My Little Combine: Resistance is Magic

Chapter 6 - Resistant Retreat"Welcome to our haven!"

"Thanks to my friend, this place is going to blow in half an hour!" says the mare.

"Sorry. But these damn Combine took my brother's life! I had to get revenge!." Exclaims the stallion resistance member that approaches from the other side of the room.

"Well, thanks to your 'revenge', you just dug four more graves in the ground!"

Little Light joins in on the conversation, "Let's not waste any time bickering! Let's get a move on!" Everyone nods their heads in agreement and begin to run out of the facility. Alarms sound as the facility starts going into 'meltdown' mode. There's a red tint caused from all the red alarm lights going off at once. Luckily, there's no Combine in this place at the moment, so getting out will be easy.

The adrenaline is pumping in your veins and your heart races. You're scared for your life as you bolt through the hallways of the Combine prison. Mental images of Combine chasing you with stun batons run wildly through your thoughts. Fear is the only emotion that you hate. You do not want to die today. Your breaths are uneven and the sounds of the alarms aren't making you feel any better. You need to keep moving. Don't stop.

Just. Don't. Stop.

*****

You finally make it to the outside of the facility. You're out of breath and your heart rate is out of control. The effects of adrenaline have worn off, so you're weak and not able to stand. A booming voice echos through the air. "HIT THE DECK!" You, and everyone else throws their bodies down to a prone position. Your belly collides with the ground, almost knocking the breath out of you. A window shattering boom pierces your ears.

Your ears let out a sharp ringing sound. You loose all forms of hearing. The stallion that rigged the place to go boom stands up and yells something. Most likely a whoop of excitement from his victory. The mare stands up an starts to talk to the stallion. It looks like their arguing. The ringing starts to fade and sounds slowly flushes through your ears. "--If you hadn't rigged the place to meltdown, maybe your hoof wouldn't be injured now would it!" yells the mare. "You nearly had us killed, Clyde! This revenge thing is going to far."

"I'm SO sorry, Meadow." exclaims the stallion named Clyde, "Sometimes hate gets the better of me."

"I didn't need you to destroy this place! I'm fully capable of getting out of a place quickly without your 'explosive' pushes!" the mare named Meadow says.

"Can you two please just shut up? Look," says Little Light, "we have our own problems to deal with. If you can help up, please stop auguring and do so."

"Okay! Let's just get this over with." Meadow says in a annoyed tone. "What do you want us to help you two with?"

"First, I would like you to take me to what ever Resistance camp that you've came from. We both need a nice place to stay and you are going to lead us to safety. Got it?"

"How do I know you're not a spy? For the Combine?"

"We just helped you destroy the underground of this facility! Do you think spies would do that?"

"You've got a point." Meadow starts walking due north, "C'mon, lets get going then. I'll lead you two to our Resistance outpost."

"Good." replies Little Light as she begins to follow the mare. You follow in behind her.

*****

"So," begins your temporary leader, "how long have you've been escapees?"

"I've been out for a week --my friend here-- a day." replies Little Light, "It's all been moving so quickly. Why?"

"Just curious." Meadow pauses for a moment, "The base is not to far from that facility. We should be there in about an hour." The surrounding area is heavily forested. Birds are singing in the trees and a few forest creatures wander around. You can hear the sounds of running water nearby, and the thought of fresh water makes your mouth go dry. The trees around you tower high into the sky and are a fresh color of green. The air is fresh and void of all the city fumes and the Combine's harsh machinery. For the first moment since you've left the city, you can finally feel safe and rested.

The grass beneath your hooves crackles as you walk. It seems like a dream. The terrain is steep, but easy to traverse. "We're nearing the river, we can stop for a drink." say Meadow, breaking into your peaceful trance. You can see the river up ahead with it's clear, fresh water. It runs to the west (you're heading north) and goes down a steep hill where it starts to get faster and more dangerous. The water is shallow and you step in it to wash your hooves off and get a drink of some fresh water. The water is very refreshing and clears your thoughts.

