. I think I have some picks that we can us-”

He stopped as Clank zapped the lock with an intense heat spell, which melted the lock.

“Oh, right, I forgot you knew how to use that”, Ratchet remarked, rather disappointed.

“Thermite taught it to me”, Clank said, smiling, as he opened the box.

“It’s...an EqueNet signal booster...or at least a part of it.”, Circuit Cut remarked, in a disappointed tone.

“What were you expecting? Giant Tesla Coils?” asked Badger.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions before having a closer look”, remarked Cipher.

“Alright. I’ll just set in the table.”, Ratchet said to himself as he slowly levitated the object and set it down gently on the table

“Hmmm, there are components here that are not present in normal signal boosters”, Circuit Cut remarked, “Let me just...remove this, and...open this cover...”

When the cover was completely removed, they saw what looked like a small rectangular battery cell inside.

“This...this can’t be...I thought it was just a myth. A theory”, Circuit Cut said, taken by surprise.

“And ‘this’ is...?” asked Cipher

“This, my fellow ponies, is a magically-charged battery cell. It can potentially hold a signiticantly larger amount of energy than a regular battery cell..”

“So, with this cell, anypony can have an almost limitless energy supply?” asked Badger.

“Not really, but with this, one can power an artificial spell. An artificial spell does not need a unicorn to constantly power it with a horn. They just charge the battery with magic energy and the spell draws energy from it.”

There was a moment of silence as the ponies contemplated the uses of such a device.

“Why charge a battery when a unicorn can just conjure a long lasting spell? ” asked Greycolt, breaking the silence.

“Here’s where it gets interesting...the magical energy somehow works like electrical energy from the cell, hence less magic power is used up compared to a conventional spell. Powerful spells draw more energy over time and don’t last very long, but weak spells draw less energy at a time, so they can last much longer.” Another reason is although it does decay over time, the spell can be temporarily stopped with Dispel if needed. “Although the spell’s energy is used up slowly, the charging of the battery requires a lot more, since such a spell is very, very hard to conjure up”, explained Circuit Cut.

“Artificial magic? Damn, those Marejestic-12 ponies sure are twisted”, remarked Badger.

“I’ll say. According to the Equestrian Magic Act, only unicorns are allowed to practice magic”, explained Circuit Cut.

“So that’s why black magic is prohibited, eh?” asked Hot Shot.

“Yeap, that’s probably the reason Twilight Sparkle was troubled at the thought of Zecora practicing black magic”, replied Circuit Cut.

“You know, in relation to the Equestrian Magic Act, I wouldn’t be surprised if something like this would be considered black magic”, remarked Clank.

Cipher voiced out his opinion, “Good thing too. It’s bad enough that unicorns can misuse the magic they have, but if this kind of tech gets into the hooves of non-unicorn ponies, everyone can use magic for just about anything; running factories, moving carriages, and even powering weapons and armor. No wonder Alicorp Industries wants it.”

“I was always curious on how they could make such a cell. I wonder what’s inside this thing”, Circuit Cut said as his horn lit up.

“Whoa, hold on there. We don’t know if that’s safe”, cautioned Cipher.

“Yeah, it could blow up in your face if you’re not careful”, remarked Ratchet.

Circuit Cut sighed. “Fine....I’ll go get a face shield. You gotta have a shield somewhere around here right?”

Circuit Cut came back, wearing a welding face shield. he slowly cut the top cover and opened it.He gently shook it, and fine dust came out of it. “You got a microscope somewhere here by any chance?”

“Uh, yeah, right over there”, Ratchet said as he pointed to a corner.

“It’s a pretty interesting garage you got here”, Badger said, raising an eyebrow.

“Well there’s so much junk down here, I hardly have time to clean up.

Circuit Cut returned with the microscope and put a sample of the dust under it. He zoomed in and examined the particles. Suddenly his eyes widened in horror.

“What’s the matter there, buddy?” Clank asked. “You looked like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

Circuit Cut slowly turned to them. “I think I know why Marejestic-12 would keep the development of something like this a secret from the rest of Equestria, as the material here is alicornite dust, in other words...fine-grounded unicorn horn.”

Hot Shot gasped.

“What the heck?!” exclaimed Ratchet and Clank.

“That’s insane!” said Badger

“Imagine how many unicorn horns they had to cut off and grind to make the cells”, Cipher remarked. “....but, then again, something like this can’t be overlooked.”

Badger turned to Cipher and asked, “What are you saying?”

“I’ll send the cell back to HQ so they can have a look at it. Maybe they can salvage it or reverse engineer it.”

“You’re not seriously considering that option,right? This is sick.”

“I’m fully aware on that, alright? I’m just saying, maybe there’s a way we can use this technology. We’ll gain the advantage against Alicorp Industries and will be able to stop them easily if we manage to replicate it. Besides, if we don’t, all of the progress by Marejestic-12 would have gone to waste.”

“And it should. What they did was clearly unethical”, said Ratchet.

“We won’t go murdering unicorns just for their horns. We’ll use the dead bodies of anypony during our operations. I’ll make it this personal request clear to Fritz.”

~~~

As evening approached, the ponies gathered around the table, Cipher made an announcement. “HQ has gone over the intel. So far they’ve been unsuccessful in locating the remaining Marejestic-12 members, but there are two Marejestic-12 bunkers, near us. One is south of Manehattan, in the valley behind Baltimare. The other, is somewhere below Alicorp Industries. Tomorrow, we’ll launch a two-pronged attack. We will assault Alicorp Industries’ main building, and the Baltimare OWP team will raid the bunker south of Manehattan. We’ll seize their assets, and deny them from acquiring further assets.”

“How are we getting in? Security’s gotta be tight”, asked Circuit Cut.

“They’ll be no match for all 6 of us. Badger and I will enter the building from the roof, bringing Circuit Cut with us. We’ll clear the top floor and go straight to the CEO’s office where Circuit Cut will hack into the CEO’s computer for any information we can use. We’ll search for anything useful before clearing the floors as we go down. Meanwhile, Ratchet and Clank will walk right up the front door, clear the lobby and barricade all ground entrances so no one can get out, and the authorities won’t get in. That way, we won’t need to engage or harm CRA personnel”.

“If we barricade the door, how do we get out there?” asked Hot Shot.

“There’s a section here that’s directly under the sewers”, replied Cipher. “We’ll blow it up with some explosives and escape through there.”

“Wait a minute. What if the CRA ponies are pegasi too?” They can just fly onto the roof floor like you ponies.”

“We’ll barricade the roof access door on our way down”, Cipher replied.

“Are we just gonna kill everyone?” asked Badger.

“We kill any pony who stands in our way. It’s either them or us. However, to avoid excessive bloodshed, I’ve acquired these from HQ.”

Cipher opened a box containing six guns. “These are MO tranquilizer dart pistols. One shot should knock an average pony out for a few hours. Any questions? No. Then that’ll be all. Get some rest. We attack at dawn.”

~~~

It was a cloudy day in Fillydelphia, as arranged by the local pegasus weather team. The guard at the front gate was sipping his coffee while reading the morning paper. Suddenly he heard the sound of a steam engine. That sound was getting louder. As he looked up, two SP passenger carriages crashed through the front gate, which made him spit out his coffee. The carriages headed right for the lobby space, which it’ walls consisited of few pillars and mostly reflective glass. Each crashed into a pillar, smashing it and shattering blue glass everywhere. Three unicorns and an earth pony got out from the carriages and into the lobby, clad in black outfits with masks covering their faces.

“Everybody ok?” asked Clank.

“I’m good,” replied Ratchet.

“Good to go!” replied Hot Shot.

“Alright. We’ll barricade the door and move up floor by floor. Clear the lobby.”

The ponies moved into the building, shooting anypony with a tranq dart.

“Lobby’s clear!” Ratchet called out.

“Alright, time to make things go BOOM”, Clank replied as the activated a detonator, which triggered an explosive device inside each carriage, causing the entire front portion of the lobbly to collapse.

