My Little Combine: Resistance is Magic

Chapter 3 - Blind"Don't be afraid of the dark, Sparks."

Darkness.

Night begins to roll in. The area around you is slowly fading away. You and your new-found friends are off to the Combine train station. The sounds of Combine tech echo in the cityscape, making you feel extremely uneasy. You look up at the City 9 Citadel, the only building that you truly hate. It's been lighting up more than usual at night for the past few days. You can see the tall skyscraper light up with thousands of lights as it moves to let out what appear to be Combine drop-ships.

"Does the Citadel always light up like this?" you ask.

"No. It just started lighting up like that a few days ago. They say the 'Freemane' is causing the Combine hell. Impossible if you ask me. One pony can't do that." Smoke answers.

The Freemane. You've heard about him before. He's the type of stallion that would have tall tales told about. What is known about him is that he used to be a scientist at Magic Mesa before all this stuff went down. He now fights the Combine while wearing a HEV [Hazardous Environment] Suit. Most think that it's all just a story to boost morale, but you think otherwise. What would it be like to meet a hero? You may never know. You have other plans at the moment, though.

The streets that your group are walking are near pitch black by now. This looks like a place where an ambush would happen. The windows on the surrounding buildings are either broken or don't exist anymore. Cars are turned over and Combine walls are everywhere, scaring the cityscape. You see what looks like a small outpost off in the distance. It glows with an artificial light source in the pitch black night.

"That," begins Little Light as she points toward it, "Is a Combine outpost. If we get in there, we can have a quick way through to the other side of the wall. It will be tough, group, but we can do this."

"Right! Hoorah!" Pipebomb yells with confidence.

You feel extremely uneasy about this as you near the structure. You are practically blind and have no way to shine light without turning on your flashlight and alerting trouble. Perhaps it will be a stealth mission? How ever it will go, it has to be done. Your team moves slowly to the outpost, sticking to the dark shadows near some run-down shops. Soon, you four make it to the metal wall. You grab your pistol from your bag and decide to use it instead of loud firepower. All is silent, except for a Combine's heavy hoofsteps on the solid structure and the never ending sounds of the tower far away.

How will we get in there? It's locked up tight!

"Okay, team," whispers the commander, "We will have to find a way around this wall. There is always a building that leads to the other side of a Combine wall. We just need to find it. Sparks, you scout out the area; look for a building that might lead to the other side. Try over there first, at that open building."

Great...

You nod you head in agreement. You hug the wall tightly as you edge your way to the other side of the street. You start to sweat from the heat of both the walls and pure nervousness. The sounds of hooves hitting the structure isn't helping with your paranoia. A broken door leads to a dark hallway. It's eerie, and you're mind is at self conflict on whether or not to go in or just release all your ammo in the air to alert the enemy. You creep your way inside. It's completely pitch black. You want to turn on your light, but you can't risk turning it on, no matter how scared you are. The halls have an eerie light-blue dimness to them, much like the outpost's lights. This must be an old apartment complex, because there are doors with numbers labeling them on either side of the hall. You continue down the halls and find a large, metal door blocking your path. Damn!

You go back outside and flash your light quickly a few times, signaling your friends. They meet up to you at the door.

"How are we going to get through here?!" says Little Light as she nears the door.

"We blow it up!" suggests Piepbomb with a laugh. "If we make lots of noise, we can get them to open the big door."

"But that will blow our cover, and alert the entire damn Citadel. We can't risk that."

"There's most likely an alarm control switch at the outpost. If we shut it off, they might think that it was a false alarm."

"It's the only thing we can do. Let's do it!"

Pipebomb lays a few grenades at the door and stands back. He arms another grenade and tosses it at the pile.

BOOM!

The door creaks with the sounds of the surrounding walls giving way. The door falls off its hinges in a fury of fire and concrete. On the other side, you can see a few walls and a soldier. Alarms quickly ring out as the sounds of Combine hoofsteps echo though the night. So much for stealth.  You quickly pull out you SMG from your worn out saddlebag and make sure it's fully loaded. Smoke, Pipebomb, and Little Light pull out their weapons of choice. Combine hoofsteps get louder as one steps though the now broken door. Boom! Pipebomb blasts the pony at near point-blank, causing the soldier to fly back a bit.

You quickly flip on your flashlight and stick your head out the open door. You see a soldier staring back, with a gun pointing straight at you. He shoots a few rounds toward you and, a bullet hits the corner of the wall. Shit! That was too close. You cower behind the wall as quick as you can. You scout out a comfortable piece of cover and prepare yourself to dash at it. You spot a barrier not to far from your hiding spot. You  jump out from behind the wall and dash as fast as your legs can carry you toward a solid concrete barrier a few yards away. Bullets fly past you, stressing you out further, as you dive the rest of the way to the cover spot. The world seems to go in slow motion, but it turns out that you made it unharmed.

You stick your head out of cover and spot the Combine that was shooting at you. Behind the mask, you bet he looks mad as hell. You get behind cover before the metallic pony notices you're out of cover, and quickly levitate your gun up to shooting position. You let off a few rounds. Each sound of the gun echos through the night, mixing with the sounds of both dying radio chatter, and the outpost's alarm system. You peak back out to see that the Combine is staggering from the blow to his leg from one of your stray bullets. You take advantage and lets off a few rounds into his head. You hit him with advanced accuracy, he was like a sitting duck.