"Okay." begins Clyde, "If I remember correctly, we should be nearing the base in about twenty minutes."

"Good, because I'm tired." says Meadow.

Twenty minutes of walking later, you, Little Light, Clyde, and Meadow make it to where the base's main wall is. It's tall and can't be scaled up by use of ropes or climbing mechanisms. The base is perched up on a cliff from what you can see, so it has some natural protection from the east. The base is fair in size and should be bigger underground. Clyde walks his way up to the gates and knocks on it twice. It opens slowly, revealing a few soldiers on guard duty with guys at ready. They allow you and the rest of the group clearance into the base.

The inside of the base has a small mountainside service station in the center, no doubt the main building, a few cabins to the far left for sleeping in, a mess hall, and a storage shack. The place looks like it could hold up if it was attack by Combine. Soldiers man the walls armed with sub-machine guns, and ponies are ready to fight at a minute notice. Clyde and Meadow lead you over to the main building, maybe to meet the commander of the base. The building is constructed from wood and was maybe used to dispatch groups of ponies to look for others that have gotten lost in the surrounding woods, now it's used for other purposes. You, Little Light, Clyde, and Meadow walk into the building and confront the one in charge.

"Sir. These two request to stay at our base. We found them over at the Combine facility to the south. They need a place to stay for a while, sir." reports Clyde.

The commander takes a look at the two of you. "You do know we are low on female personal rooms at the moment, Private? We got room for the stallion, but what about the mare?" he says.

"Maybe you can bend the rules a bit and let them stay in the same cabin, sir!"

"Do you know what could happen if I let that rule slide?"

Little Light speaks before Clyde gets the chance, "Please Sir. We got no where else to go and we need a place to stay."

The commander ponders the thought for a good minute or so, and looks at you then at Little Light. "Okay. I guess I could bend the rule just this once. But don't do anything, understand?"

"Yes sir!" replies Little Light. You only nod your head in agreement.

"Good." he pauses for a moment. "Private Clyde, show these two to the cabin number 402."

"Right away, sir!" Clyde replies. He gestures you and Little Light to follow him to your temporary home. When you step out of the building through the back way, you can see the cabin that the commander was talking about. It's medium in size, looks like it can house about 4 ponies if needed, and is constructed of wood. The numbers 402 are crudely etched into a piece of metal that hangs on the door. One of the windows in the front is cracked, but other than that, the structure is in livable condition. It sits next to the mess hall, closer than any of the other cabins.

You and Little Light walk inside the cabin. The wood squeaks and moans as you walk across it. The room is already furnished with two beds, a dresser, a table, and a few chairs. Dust floats in the air and the room is dimly lit from the outside windows. There doesn't appear to be any artificial light source in the cabin, just the dirty windows to give off any light. "Okay guys." Clyde's booming voice catches you off guard and causes you to jump a little, "Remember what the commander said: no funny business."

"Don't worry, you can trust us." Little Light said with a smile on her face. Clyde walks out of the cabin and shuts the door behind him. You lay on one of the beds. You are extremely exhausted. You slowly close your heavy eyes and drift off to sleep.

*****

You wake up in the middle of the night at the sound of a loud crash and a few voices. You get up quickly and head outside to scope out the scene. You see a number of Resistance members armed with rocket launchers in the courtyard of the base. They are looking up at the sky for something. You approach one and ask what's going on. "A Combine gunship found us out! We are trying to take it down before it obliterates us all." he says in a worried tone.

Where's Little Light?

You start walking around the base in search of a rocket launcher and your friend. How come she didn't wake you when this started? You thoughts get interrupted by a sharp whine of machinery. Coming over head, you can see a gunship and two Combine dropships. That gunship must have been part of a scouting mission. You run back to the cabin and search in your bag for your Sub-machine gun. You pull it out, load it, and get ready to kill some Combine.