“Well, that should buy us some time. Let’s go”, Clank said.

~~~

While the ruckus was going on downstairs, Badger, Cipher, and Circuit Cut made their way into the top floor. The staff were shocked but retaliated by hurling chairs at them. Circuit Cut projected a circluar shield to block the incoming projectiles. Circuit Cut and Badger hid behind the shield and shot the unicorns one by one as Circuit Cut slowly moved forward, towards the sign that read “Management”.

When they breached the door, Badger pointed his gun at two staff members who were inside, and Circuit Cut dissipated his shield. Cipher headed for the door labeld “Quicksilver-CEO”. He kicked the door open but there was no one inside.

“Where’s Quicksilver?!” Cipher asked the members held at gunpoint.

“I’m sorry but Miss Quicksilver is not in. If you would wish to meet with her, I suggest you make an appointment through the proper channels”, replied one of them.

“I don’t have time for games. Where. Is. She? You better have the right answer this time else you’ll get a bullet in your head.”

The unicorn didn’t budge. Cipher pulled out an MO revolver, punched him the gut and forced the gun to his cheek.

“Ansher me!”

Seeing that Cipher was distracted, The other unicorn lunged at him, but Badger was quick to respond. A dart hit his neck and he fell to the ground.

“I don’t know! I don’t know,ok?” the unicorn finally gave in.

“Wrong answer”, Cipher responded.

“OK OK hold on. She said some new development came up and she had to leave immediately.”

“When did she leave?”

“Yesterday evening!”

“Where was she headed to?”

“I don’t know! She didn’t tell us anything! Please, you have to believe me!”

“Alright”, Cipher said as he nodded to Badger. the unicorn felt a prick, and then he fell unconciscous.

“Sleep tight. Circuit Cut, see if you can get anything useful out of that computer.”

“On it!” the blue unicorn responded as he took out his HoofPad. Badger and Cipher watched the door.

Circuit Cut’s Hoofpad was connected to the CPU, his pad displaying a few numbers and letters. “Average company security’s easier than this. What are you hiding, Quicksilver?” Circuit Cut said to himself. “Well. whatever it is, you can’t hide from me. Aaaaand I’m in!”

“Anything useful?” Cipher said as he left Badger to guard the door to look at the computer.

“Yeah, there are a few documents here. Oh, here’s one, titled “Our Goal.” Circuit Cut clicked it and a document opened.

Directive 34:Equestria-Our Goal

If it exists, it will be defiled. That is our code, the code that we will use to bring Equestria to it’s knees and recreate it anew. The only thing that stands in our way is Canterlot High Command and the infidels who make it up. The war with the mountain trolls was caused by them and their greedy desires to claim every corner of this land and beyond. If they are removed, nopony else will stand against us.

First, we will introduce our ideals into the populace. Currently, Equestria is clinging to the so-called concept called “the magic of friendship”. Friendship? Magic? Princess Celestia must be desperate. However, it is surprising the population is actually believing and following the concept. If we can twist that concept in our favour, we can bring many ponies to our side. The key to this are the ponies who call themselves “Masters”, who seem to garner immense power from their followers. If we can somehow convince them to join our cause or use them to our advantage, the ponies of Equestria will be singing our tune. It will not be that hard. We have what everypony desires. It is only a matter of ‘persuasion’. They cannot resist their own lust, and will eventually succumb and submit to us. A curse of all creatures born of this world.

Second, after our ideals are implanted into the populace, once a threshold is reached, a riot will ensue, and not even the Canterlot Royal Army will be able to contain it. At that point, nopony can stop us. We will march into Canterlot and remove CHC, and with them out of the way, Equestria will be ours for the taking. And then, finally we will be accepted worthy of our place in NetCon. Many other clusters have succumbed to Directive 34 before this. Equestria is just one more to fall.

“Mother of Celestia. So, Directive 34 is plan to bring down a system from the inside”, remarked Cipher with a grim face. “What’s ‘NetCon’?”

“Maybe it’s a place? A place where Directive 34 originated from?”

“Whoever these...creatures are, they’ve come from outside the mountain range.”

“So there is a world outside there?”

“This seems a lot bigger than we initially thought it was. Heck, this pretty much tops all of the conspiracy theories that have been flying around all this time. Out there is a species...that...wants to topple Equestria through seduction, power struggles, riots and probably hysteria.”

“It could be the mountain trolls.”

“I don’t know. We’ve been fighting unicorns all this time.”

“Uh, Cipher. You there?” came a voice from Cipher’s comm.

“Yes, this is Cipher. Come in, Ratchet.”

“Yeah we’ve disabled the surveillance system already, but there’s something you wanna see.”

“Got It. On my way down. Cipher Out. Badger, let’s head down. Hot Shot, cover CC while he copies the rest of the files. As soon as you’re done, come meet us at the Basement floor.”

“Got it”, replied Hot Shot as Cipher and Badger disappeared downstairs. “Babysitting duty, eh?”

“I don’t want to hear it”, snapped Circuit Cut.

~~~

Badger and Cipher met Ratchet and Clank just after the stairs leading into the basement floor corridor.

“Alright, so what did you find?” asked Cipher, curious.

Ratchet and Clank didn’t say a word, but gestured them to follow. The four ponies moved down the corridor till they came to a room at the end. The door opened into small office. Cipher didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary...until he saw a big metal door in place of the bookshelf that was pushed aside. It had a circular wheel as a handle.

“The bunker”, Cipher said as he moved up to the door. He turned the handle and the door swung outwards, revealing a flight of stairs.

“It’s unlocked,” Badger remarked.

“Which means some pony is probably inside”, Cipher said as he descended down the stairs. “Keep an eye out. Whomever they are, they’re extremely dangerous.”

They came to another lobby with a desk. Cipher followed the sign “Test Chambers”, which soon lead them to a series of rooms. They checked the rooms to find them empty, but some of them had dried blood stains on the walls, which disturbed them. Cipher say a piece of paper on a desk and picked it up.

Marejestic-12 report no.42 : “Queen and Hive” theory

Aim : To Investigate the Relation Between the Six’s influence and Equestrian Morale

Variables:

Manipulated: The presence of “Queen” elements i.e. the Six

Responding : Reaction of the Hive i.e. test subjects

Cipher skipped the Procedure section and went straight to the Findings section.

Findings:

Based on the tests carried out, it was observed that subjects are in a dull demeanor before the Six came to be, and showed happy expressions when talking about the Six, but more interesting, is that subjects show radical behavior when they were told of the absence of the Six. For example, Test Subject 4 who was in isolation for 2 months killed himself with a fork when he was told that we murdered the Six earlier in a very graphic manner. We even showed him photos to support our statement.

What we can conclude from this is that Equestria’s strength somehow lies with the Six’s friendship prowess. This makes sense as they were seeking a new source of hope, as the scars of war with the mountain trolls were still there. If the Six were somehow removed(preferably in a painful and violent way), Equestria would lose its source of power, and will subsequently crumble into delirium.

This “Queen and Hive” theory was reinforced by the actions of the Masters who overpopularized the Six by turning the “magic of friendship” into a fad, further increasing their public value, and indirectly, increasing the total potential damage if the Six were suddenly removed. If they were killed during the height of their popularity, it would yield the maximum impact, possibly resulting in riots and mass hysteria.

“Damnit,” Badger said, disgusted.

“Seconded. To think that they would go this far”, Cipher added, his face showing disgust. “Something must have influenced them.”

“That’s exactly right”, came a voice from behind. The four ponies turned around to see a unicorn clad in padded dark grey armor and helmet, his whole body emitting a purplish glow. He was levitating an MP40, a pre-War SMG. The trigger was too small to fit a hoof in, but that was no problem for a unicorn. On his shoulder pads were engraved the numbers “D34” on each side. “Throw your weapons over here”. The four did as they were instructed.

“What drove you to perform such unspeakable acts?” asked Cipher.

“It’s what we all want: fame, recognition...the Six gagged and bent over, hahahaha.”

“You’re a sick bastard, you know that?!”

“Oooh, watch out, we got a fan colt over here!”

“You’ll regret that.”

“Will I now?”

“There’s no way out. Once the local authorities find this place and CRA steps in, you’re done for.”

“Oh, but by the time they reach here, there will be nothing left to find”, the unicorn replied. Cipher’s eyes glanced towards the backpack slinged on the unicorn’s back.

“Oh yes”, the unicorn said with a devious smile, noticing Cipher’s wandering eyes.

Suddenly Clank lunged at him, deploying a curved blue shield in front of him as Cipher and the rest ducked for cover. The armored unicorn fired a burst of shots and all deflected off the shield as Clank tackled him to the ground, relieving the SMG of it’s telekinetic grip.

The armored unicorn pushed Clank off him, and he tumbled to the side. The unicorn brought his SMG to bear on Clank and fired a hail of bullets, just before Clank deployed his shield.

“You’re weak”, the unicorn frowned as Clank’s shield began to crack under the sheer volume of fire, and eventually shattered. A few founds hit Clank in the nose and chest, and he collapsed.

“NOOO!” shouted Ratchet as he charged at the unicorn and knocked him against the wall, punching him repeatedly in the face. Ratchet too was sent flying to the opposite end of the room. As the unicorn got up, Badger jumped on him and slapped his ears with air. In the unicorn’s split second of confusion, Badger grabbed his neck and twisted it with a loud *CRACK*. The unicorn fell to the ground, lifeless.

Cipher rushed to Clank, and Badger helped Ratchet up.

“How bad is he?” Badger shouted.

“Not looking good. There are multiple wounds and a lot of blood lost. I can only inject one area”, Cipher shouted back as he injected the wound close to Clank’s heart. “We’ve got to get him out of here. By, the check the back the unicorn was carrying.”

Badger opened the bag. “These are military grade plastic explosives. There are about 4 packs of this stuff. This can bring the whole building down.”