You team move behind your barrier to aid you, and more Combine arrive out of the outpost from one of the rooms. Bullets start to fly as the Combine run and gun at your cover spot. Smoke tries to take out a few with his magnum, but is unlucky and just injures a few from the sounds of it. The ongoing battle grows extremely intense. You hear the clicks and beeps of a grenade being tossed by one of the soldiers. You cover your ears just in case and surprisingly, the grenade explodes right in front of the very concrete barrier you use for protection. Bits of concrete fly everywhere, but luckily, no one is extremely hurt and the barrier remains intact.

Another grenade is tossed by a Combine soldier. It lands right next to you an beeps, waiting to explode and kill you on the spot. Pipebomb yells something, but you can't understand it from all the noise. You grab the grenade as quick as you can and toss it back at the Combine that tossed it to you. Boom! You hear a soldier yell in pain and it's radio is cut off. You think you got him. You rise out of your cover spot to begin firing your SMG wildly.

B-B-B-BOOM!

You let out a spray of bullets at the group of Combines. The light of your gun illuminates the night and empty shells littler themselves at your hooves. Your barrage of gunfire only lightly harms the soldiers. You let out another unsatisfied spray before retreating behind cover once more. You don't know if you hit one or not. Radio chatter fills the air as Smoke lets out hell with his magnum beside you. Lil' Light uses her sidearm to blast a few soldiers. Pipebomb uses his shotgun effectively at a long range, knocking back a few Combine. You peak around the corner of the barrier and see a few soldiers fall.

You notice that a staircase leading up to the outpost wall looks clear. You take all your luck, and dash your way up the small flight of stairs and onto the wall. Blasting a clip of ammo into a Combine on the wall, you take him completely by surprise. You look where he was standing, and notice that he was it was by a small control panel, a switch. You flip it, thinking it will open the big door, but find that it shuts off the blasting alarm system. You can hear a few heavy hoofsteps rushing up the stairs. You ready your SMG and, without thinking, release hell upon two unlucky Combine.

You find cover on the wall and aid your friends in taking down the last four Combine. Your height advantage makes headshots easy. You take them on with ease, only using a clip to take them all down. Outpost secure. You rush down the stairs and check the rooms around the outpost to make sure none are left.

You find a few bits of ammo and some more med-tanks. You sit at a chair and notice a slight pain in your front-left leg. You pull up your sleeve and find that you have been shot. As the effects of adrenaline wear off from your body, pain starts to set in deeper. It's agonizing, like being stabbed and having the wound set on fire. You might been dazed by the slow loss of blood, but you think you can see your bone! You quickly take out a med-tank and stab the needle into the side of your bloody wound. You see the bloody hole in your leg start to close up and heal from the magical elixir.

Relief.

*****

"Okay, according to this map:" Little Light says, "If we go down that ponyhole, we can get to the train station easily. We will have to fight more Combine, but we will have less a chance to encounter Striders or some other type of major obstacle."

"Right," replies Smoke, "We can get into the Combine's underground bases, and probably rob us an armory or two."

"It should only take us about 5 hours on hoof to get through all these halls and fight through the Combine. There is a barracks on the path, so suspect tons of soldiers."

The underground bases of the Combine. You've heard many stories about them: Some incredibly shocking, evil, and twisted. Ponies say that they use the underground to transform poor captives into Combine soldiers, completely screwing up their mind until they are weak and able to be controlled. Other stories say that they turn them into bio-machines, having their disembodied brains work for the Combine force. Each story gets even more creepy and twisted as it gets passed down. You don't like to think about it.

You look at the ponyhole leading down to the first levels of the Combine underground. It's dark, thinking about it sends shivers down your spine.

What if we get captured? What if we become one of 'them'?

No, that can't happen. We are good shots. We can take down a large force of Combine with ease. We will make it to that train station. Nothing, not even a giant wave of soldiers, is going to stop us. We will gain our freedom today. You make you're way down the ponyhole's ladder. Your hooves touch the bottom of the cold, steel floor and the feeling of it sends shivers of fear through your entire body.

You and your rag-tag squad make your way down the downward sloping hall. It's a bland area surrounding you, just wall made of both metal and concert. The air gets thicker and more hot as you descend down the hallway. It ends at a door. Lil' Light pulls out a key card that she had found on a dead soldier, and to her luck, it works. The door swings open, revealing a large, factory-like chamber. The air is filled with sounds of machinery and magic combined. Suspended over a large pit is a giant glowing orb of light that seems to be giving power to the entire facility. Small conveyor belts are seen in the distance and seem to be carrying supplies to what looks like a train. This is the train station?

"This looks like a secret train station of some sort; for things like cargo." Little Light says.

City-scanner sprites fly around the room and seem to be doing simple supervision of the area. If everypony can keep quiet, you and the others can sneak onto one of those cargo trains. A city-scanner breaks off of the herd of sprites begins to fly in your direction. Dammit! Did it see anyone? The city-scanner starts to flash red and alarms start to sound as it nears your location.

"Fuck! They've found us!" yells Smoke as he gets out his magnum and shoots the sprite down.

Hoofsteps echo through the large chamber as a large group of Combine come around a corner from both the right and left.

The only thing going through your head is: You're screwed!