You rush outside of your cabin to find that a dropship full of soldiers has landed. Resistance members fire a few rockets at it, but to no surprise, the vehicle is well protected by a magical force field. The hatch on the ship opens and a few Combine rush out guns blazing. A few more dropships come over the walls and land, letting out more Combine to join the battle. Most of the Combine carry deadly AR2 Rifles, spraying them in all directions and causing hell.

You spray your SMG in the direction of a few Combine. One of your stray bullets fly through the air and penetrates one unlucky Combine in their visor. Blood spurts out of the wound as he falls to the ground, dead. You see the gunship that disappeared fly over the wall, taking out a few Resistance that were perched up on the walls and obliterating their corpses to nothing more than ash piles. The very sight makes your stomach turn flips inside. You recoil a bit in fear of the gunship. A few Resistance members fire their rockets at the thing, but they are shot down once they get close to it.

You spot something that could change the battle, a stray rocket launcher from a fallen Resistance soldier. You rush over to it at a full gallop and throw down your SMG. You then levitate the monstrous weapon onto your shoulder and take aim at the gunship. You fire the rocket at the gunship, and you quickly find that you can maneuver the rocket while it is in flight with the launcher's laser sights. (Almost blowing yourself up in the process.) You circle the rocket around the gunship so it can't shoot it down. You manage to get one of the rockets to slip past it's defenses and get a hit on it. The explosion is mixed with sparks from both the rocket and the gunship.

You take aim for a second time and fire the rocket. All seems to move in slow motion as the rocket flies out of the launcher, then ignites and propels forward. You guide it around the gunship and try to get past it's menacing weapons. You fail to get through to it, your rocket is shot down in almost an instant. Your luck begins to turn bad when you find that you are out of rockets to launch at the beast. The ships turns towards you and locks on. You hold tight to the launcher and cower into one of the cabins. The gunship fires at you before you have the chance to escape and you get thrown forward by the force of an explosion caused by some oil drums being lit ablaze. Your ears let out a ring and all hearing ceases to exsist. You collide with the ground and your breath is knocked out of your body. You try to gasp for air but can't seem to get any. You can only close your eyes and pray for your life.

You feel a bit of hope in the pain that you are in. Your hearing starts to fade back. Faint and fuzzy voices greet you ears. The voice is sweet and soft, but yet rushed and worried at the same time. You can feel yourself being lifted up by a set of hooves and half-dragged, half-carried to safety. You cannot see much, but you know that you are in safe hooves. You feel another set of hooves carrying you down into another part of the base. The temperature drops slightly, so you guess that you are being carried underground. You black out...

You soon awake laying on a soft mattress in a room under the base. Sounds of battle reign up above as the fight still carries on. Little Light stares at you with a worried look on her face and she quickly smiles when she notices you are waking up. Her expression changes to a more serious look as she begins to speak. "We have to get out of here, and the only way out is through the old Everfree Forest path I found down here."

Everfree Forest. You've heard about the place before. A place that used to be disconnected from Equestra before the Combine invaded. It took care of itself without the need of ponies or magic. The Resistance set up a headquarters there a while back, but some ponies say: "The Combine shell'd the place hard. No one smart would set a hoof in that place unless they want a quick death. The place is evil and tainted with filth." The very thought of what could be there turns your blood cold. "Are you sure it's safe?" you say. You're first words since you've gotten to this base hours ago. You've just gotten here, got attacked, and now you're going to a more life threatening place.

"Of course it will be safe. The worst we would run into would be some pissed off Combine. It's not like there's some evil curse on the place. It's just a forest. Now come on, get ready and come with me." Little Light says with a hint of confidence in her voice. You can pick up traces of fear in her tone, but you take no real notice. You find your saddle bags, put them on your back, and follow Little Light to where the Everfree Trail begins. The walk to the gates feels like it's taking forever.

You want it to, though.