“Or a bunker”, replied Cipher. “CRA cannot be allowed to know what happened here. I say we blow it either way. Hot Shot, CC, do you read me? Take whatever files you’ve copied and meet us at the extraction point, double time!”

Badger placed some explosives at the main lobby and by the door. By this time, Ratchet and Cipher were heading out the big door, with Clank on Cipher’s back.

“The section where the basement is directly below the sewers is up ahead. Hurry!”

Cipher reached the designated point and Ratchet set up the explosives. Upon detonation, they peered down the whole to see the running water of the sewers directly below.

“There. Jump on the banks right there!” Cipher said, pointing to a section where they could descend, just as Circuit Cut and Hot Shot arrived.

After everypony was down in the sewers and a safe distance away, Badger activated both detonators. The four packs of plastic explosives obliterated the bunker’s entrance as it filled with rubble. The explosives just above the sewer’s entrance also filled the whole with bricks and dirt. And then, all was quiet except for the running water of the sewers.

“This way”, Cipher said as they turned around a corner. 10 minutes later, they reached a colt-hole cover, with a ladder. One by one, they climbed up, with Cipher being the last. Ratchet levitated Clank up, and finally Cipher climbed up the ladder and replaced the cover. The found themselves by a street.

“So where do we go?” asked Circuit Cut.

CIpher thought for a moment. “We’ll get him under some shade. Hot Shot, yo gut some bits to spare?”

“What do you need?”

“Gauze. Two rolls will do. Get ‘em quick! The rest of you, keep pressure on the wounds. Hang in there, Clank. You’re a strong colt.”

5 minutes later, Hot Shot returned with the bandages.

“Ratchet, can you extract the bullets?” Cipher asked “Two of ‘em in the chest.”

“I’ll do it”, Ratchet said firmly, as his horn lit up. He slowly opened the wound, and found the bullet. He tugged slowly, and the bullet emerged. As it fell out, Cipher gestured Hot Shot to apply pressure to the wound. Ratchet moved to pull out the second one, the one close to his heart.

“Hnnnggrk”, Clank groaned in pain.

“Hey take it easy, we’re almost there”, assured Cipher.

After the second bullet fell out, Cipher immediately wrapped his chest in gauze. The bullet that hit his nose was a through-and-through, and Cipher bandaged that too. “He’ll be alright. With the bullets out and the wounds patched, the serum I gave him earlier should restore normal blood flow and blood cell count. Come on, let's head back to Manehattan."

~~~

9. D.A.R.K revelation

It was afternoon when they finally got back to the safehouse in Manehattan. As they opened the door, Cipher hurried to the basement, where he found the long range radio still functioning. He put on the headphones and adjusted the frequency.

“This is Cipher form Manehattan. OverColt, do you copy, over?”

“*static* This is OverColt, we copy, Cipher.”

“What is the status of the Baltimare team headed to the MRJ-12 bunker, over?”

“Cipher, we’ve lost contact with the Baltimare team no less than a few hours ago,over.”

“What? Did you send anypony to investigate,over?”

“That’s a negative, we did not sent anypony else to investigate, over.”

“Damnit! We believe the asset in question is being pursued by a highly dangerous terrorist cell. Possible unknowns from outside Equestria,over.”

“Say again, Cipher, I don’t think I read you on that last part,over.”

“We are dealing with enemies beyond the mountain range,over.”

“.....copy that, Cipher. What do you need,over?”

“Have all available forces on standby to move to Canterlot. I’ve got a feeling the situation there is about to go critical. Cipher out.”

Cipher went back upstairs where the ponies were exhausted from their ordeal.“Something’s not right.”

“You’re telling me”,Circuit Cut responded,”After Rarity got nabbed by some Diamond Dogs yesterday, lo and behold, today there are already some pretty saucy art on Wild Equestria.”

“No,not that. The team who is supposed to secure the bunker is not responding.”

“You think something happened to ‘em?” asked Badger.

“Most definitely. That’s why you and I are going to investigate.”

“Are you serious?”

“Being pegasi we can travel there faster.”

“I don’t mean to say that’s a bad idea, but let’s say the strike team is in trouble, how are the two of us going to be of help if we’re up against 10 D34 ponies?”

“That’s why we won’t go unprepared”, Cipher replied, with a faint smile as he gestured Badger to follow him. They made their way to the basement where Cipher slid a cabinet aside, revealing a second cabinet. He opened the cabinet doors to  reveal an assortment of weapons and armor.

“Here, take this,” Cipher said as he handed Badger an MP40 submachinegun.

“Hey, tehis looks like the one that D34 unicorn used”, Badger remarked.

“Exactly, but see, the grip has been removed so it’s now a MO weapon. You can bite on the trigger here.”

Cipher took another for himself, but this SMG was a bit different from Badger’s. Instead of the filed off grip, the trigger connected to a curved piece of metal, big enough to fit a hoof in.

“That is a weird-looking gun”, Badger said, giving it a puzzled stare.

“Hoof-Operated. You’ll see”, replied Cipher as he took two extra magazines for his SMG. Cipher handed Badger a knife with a sheath, which he tied under his left hoof. Cipher himself sheathed a machete.

“One more thing”, Cipher said as he passed Badger what seemed to be a biscuit. “It’s an energy cracker. It’s not much but it will keep you alert for a little while.”

After Cipher and Badger suited up with armor covering head to hoof, he told Ratchet,”If we don’t return within two hours, call HQ for help.” Ratchet reluctantly nodded.

Cipher and Badger spread their wings as they took to the skies, not knowing what to expect or what awaits them at their destination.

~~~

“According to the map, the bunker’s entrance should be in the valley. It’s easy to miss, especially from the air, with the rich vegetation in the area”, Cipher explained as he and Badger reached BaltiMount, the mountain overlooking Baltimare. The mountain height and the sheer amount of vegetation made railroad building difficult there, and hence Fillydelphia was connected to Baltimare via the Manehattan Outskirts and by sea.

As they passed BaltiMount, they reached the valley where the river made it’s way to the ocean. They slowly descended, with Badger following Cipher’s lead. Finally they found a good place to land. Following the map, Cipher cut a swath through the vegetation with his machete, keeping a keen eye on the surroundings for any signs of the bunker, or enemies.

“Dhere”, Cipher said, still clenching the machete. He and Badger approached a clearing where the vegetation had been cut already, and a few feet away, was a cave. They cautiously entered the cave, switching on their flashlights.

At the end of the cave, they came across the bunker’s round door. Badger here opened it, and they went in. The bunker it was shot up with many bullet holes and loose sparking wires. They moved past the destroyed furniture, trying to avoid the wires.

“Looks like a fierce battle took place here”, whispered Badger.

Suddenly they heard something drop behind them. They turned to a dark section down the hall and could make out shapes of two unicorns.

“Who’s there? ”

One of them began to mumble something. “If it exists...it will be defiled...”

As Cipher moved closer, he could recognize their uniforms as members of OWP Baltimare. The unicorns were facing the other way, and slowly turned around. The other pony mumbled, “It will be defiled...defiled....”

“Do you copy..?.”

“I WILL DEFILE YOU ALL!” the pony shouted as he raised his weapon.

“Get down, Badger!” Cipher said as he ducked behind a support beam.

A hail of bullets whizzed past their faces. Badger ducked from behind a monitor and returned fire. That’s when he saw Cipher do the most peculiar thing: he got on his hind legs, pulled out his SMG, and held it with his forehooves. The curved metal piece was able to fit his hoof. Cipher ducked out of cover, aimed by aligning the gunsights and squeezed his hoof in control bursts of fire. One unicorn collapsed with multiple hits to his face and chest. The other unicorn started to pick up objects with his horn and furiously throw them at Cipher. Badger tried to distract him by providing covering fire. The unicorn caught sight of Badger and hurled a bench at him. The bench hit the monitor Badger was hiding behind, pinning him to the ground.

Cipher sprinted forwards and hit the unicorn in the face with his gun. The unicorn flew backwards.

“Don’t do it!” Cipher shouted at the unicorn, who was getting to his hooves.

“Heh...death...to the infide-”

A burst of rounds embedded themselves in the crazed unicorn, and he fell to the ground, motionless. Cipher moved towards the dead unicorns and checked the bodies.

“Damn, why did you do it?” He said, almost tearing.

“Hnnngh”, came a voice from behind. Cipher turned around to see Badger pinned by the monitor.

“Are you alright?” Cipher asked as he helped Badger to his hooves.

“Yeah. Who knew a monitor could be so heavy?” Badger asked, jokingly. “Was that them?”

“I’m afraid so, and they were just rookies too. What the buck happened to them? DId they someone get corrupted as well?”

Badger and Cipher continued to search the shot-up bunker. Further inside, they came towards what seemed to be a functioning monitor, with a blank cyan screen. “That’s strange”, Cipher remarked, “The stuff here stopped working ages ag-”

The monitor suddenly produced an image, a video feed. A familiar unicorn was displayed on the screen, as they recognized the silver cutie mark and mane color.

“....Quicksilver?” Badger asked.

“Hello, boys. I thought somepony might drop in here”, came the voice from the screen.

“What did you do to those unicorns?!” Cipher demanded.

“Actually, all did was persuade them a bit. After that they eagerly submitted themselves.”

“Your acts of influencing these ponies will to come to an end! I will personally see to it!”

“I’m not influencing  anypony to do anything against their will...I am only leading them. They chose to do this...by their own will. Equestria needs a new entity to lead them, and the Directorate of Anarchy, Ravaging and Killing, or D.A.R.K, is here to fulfill that purpose”, Quicksilver said with narrow eyes and a devious smile.

“No. I refuse to believe it!! Nopony with a sane mind would ever do this!” Cipher exclaimed.

“Oh, you’ll be surprised what anypony would do with the correct persuasion.”

Two unicorns appeared on screen beside Quicksilver. Without their helmets off, Cipher recognized the other half of OWP Baltimare. “No...it can’t be!”

“Join us, Cipher...be part of the cause. The rewards are quite...‘exquisite’,” one of the unicorns said with a smile, running a hoof down Quicksilver’s flank.

“My, my, you two can’t get enough, can you? Don’t worry, there’s plenty more where that came from”, Quicksilver said with a laugh.

Cipher clenched his teeth. “You...you’re despicable, you know that?”

“See? That’s the ultimate reason why you can’t stop us, and never will. You can fight all you want, but you cannot prevent anypony from doing what makes them feel good.”

Cipher’s widened. He tried to speak, but the words didn’t come out. He dropped his weapon and slumped to his hind legs, and could do nothing but stare at the ground in front of him.

“Ha, I sure love it when I leave ‘em speechless...or breathless,” Quicksilver said.

“Cipher...Cipher, you ok?” Badger said as he tried to shake Cipher.

“I’d love to stay and chat, but you took too long to get here and I’ve got another engagement somewhere else. See you soon. Oh, and since this seems like a depressing moment, I wanna end it with a bang.”

The monitor switched to a timer showing 10 seconds. Badger’s eyes widened.

“Cipher,we’ve gotta get out of here”, Badger said at the top of his voice, but Cipher just stared blankly at the ground. Badger hoisted him on his back and flew as far as his wings could carry him. Bits of dangling wires scraped his wings as he flew towards the exit. He. barely cleared the door when a huge explosion engulfed the whole bunker. A few seconds later, a cave-in buried the bunker for good.

The sun was setting as Badger set Cipher down on the ground beside the river. “You alright? Hey, snap out of it!”

Cipher remain dazed, staring into nothingness.

"‘If it exists, it will be defiled’”.

“It’s what we all want: fame, recognition...the Six gagged and bent over, hahahaha.”

“They chose to do this...by their own will.”

“If the Six were somehow removed(in a violent and painful manner), Equestria would lose its source of power, and will subsequently crumble into delirium.”

“We will remove CHC, and with them out of the way, Equestria will be ours for the taking.”

“I’d love to stay and chat, but you took too long to get here and I’ve got another engagement somewhere else.”

Cipher suddenly blinked and came to his senses. “...the Gala...”

“What?” said a puzzled Badger.

“The grand Galloping Gala is tonight. They are going for Canterlot, their targets being Princess Celestia, Canterlot High Command, and the Six. All three figures will be present at the Gala.”

“Holy shit, really?”

“If I were to plan the fastest revolution in history, that’s how I’d do it”, Cipher said as he pulled out a radio from his backpack which had an extendable antenna.

“What’s that?”

“Long-range radio. For operatives deep within enemy lines. Hello, OverColt. This is Cipher.”

“Yeah, we read you, Cipher. Go ahead.”

“They’re heading for the grand galloping Gala which is tonight.”

“Cipher confirm your last message, over.”

“It’s exactly what I said. Get the team in Canterlot on maximum alert. We’ll need them at the palace. Cipher out.”

“Roger that, Cipher. Overcolt out.”

“We’ve gotta get to Canterlot ASAP.”

“But how are we gonna get there? It’s miles away!” remarked Badger.

Cipher smiled as be produced two more biscuits from his pocket.

“You gotta be kidding me,right?” Badger said, wondering how the biscuits survived the ragdoll show just now.

“Hey if doesn’t work, I wouldn’t eat”, replied Cipher with a smile, much to Badger’s relief. “Now come on. We’re gonna show them that although ponies are ‘creatures of this world’, we don’t back down easily.”

~~~

10. Spirit of the Old World

“...the best night ever!” exclaimed Twilight and her friends.

“Why haven’t I heard of this place before? The donuts here are amazing!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash.

“Heh, do I know how to pick ‘em or what ?” Spike said, triumphantly.

“Ah' second that, Rainbow. We should do this more often,” Applejack added.

“We should definitely do this more often”, Princess Celestia said. The others turned to her in surprise, and all shared a good laugh.

Their laughter was interrupted by a guard who came through the door. “Your Highness, we have an emergency situation. Canterlot is under attack!”

“What?!” They exclaimed. The sheer emotional change from happiness to urgency gave them. Princess Celestia a shock. “By whom?”

“We’re not sure, Your Highness, but right now we need to get into the palace for your own safety. I will escort you inside immediately!”

Spike sighed as he eyed his last donut. “Aww, but I was just going to finish this donut with extra sprinkl..ooof!” He was cut off by Twilight telekinetically pulling him onto her back as they sped off.

~~~

The streets were in chaos. Civilians ran in panic, as Directive 34 soldiers marched up the streets. “Rejoice, for the Directorate of Anarchy, Ravaging, and Killing is here to liberate all of Equestria!” chanted a D34 unicorn. “Once we take over, free flanks for everyone!”

This dumbfounded some of the civilians.

“...you get sloppy seconds too”, the unicorn added. This sparked a riot on the streets, which added to the existing chaos.

The Canterlot Royal Army guards arrived and attacked them with spells, the same spells they obtained from the defence contract between Alicorp Industries and Canterlot High Command. This grave mistake cost them dearly, as the D34 soldiers knew the strengths and weaknesses for each spell, dodging their castings and countering them during moments of exposure in their attacks. The guards’ thick armor was tough. It deflected most bullets but it made them slow and encumbered. A few shots to  their legs weakened them, and eventually they were brought down with a combination of spells and firepower.

“They know our spells. How could they know?!” A guard exclaimed, losing his patience and composure.

“We’re keeping them at bay, but we’re taking heavy casualties. Retreat to the palace!” shouted a Sergeant as they pulled back.

~~~

   “This way, your Highness,” the guard said to Princess Celestia, followed by Twilight, Spike, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie.

They reached the main banquet room, which was empty at this point. The guard waited at the door and gestured to Princess Celestia, prompting her to come out of the room.

“Wait here till the other guards arrive. They will escort you to a safe place. Till then, stay quiet and lay low. I will see you soon”, she said to the rest, as she turned off the lights. “What’s the situation?” She asked the guard.

“Your Highness, the enemy is making their way here. We can slow them down, but we can’t stop them", reported the guard.

“Understood. Have the guards defend the palace entrances and fall back to the throne room if necesssary. We will make our final stand there.”

“Yes, Your Highness!” the guard said, saluting with a hoof.

~~~

Canterlot Palace was swarming with air patrols as the city continued to be engulfed in turmoil and flames. Cipher and Badger flew in from the foot of the mountain and slowly worked their way upwards, keeping an eye on the horizon. They eventually reached a portion of the Royal Gardens.

“We can sneak in through here”, said Cipher, as he wielded a Mauser 98k scoped rifle. Similar to his SMG, this rifle retained it’s stock, but the trigger guard was removed, and the trigger size was enlarged. Badger nodded in agreement, as they entered the palace. Most of the sections were dark and empty. Occasionally they had to bypass ground patrols along the corridor and air patrols above the upper walkways.

“I’ve never seen so many guards deployed at once”, Badger whispered “They must be in a real tight spot.”

“Exactly, which is why we need to find Princess Celestia and the Six before those D34 soldiers do.”

~~~

“So, when are those handsome stallions coming back for us again?” Rarity asked in the dark.

“I’m not sure, but we can’t leave here in case they come back only to find us missing,” Twilight replied.

“Man, this stinks! Even during a siege like this we’re being babysitted! I’d like go out there and fight the invaders myself! I’ll even put one hoof behind my back”, Rainbow Dash said, punching the air with her left hoof.

“Well, whatever it is, I hope at the end I get back home, to my nice warm bed”, Spike said.

“Umm...maybe the invaders are gone already and the guards just forgot to come get us?” Fluttershy remarked optimistically.

“Ah’m with Fluttershy on this. We gotta stay positive if we wanna keep all of our apples in one basket, if you know what Ah' mean,” Applejack said confidently.

The others looked at her, dumbfounded.

Suddenly, the doors burst open and a wounded guard slumped inside the dark room.

“Twilight...ngh...run...” the guard mustered all his strength to say those words before he was mercilessly gunned down from behind. A unicorn holding a gun in his mouth walked in.

“Ooooh, Tfwilighf,huh? zhackpot! Quickshilver’s gonna make a real exhample of you,” the unicorn said, holding an MO pistol in his mouth as he illuminated the darkness, checking the room bit by bit, “We’f gotta fhank you and your friends, for your friendship and schuff. It’s truly ...magical....heheheh. Our exahmple-making will be all the more....effective.”

Suddenly a blue hind leg burst out of the shadows right in the unicorn’s face.

“Take that!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed as she flew back up.

The unicorn fell back and dropped his gun. “Rainbow Dash is here too? Heheh this is a pleasant coincidence!”

“There’s more where that came from, punk!” Dash exclaimed as she swooped down.

“You need your wings clipped”, the unicorn said as he unleashed two waves of telekinetic knives. The knives struck both Dash’s wings with two small red clouds bursting out of them as she fell to the ground.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight cried.

“AHA! Found you,” the unicorn grinned, advancing towards her. What he didn’t expect was a headbutt out of nowhere, throwing him a few feet away.

“Take that, ya varmit!” Applejack exclaimed, frowning. The headbutt really hit the spot, as the unicorn found it hard to get up. Before he got to his hooves, the huge circular banquet table flipped over and crashed down on him. Twilight, exhausted from that feat, collapsed.

Suddenly the table exploded with a shockwave as fragments flew everywhere. The shockwave knocked the six ponies back and a hail of little splinters peppered them. As the dust cleared, the unicorn emerged.

“Alright, no more games”, he said, approaching them, his face ridden with anger. Before he could cast a spell, a burst of rounds hit him from behind. He slumped to the ground, and as he turned to see who it was, a bullet found its mark in his head.

“Are you ponies alright?” came a muffled voice in front of them. The six ponies were too terrified and too weakened to reply. They could see two shapes coming towards them.

“Damn, what happened to Rainbow Dash?” Cipher said as he rushed to her side to examine the wounds. “She’s lost a lot of blood. Check the others.” Badger examined each the others. “Aside from some splinters, nothing much.” He heard a soft sobbing and recognized it as Fluttershy. “It’s ok, Fluttershy, we’ll get you somewhere safe. Here, let me help you up.” He held out a hoof to her, and slowly pulled her up.

“This is all I can do for now, hope it holds”, Cipher said as he injected Rainbow Dash with the healing serum. He then proceeded to Twilight.

“Twilight...can you hear me?”

“...hhuh....wha...Who are you?” asked Twilight. She couldn’t make out the shape of her saviors, as their faces were covered, and her blurry vision didn’t help either.

“Doesn’t matter. We need to get you and your friends out of here, especially Dash. She’s too weak to fly. Can you show us the way?”

Twilight looked over to Dash. Seeing her friend in a critical state, she suddenly snapped out of her daze.

“The quickest way is through the eastern exit. Follow me”, she said, still a bit out of breath.

“No, we can’t. The enemy is already inside. Do you know of any secret passages nearby?”

Twilight closed her eyes and thought hard for a moment. “...There’s one, in a ballroom down the hall.”

“Alright, gather your friends and we’ll cover you. Quick, we don’t know when they might find us”, Cipher said, the urgency clearly present in his words. “Badger, I’ll need you to carry Rainbow Dash on your back while I cover the front.”

“Got it”, Badger replied. I bet any fan would consider this an honor, he thought, smiling to himself.

They left the banquet hall and proceeded down the corridor. Cipher lead the party on two hooves, his rifle kept down range, with Twilight following second. Badger was at the other end, with Rainbow Dash on his back.

As they came to a junction, Cipher raised his left hoof, signalling them to stop. He peered around the corner, and gave the all clear sign. The moved further down and reached the ballroom. It was dark but the moonlight from the window allowed them to see without switching on any lights. Twilight led them behind a statue, and telekinetically moved a lamp holder on the wall. A section of the wall slid downwards to reveal a tunnel.

“Everypony inside, hurry”, Cipher instructed. Twilight and Rarity slowly levitated Rainbow Dash off Badger and onto Rarity’s back.

“I don’t know who you are, but....thank you...I can’t express my gratitude enough”, Twilight said to Cipher with a weak smile.

“Just keep the true magic of friendship alive no matter the odds. That is thanks enough”, Cipher said in his muffled voice. He knelt down to Spike who was scared, and put a hoof on his shoulder.

“Spike, take good care of Twilight, ok? I’m counting on you,” Cipher said in a warm tone.

Spike’s face became serious and he saluted. “You can count on me, sir!”

They entered the tunnel and the wall closed behind them.

“They’re safe, now...let’s go kill some D34 scumbags.”

“Yes. Let’s”, Badger replied with a frowning smile.

~~~

11. Birth of the Jagers

“Damn it, we’ve lost Rafburn!” exclaimed a guard as one of his comrades succumbed to the shower of bullets and spells. “We’re losing ground! To the throne room, now!” another guard shouted as they pulled back. Behind them. Directive 34 troops marched forward, walking over the numerous dead bodies belonging to the CRA they had slain in cold blood. The remaining CRA retreated into the throne room,locking the front door behind them and using it as a choke point.

“When they break through, hit them with everything,” Princess Celestia ordered the guards. Their horns lighted up as they all prepared for the worst.

The doors burst open and immediately all the CRA guards threw everything they had at the entrance. Streams of fire, lightning and many other elements engulfed the area, slightly deforming the doorway as it cracked and melted. As the dust cleared, a unicorn emerged, unharmed, surrounded by a protective dome-shaped shield.

“N-no way...our spells didn’t even make a scratch?” a guard said in a panicked state, losing his firm composure. Then the noticed all the D34 unicorn horns were lit, and realized the shield was their combined magical power.

The shielded unicorn moved towards them, and as the dust cleared,they immediately recognized her.

“Quicksilver!” Princess Celestia exclaimed. “What is the meaning of this?”

“I slaughter your guards like diamond dogs and walk right into your castle. Isn’t it obvious, princess?”

“Why?”

“Because you’ve been soft for far too long. Equestria needs somepony who can lead them in the right direction. Your ways are obsolete and irrelevant.”

“You talk about the right direction, yet you create chaos and turmoil. Your intentions are far from right.”

“It is the way things are in NetCon. We have to do it this way to be accepted lest we want to remain shunned, isolated, and hated.”

“I don’t know what NetCon is, but surely nothing good can come from it. I hereby order you to stand down or I will have no choice.”

“Hahaha...not gonna happen”, laughed Quicksilver, sporting an evil smile. Before Princess Celestia and the guards could cast any spell, she sent an arc of lightning through the air, but Celestia quickly projected a Spell Shield around herself and the guards surrounding her. The lightning arc struck the shield and died out.

“Not bad, but you’ll have to do better than that,” Quicksilver sneered as she unleashed another arc of lightning. This one was stronger than the previous as Celestia’s Spell Shield started to crack. The CRA guards’ horns lit up as they boosted the Shield with their own magic. The cracks began to disappear.

Quicksilver said to her troops, “Help me out here, colts. We’ll have one heck of a party after this is done.” Seemingly motivated by her words, the D34 unicorns fired their own bolts of lightning, which joined with the main arc. Cracks began to develop rapidly as the shield diminished.

“Looks like you just....struck out.” Quicksilver said, just before the shield shattered and the arc connected through all the guards and Princess Celestia herself, shocking them all. After a few seconds when the arc died out, the guards lay on the floor, exhausted and helpless. Celestia was still standing, but as she readied a spell, Quicksilver threw a telekinetic wave forwards, knocking her back. A D34 unicorn levitated his MO SMG forwards, but was stopped by Quicksilver. “No, I want them to watch as their beloved princess turns on them before their very eyes.”

Now Celestia was completed exhausted and was losing consciousness. A dark, murky cloud slowly gathered around Quicksilver’s horn. “Now, you’re mine, Celestia”, she said triumphantly.

A bullet whizzed through the air and found it’s mark in Quicksilver’s neck, and she fell to the ground. The D34 soldiers immediately quivered with fear and dropped their weapons.

“Orgy’s cancelled.”

Quicksilver turned around to see a white pegasus on the balcony.

“You...,” she said in a weak tone as a small dark cloud began to form around her horn.

“No way...how is this...?” Cipher said as he took a step back, surprised.

She released the cloud, and breathed her last. The cloud quickly drifted towards Cipher. Before he could run, the cloud engulfed him and dissipated, and he collapsed.

“Cipher...Cipher! Damn it, get up. This is the second time already, for crying out loud,” Badger groaned as he tried to shake his friend out of his state. Cipher stirred as he came to. He quickly looked around and remembered. “ugh, what was that?”

“I have no idea. You feeling alright?”

“Yeah, I feel like my head’s been hit by a pillow filled with bricks but other than that I’m fine. Damn I should have just landed a headshot, but she was too close to Princess Celestia.”

At that moment. The ceiling’s glass shattered. Ropes extended downwards as OWP unicorns and earth ponies descended into the Throne Room. They helped up the guards to their hooves.

“Are you alright, Your Highness?” one of them asked Princess Celestia.

“I...I’ve had better days, but thank you”, replied Princess Celestia.

The Old World Ponies ferociously fought alongside the CRA guards to carve a way through the palace. Disoriented, D34 unicorns were no match against ponies trained for combat in tight quarters. OWPs moved efficiently on their hind hooves down corridors and halls, with their weapons sweeping from side to side, aiming and firing faster than the unicorns could cast spells. Badger , Cipher and the OWP forces finally pushed their way to the palace gate.

“Thanks, whoever you are. You saved the Princess”, a CRA guard told them.

"And now you owe us", replied an OWP unicorn.

"But I don't even know your name."

"That's the beauty of it", the unicorn said , smiling, as they left the palace.

~~~

The Directive 34 unicorns fled Canterlot and headed for Ponyville, with Badger, Cipher and the Canterlot OWP forces pursuing them.

"Where do you think they're headed?" Badger asked he and Cipher flew through the sky.

"I have one guess", replied Cipher.

As they approached Ponyville, they looked to the sky and saw a squadron of pegasi heading towards them.

"There's the cavalry", Cipher said with a smile.

They met at the outskirts of the Everfree forest, where the D34 unicorns disappeared into. A pegasus stepped forward from the squadron, supposedly the leader. "10th ERF Platoon at your service. It's good to see you again, Commander Cipher", he said, extending a hoof.

"Likewise", replied Cipher as they shook hooves.

"Wait, Commander Cipher?" Badger repeated.

"Details, details," Cipher said as he shrugged it off ."Alright. Let's pursue them into the forest. They couldn't have gone far. ERF will scout from the air while the rest sweep through the forest. Double time!" Cipher said as he cocked his SMG.

"Yes sir", replied the ERF pegasus."For Old Equestria!" Similar chants were heard from the other ponies.

The D34 unicorns raced through the forest, with Badger, Cipher and the Canterlot OWP ponies not far behind.

Zecora was just coming out of her hut when the D34 unicorns trampled all around her garden and pots.

"Goodness gracious what a stampede! I'll have to replant my garden and this one is a rare seed!" said the zebra in fury.

An OWP pony in the rear flank stopped by and replied ,"Sorry,ma'am. We'll make sure they don't trample anymore gardens".

The vegetation grew thicker and the distance between them and their enemies was increasing. In frustration, Cipher got on his hind legs and sprinted forward, leaving Badger and the rest behind. He pursued them into a cave. After a long passage, he finally came to a huge section of the cave, where no more than ten D34 unicorns. On the side of the wall was a big computer screen. The unicorns seemed to be in agony and disoriented.

Now's my chance to wipe 'em all out, he thought. He came out of hiding and fired upon them. The deranged unicorns picked up rocks and hurled them, but Cipher was too fast. He merciless gunned down each of them till there was nopony standing but himself.

"They won't be defiling anything anytime soon", he said to himself.

"You sure know how to make an entrance", a beeping voice sounded.

Cipher turned to the screen and stared in disbelief.

"What's the matter? Oh right, you've never seen a talking computer before, since Equestria's technology is still two generations behind."

"What in Celestia's name are you?" said Cipher, puzzled.

"Allow me to introduce myself. I am 34 Guilty Conscience. I am responsible for creating strategies for various scenarios to carry out Directive 34."

"If that's the case, maybe I should just end you now", Cipher replied as he raised his gun.

"You have nothing to fear. The agent responsible for carrying out Directive 34 in this area is no more, which is why the unicorns you just killed were all disoriented. Also, I do not create the scenarios. I merely create strategies for them to be carried out."

"What these scenarios?"

"Scenarios are elaborate plans to take over Equestria so Directive 34 may be enforced. D.A.R.K is very picky on how they would like to take over Equestria, and they emphasized on explicitly violent and brutal schemes as well, and that is where I come in. I am tasked to ensure their plans work."

"Was the attack on Canterlot your doing?"

"I merely proposed to the Agent on how to enter Canterlot and neutralize the weakspots for an easy takeover."

"Is Quicksilver the Agent?"

"...correct. Quicksilver is the designated Agent to carry out Directive 34 in this part of Equestria."

"Well guess what? Your strategy failed, and I killed her."

"...oh my."

"And now I should just destroy you to tie up a loose end."

"I have a better proposition: Why not let me help you? I have a whole bank of scenarios and their corresponding strategies, but there is no longer an Agent to fulfill them. But, I can create simulations on how you can thwart those scenarios should they be used the future by other Agents."

"So you're telling me that you'll help me counter the plans of your owners?"

"Affirmative."

"Why should I trust you?"

"I have no desire to fight you, nor am I capable to do so in the first place. I am merely carrying out my pre-programmed tasks."

"So if I reprogram you, you'll help us?"

"That is correct."

"Why are you telling me these things?"

"I think 'not getting shot' is a fair reason, don't you think?"

Badger and the rest of OWP Canterlot arrived the clearing.

"Cipher, you alright?" Badger called out.

"Yeah. it's all clear", Cipher replied. "Hey, how soon can you reach Circuit Cut? I've got a job I think he'd like very much."

~~~

Two days after the Canterlot incident, at the Ponyville TV station, phones were ringing and reporters rushed about as news poured in about the attack.

“There’s a lot of news here, but I want something hard. Something that the folks of Equestria won’t forget. This the best you got?” Scoop said as he slammed the table with his left hoof, sending the 2 reporters in front of his desk into a cringe.

Suddenly the doors burst open and Perry Mic ran in, straight to Scoop’s desk. Catching her breath, she tried to speak,”Mr.Scoop...I think...this should go in the morning report...”. She slotted the tape into a recorder on Scoop’s desk and played it. The voice on the recorder was an electronically disguised one:

“Citizens of Equestria, two days ago, Canterlot was invaded by a militant group of ponies, known as D.A.R.K, or the Directorate of Anarchy, Ravaging and Killing. Their intention is to overthrow Canterlot’s government and rule with an iron fist. They adhere to a cause, known at this point as Directive 34;’If it exists, it will be defiled’. This drives them to create a twisted perversion of Equestria in their own image. The group mostly consists of unicorns, utilizing an array of spells and weapons at their disposal. They also possess magic enabling them to corrupt and control other ponies to bolster their ranks. To further spread their perversion, they also engage in psychological warfare. Wild Equestria is their doing, as well as the rise of Alicorp Industries and their shipping endeavors.”

The broadcast from the TV station spread far and wide to neighboring towns and cities. Ponies stopped what they were doing, and listened with awe.

“...But Canterlot was not alone that night. The attack was thwarted by us, the PonyJagers.  We’re sworm to protect Equestria from any threat, pony or non-pony, for this land, our land, is a place where friendship truly is magic, and we have to hold on to that during these dire times. It is not clear when or where they will strike again, but before they do, I ask you to prepare yourselves. You do not need to wield magic or a sword to fight. The most important weapon is to resist their perversion, for if we resist, they cannot corrupt. Remember, just like how during the battle with Nightmare Moon, when Twilight Sparkle felt the ‘spark’, we too can become sparks in spreading the magic of friendship. Bless Equestria. Hail Celestia.”

“PonyJagers? Well, at least it’s more catchy than Old World Ponies,” remarked Badger, sitting in a chair in the Manehattan garage lounge as he turned off the radio..

“Yeah, fits well, though. Who would have thought that our own kind would try to defile our land? That part hasn’t sunk in quite well”, Cipher replied, with a slightly worried face.

“Well, to be honest I didn’t really believe it at first. I mean, at one point I thought all of this was just...what Mephisto said: an outlet for ponies for their innermost desires or something like that, but I guess it turned out far worse than that. So, get used to it, I say, else you’ll get killed”, Badger said.

“Yeah, no argument there”, agreed Cipher, as he let out a huge yawn.

“I just realized, you haven’t slept much since we got back. You gotta get some shut-eye”

“If I slept, I wouldn’t be able to prepare that tape.” Cipher let out another huge yawn. ”You know what; maybe I will take a nap...right after I check in with Circuit Cut."

Cipher went down to the basement and turned on the radio.

"CC, come in, do you hear me?"

"Yeah, I hear ya", a familiar voice replied.

"How's the reprogramming going?"

"Great. I'm running through some simulations now for a test run. Damn, some of these scenarios are nasty, and a good portion of them involved the Six."

"That is both good and disturbing news, but we'll make sure we counter whatever they plan to do. I'll keep in touch. Cipher out."

Cipher adjusted some dials and made another call.

"Attention all PonyJagers, this is Commander Cipher. Although we're thwarted the attack on Canterlot, I fear this is just the beginning. D.A.R.K will strike again, it is only a matter of time. However, we do have a weapon of our own: an entire database of possible attack plans which we will analyze and come up with a counter strategies, so if they are used against Equestria, we will be prepared. This will mark the launch of I.D.A Ops, or Intervene, Defend, Attack Operations to counter any scenario that can potentially be thrown at us. That is all. Cipher out."

Cipher switched on the light to his room as the door closed behind him. He headed to the bathroom  and turned on the shower. The cold water jolted him slightly, but he didn’t seem to care much, for it was ages since he last had a bath. After drying off, he set himself down on the bed and turned off the lights. For a while, he stared at the ceiling, his hooves behind his head. Equestria’s changing.Things are not what they used to be. Will things ever return to normal? Will our vision of bringing back the world old someday come true? he thought. Nevermind, I’ll make sure of it. He turned to the left side, pulled the covers, and closed his eyes.

~~~

Cheers and screams of triumph from outside put a smile on Cipher’s face. Finally, they had made it, they had showed Equestria the true importance of friendship, and now he’s invited to the palace, to Princess Celestia’s quarters, to be thanked by her personally. Cipher left balcony and went into the room. There she was, facing towards a painting of some heroic warrior on the wall. Since she was directly facing away from him, Cipher couldn’t see her facial expression, but he could almost feel her face beaming.

Cipher began: “Your Highness, first I just want to say what an honor it is to...” but he was cut off by Princess Celestia, still facing away from him. ”...Your nightmare is just beginning.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be ready when...what? My...?”

“You thought you could escape?” she said, her voice rising. The balcony doors slammed shut and the room darkened as she turned to face him. To his horror, her eyes were black and started to emanate faint black trails which evaporated into the air. Cipher took a step back.

“If it exists, it will be defiled,” Princess Celestia said as dark clouds swirled around her horn. Suddenly a stream of black trails shot out of her horn and engulfed Cipher. Everything went black.

~~~

Cipher shot up from his bed in a cold sweat, his face drenched.

~~~End of Arc 1~~~

1. Friendship is Popular

Shortly after the defeat of Nightmare Moon, the tale of the Elements of Harmony prevailing began spreading like wildfire across Equestria, and was all too well known in Canterlot, Ponyville, Cloudsdale, and nearby regions and cities like Fillydelphia and Manehattan. This sparked a rapid growth in the pony entertainment industry,will many pony artists attempting to capture the magic of friendship portrayed by the heroes of Equestria. Plenty of art and music were released that centered around that theme. Some works became famous, and gave rise to “Masters”, pony artists who became specialists in their field of choice, with many fans across Equestria closely following their latest work on the website, TheEquestrianPost.net.

At first, everything seemed to be fine,if not great. The “friendship” was spread further from Ponyville,throughout the provinces in Equestria, some rumors even saying the influence extended beyond its borders at some parts. Everyone welcomed it with open hooves. But, shortly after winter was wrapped up the same year, some strange trends begin to surface...

~~~

Present day, end of the first Spring week.

Submissions were still flooding into the site from fans and artists alike. Ponies from all over Equestria spent hours browsing through seemingly endless content. In an average flat house in Manehattan, three ponies were also checking out this new craze.

“Aaaaand it just hit 1 million views”, said Circuit Cut, the blue unicorn with orange shades. His cutie mark consisted of a green circuit board and was in contrast with his blue skin and orange mane.

“Noted”, responded Badger, the pegasus with grey skin, with a darker grey patch of skin around his eyes, his head having a patch of white mane. His cutie mark was a striped shield(2 black stripes and a white stripe in the middle, much like his face with the white line down the middle).

“Also, something else you may want to know”, Circuit Cut continued. “This user, RedMane66, posted a remix vid yesterday. Nothing unusual till earlier this morning. The top voted comment was:’Just thought you might want to know that Lexus ,A Master of Music, liked your vid’. After that, views came in by the thousands.”

“So he likes the vid, and views come rolling in?”

“Sure seems that way.”

“Seems logical. Somepony with a title likes a vid and it’s bound to raise flags, suddenly everypony likes it too.”

Although he seemed triumphant in his discovery,the monitoring work was slowly getting to Circuit Cut. “We’ve been doing this for a month already, and there’s absolutely nothing strange going on. Are you sure there’s something going on here?”

“We are doing this BECAUSE Badger thinks something’s up,” said Hot Shot, an earth pony mare with red skin and pale black mane, with a revolver cylinder cutie mark. She was fiddling with her trusty mouth-operated revolver. “And he’s never been wrong before.”

“Well, I’m not sure this time, just call it a hunch”, Badger replied. “Besides, it indirectly contributed to us losing our jobs.”

“Oh,right. I almost forgot”, Circuit Cut retorted, in a sarcastic manner, but his glum state suddenly lit up with excitement.”Oooh check this out! It’s a pony quiz! ‘How much do you know about the heroes of Equestria?’ Sounds cool! I’m gonna take it!”

“A quiz? Looks like the fans seem to come up with everything these days”, remarked Hot Shot.

“Oh,horseapples! I only got 60%. Wait, what’s this caption down here? ‘Do not feel disheartened, for this quiz is made for mega pony fans’. What,is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Really now?” Hot Shot chuckled at Circuit Cut’s stunned face.”Let me have a go,then!”

“Hey not so fast! I wanna try again!”

Badger smiled slightly watching those two,but his smile disappeared as he began to think. Where did it all go wrong? Just 6 months ago the three of them were in the office at Manehattan PD, when this fad started to grow. A month later, in an effort to reduce budget allocation on law enforcement, there was a program to recruit officers from all over Equestria to participate in a competition where the winners would get a contract with Canterlot High Command in writing new training programs, and the three of them were selected to represent Manehattan. However, in as the program was nearing it’s conclusion, the budget cuts worsened, and the program was discontinued. But it just got worse from there. There was an Equestria-wide retrenchment for officers, and as a huge coincidence, the three of them got “selected”. Now they run their own private security firm, escorting valuable goods and very important ponies to their destinations. And through all that, Badger couldn’t shake the feeling that the spread of friendship was somehow related to it.

“Ugh,I’m thinking too much”,he muttered too himself.

~~~

7. Interception

As night fell, the five ponies finally reached Ratchet’s garage.

“Ah, great to see you again”, Ratchat said as he opened the door, and then shook hooves with Clank. “And it’s good to see you too, brother.”

“Yeah it’s been awhile, hasn’t it, brother?” Clank replied. “Had to cut off all communications with those I’m not supposed to know.”

“Wait, you two are brothers?” said Circuit Cut, alarmed.

“Yep”, both of them said in unison.

“Ha ha ha. Ratchet and Clank. That is hilarious, right there”, laughed Circuit Cut. His laughs died down as the two colts gave him puzzled stares.

“Anyway, you ponies must be famished. I’ll fix up some cabbage soup!” Ratchet said excitedly.

As they were having their dinner, Circuit Cut shared what he found with the rest of the group.

“Marejestic-12, huh? So the rumors were true”, Cipher remarked as he downed a cup of water.

“Yeah, and if Alicorp Industries has the list, they must be searching for the ex-members to assist in their project”, said Clank.

“And with the maps, they know the location of decommissioned Marejestic-12 bunkers and facilities”, added CIrcuit Cut.

“We’ll need to find the remaining Marejestic-12 members and the bunkers before Alicorp Industries does. I’ll send the list of names and the maps to HQ so they can send out agents to find ‘em”, Cipher said as he finished his bowl. “Oh yeah, one more thing, I got word from Manehattan Outskirts that the package Badger and his team were escorting was actually a fake.”

“What?!” said a shocked Badger.

“Hey, you didn’t think we’d give up on the package even after you were done escorting it now did you?” replied Cipher.

“Well....yeah, I didn’t think of that”, said Badger admittedly.

“Which means that the real package they were planning to transport still hasn’t left the facility yet. I’ll have my informants keep an eye out for any movement.”

“Sounds like a plan. *yawn* it sure was a long day. I’m gonna hit the hay early tonight”, Hot Shot said as she went upstairs. “Me too,” Clank replied as he went into a room beside the main lounge. Ratchet went to the kitchen to clean up.

“I haven’t checked the news in ages”, Cipher said, excitedly,“I’m sure the press has something to say about your little ‘operation’ down at the Ponyville TV station.” He opened a 2 day-old video on his HoofPad.

“Officials are still baffled at the incident that took place at the Ponyville TV station earlier this morning, where an unknown voice hijacked the interview with three Masters. This mysterious voice threatened the owner of TheEquestrianPost, The Great Mephistopheles or better known as “Mephisto” who supposedly fail to capture the true meaning of friendship. Mephisto has this to say about the incident:”

“They’ve made a personal attack, not only on me, but also on those who believe in the magic of friendship. Whomever did this has made themselves an enemy to all who supported what we’ve accomplished.”

“However, Mephisto has refused to comment on his involvement in the controversial site Wild Equestria. This is Perry Mic, signing off.”

“Hey check this out”, Circuit Cut added, “After Mephisto was revealed to be the one running Wild Equestria, the number of visitors and posts actually increased.”

“I guess they expected something like this to happen, since they already have a lot of power to make or break trends”, Cipher remarked, “It’s getting worse and worse.”

“Yep,” Circuit Cut replied, “Heck, even the Cutie Mark Crusaders, becoming mini-celebrities after their show-stopping performance at the talent show  a few days ago, now have fanfiction and art written after them too, and ironically, they’re underaged!” Circuit Cut had a hearty laugh.

“Well, we’ll lay off the Masters for now. Alicorp Industries is currently a bigger threat,” Cipher replied as he went off to his own room. “Get some rest. I’m sure there will be some new development tomorrow.” And with that, Cipher went to his own room.

Badger lay on the couch in the lounge, allowing his mind to wander aimlessly.

Old World Ponies,eh? he thought.

~~~

The next morning, the ponies gathered at the table again.

“Morning, guys”, Cipher began, “New intel. The carriage that they were supposed to move, well, it’s prepping to move out from Alicorp Industries today. It’s headed for Ponyville and then towards the Manehattan Outskirts. The convoy will consist of three carriages. Here are the photos.”

Cipher put a photo on the table. The ponies peered around it. The photo were three carriages surrounded by guard ponies.

“Hey those are SP carriages,” Circuit Cut.

“SP carriages?” asked Hot Shot.

“Steam-powered carriages,” said Ratchet, “Twice the ground speed of a pulled carriage. Not many of ‘em around since the zebras are still in the early stages of developing them. If you own an SP carriage, means you got a few extra bits to spare, and they have three.”

“Seems like they’re in a rush to get it to the Outskirts,” Badger remarked.

“The Manehattan Outskirts became town of it’s own not only because of it’s role as a switching point, but also because things can be made to disappear there. Shipping records can be wiped. Items can become ghosts”, added Cipher.

“So once the item gets there, it will be untraceable, and they can send it to anywhere they want. Very sneaky”, said Hot Shot.

“Exactly”, replied Cipher. “Also there seems to be a lot of escorts there. The package has got to be in one of them. So, the convoy will probably be moving at a high speed and in formation. If we stop the first carriage dead in it’s tracks, hopefully the one with the package will speed off. They’ll also be packing  a lot of firepower on this one, so we need to thin out their numbers before we actually engage them. Here’s what we’re gonna do...”

~~~

A few miles outside Ponyville, just before a hill, Circuit Cut, Clank, Hot Shot, and Ratchet hid behind a bush, with the two brothers carrying MO sniper rifles. Further down the road, Badger and Cipher took cover behind another bush on the hill, overlooking the path. They all wore green-striped uniforms, their faces masked, revealing only their eyes.

“Ratchet, what’s the status on the convoy?” Cipher whispered into his communicator.

“I don’t see any of ‘em yet. Nope, no sign of...wait wait, there they are. They’re moving pretty fast. will probably be here in a minute, over,” came the response.

“How many escorts?”

“I see one unicorn on top of each carriage. Unable to identify any personnel inside, over.”

“Alright. Cipher out.”

Greycolt popped out of the tree and lifted up his binoculars. Sure enough, in the distance, he could see three steam-powered carriages moving down the road. They looked just like regular carriages, only with an added section in front to accommodate the driver’s seat and the engine. Two of them had a regular passenger compartment. The one in the middle had a wagon-like compartment. Probably carrying the cargo, he thought.

“Alright, here’s the plan. Clank, Hot Shot, and Ratchet will take out the two unicorns on the roofs simultaneously, wait for any personnel to come out, then shoot them. Wait for them to reach the foot of the hill.”

Hot Shot replied, “Got it. You guys ready? On my mark, 3...2...1.”

All three unicorns fell on the roofs with a single thud. The next second, boulders started to tumble down the cliff. One smashed the right wheel and part of the engine on the first carriage. Suddenly, they heard somepony shout “Sniper!”, and the other two carriages overtook the first carriage and sped off. Two unicorns came out of the damaged carriage, levitating MO rifles. The driver came out as well, levitating an MO pistol.

“You ponies handle the guards. Badger and I will get the runaway wagon”, said Greycolt, flying out of the tree and after the carriage. Badger followed him swiftly, with the two guards firing shots at them.

Hot Shot fired, and one guard fell to the ground. The other guard, unable to identify the direction of the shot, took cover behind the carriage along with the driver.

“Aim just beneath the carriage. Hit their hooves,” Hot Shot said.

Ratchet aligned his sights. When he thought he had a clear shot, he fired. It took a few seconds for the guard to drop to the ground, probably due to the leg-shot. The driver panicked and tried to get into the driver’s seat, but he was too slow. Minerva charged at the other door and opened it. A bullet flew straight to his head, knocking him out of the carriage. The other guard managed to get to his hooves and headed for the driver’s seat, but Clank came around and shot him in the back..

“Clear!” shouted Minerva as she checked the compartment’s interior.

~~~

Cipher and Badger almost caught up to the speeding carriages, with the passenger carriage being in front and the cargo carriage behind it, as both were driving along the hillside. Trying not to look at the steep drop merely a mere 5 feet from the road’s right side, Cipher neared the door left door and opened it, but as he poked his head in, for a split second he caught a glimpse of a pistol pointed at him. He moved aside, just as a shot rang out. The bullet hit Cipher’s left shoulder and he tumbled forward, scraping against the dirt road. Simultaneously, Badger approached from the other side and tackled the driver, and managed to knock him out by hitting his face on the wheel, and threw him off the carriage and off the cliff. With the driver out of the way, Badger brought the vehicle to a halt.

It was not over yet, as the passenger carriage in front soon realized the carriage behind it had stopped. Two unicorns armed with MO rifles appeared from the carriage.

“Alright. You wanna do this? Let’s do this,”Badger frowned, as he drove the vehicle forward. The unicorns eyes widened when they realized the carriage behind them had no intention of slowing down. The scrambled into the passenger carriage, but Badger was too close already.

The cargo carriage rammed right into the passenger carriage, which started to tilt slowly to the right till it was 90 degress with the cargo carriage. There was a turning up ahead and Badger braked just a few feet away. The passenger carriage flew off the side and tumbled down the slope, making loud crashing noises with each hit.

Badger let out a huge sigh of relief, then gasped as he remembered something. “Cipher!” He flew along the road, searching for any sign of the pegasus. Finally he found him, trying to get back on his hooves. His left shoulder and back suffered gashes.

“Damn, that does not look too good”, Badger remarked, “Come on let’s get you patched up.”

“Don’t worry about me. Where’s the package?”

“I haven’t checked the carriages yet.”

“Where are they?”

“Well, the cargo carriage is down the road. The passenger carriage is,well, at the bottom of the hill.”

“What?”

“I kind of rammed into it and sent it over the edge.”

Cipher was speechless from the shock. “Well, let’s hope the package we’re after is in the cargo carriage.”

They flew back to the cargo carriage and opened up the canvas. Among the few crates there was a black locked crate.

“This must be it”, Cipher remarked. “Alright, guess we head back. I’ll check in with the others. Hot Shot, what’s the status on your end?”

“All the guards are taken care of,” came the response.

“Very good. Get rid of the bodies and meet us back at the Manehattan safe-house.”

~~~

“Man, even with levitation, these ponies weigh a ton”, Circuit Cut remarked.

“We got trouble”, Ratchet said as he came running. There’s a Canterlot Royal Army patrol heading this way.”

“Damn. I’ll try and stall them. Dispose of the bodies quick!”Hot Shot said as she hurriedly walked to meet the patrol. It was two unicorns clad in CRA armor. She flashed a smile followed by a greeting, “Good day, sirs.”

“Good day, miss. Is there a problem?” asked one of the guards, donning a serious face.

“Oh, no problem. Just that my friends had an unexpected stop.”

“Is there any trouble with your vehicle, miss?”

“No trouble. Just a small rock slide, that’s all.”

“How can we assist, miss?”

“It’s alright. My friend,uh,he just went to the bushes for a, uh...‘emergency’”. She shouted to the bushes. “I told you to go before we left!”

There was a rustle in the bushes and CC’s voice was heard, “Oh, well excuse me if I wanted to leave in a hurry!”

“I...see. You sure there isn’t anything else we can help you with?” said the guard, as his straight face started to fade into a faint smile. The other guard saw this and bumped a hoof at him, frowning.

“Oh, no no, that’s quite alright. I appreciate you stopping to ask and everything.”

“It’s our duty, miss. Carry on.” The two unicorns then moved on. As they disappeared from sight, Minerva made her way to the bushes. “You all ‘done’, yet?”

“Yeap, all ‘done’, heheh”, Circuit Cut responded.

~~~