Mane co Mercenaries: The Battles

The townsfolk went about their day as normal, they were still very wary of the eight new guests that had moved in a year or so ago, especially now that they had some sort of bug-like equine among them. But they decided to leave them be as they set up in the town centre. They still greeted them politely when they saw them later in town, they seemed nice enough to talk to, even if some were a little scary.

It had been just about a year ago when they all arrived, and that building appeared with 'Mane co Mercenaries' painted in white. An enthusiastic minotaur called Saxton Hale and a young purple unicorn called Miss Pauling had arrived with them insisting to the townsfolk that the new arrives meant no harm to the citizens of Teufort, and were "Just like trainee royal guards". They didn't tell the townsfolk about the dangerous outlaws part of the mercenary's story , so they were accepted.. reluctantly.

And now here they were, a year later and fitting in rather well. Engineer and Demo browsing one of the local hat shops, they were even trying some on and buying a few, Heavy and Medic chatted by a café, as though deciding whether or not to get lunch or not and Scout stood near to a radio, likely listening to a live baseball game as his face changed from nervousness to panic to a shout of "OH COME ON!" and back again.

That's when the griffin Sniper stumbled out of an ally, looking slightly dazed and sick. He looked around before wandering over to to Engineer and Demo.

"They're coming, gonna be looking like tourists, Spy's gonna be a green pegasus." He hissed to the two unicorns, Engineer nodded and pulled a calculator type device out of one of his bags of hats and pushed a red button, there was a flash of light down the ally Sniper had just came from and the clatter of metal.

Demo nodded, "Everything's ready to go lad, go find a perch, quick." Sniper nodded, holding on to his hat as he took to the air. First gliding over to Scout to remind him of the impending battle before flapping up to a broken, abandoned buildings and hiding within.

Heavy watched him fly up and draw his bow, putting the arrow in place and waiting patiently. He turned back to Medic whose horn was now giving off blue sparks.

"Charged." Medic muttered, Heavy nodded, the two then returning to their previous conversation. They didn't have to keep their act up for much longer as a large group of around twenty ponies happily trotted into view.

The group looked off, the ponies were all oddly shaped, either they were too thin had oddly shaped body parts. Few ponies looked normal, one of them was the one in front, who stopped all of a sudden and looked around, causing the group behind him to stop in the town centre and stare at him, not loosing their cheerful demeanour.

"Hey pass me the map Crackers, I think we're lost." The pony said, he was a green pegasus with a yellow mane, he looked over to bulkiest pony in the group, an orange unicorn. He was big, but didn't surpass Heavy in size.

The unicorn tutted and shoved a map in the green pony's face, the pegasus spat it out and scanned it over with his green eyes, "Yep, definitely lost." He sighed and tossed the map back at Crackers

"I thought you said you knew where you were going.." Crackers growled, the pegasus raising his hooves defencelessly.

"Alright alright, I'll go and ask for directions." The green pegasus said, ignoring the glare he got from Crackers and flying over to Engineer and Demo.

Before Crackers or any of the other ponies in the group could protest to the green pegasus, Demo's horn flared a bright red as explosions went off around the group of tourists, throwing them off their feet, maiming a few and killing two. The group's wounds bled turquoise.

As the group recovered there were three separate beeps and chrrrs that came from different directions, the source of the noise were three sentry guns, red with laser guns and firework launchers. "It's a trap!" 'Cracker' yelled to his group as they tried to flee, some of the maimed creatures got pelted with rapid magical blasts before getting finished off with a bright firework, black and turquoise gibs sent into the air.

Out of the group of twenty, six had been killed already, the rest had ran out of the sentry's range. The green pegasus took to the air and hovered above them, smirking. 'Crackers' growled and dropped his disguise, the others following suit.

"You... traitor!" 'Crackers' roared, the yellow unicorn had become a brutish changeling adorned in dark blue armour, carried by powerful legs, "You dare disrespect the Queen."

Spy dropped his disguise too and glared down at the changelings, "She is not worthy of my respect." He hissed before vanishing.

The large changeling laughed mockingly, "And you've taught yourself pretty pony magic, how cute." He looked around for Spy when he was tapped on the shoulder, he whirled and glared at the drone that had distracted him, who pointed ahead of them.

When the brute changeling followed his gaze he paled, towering above the group was Heavy, Medic stood close behind with an amused expression on his face. The changelings all lit up their horns and fired magical green blasts at the pair, before they could hit Heavy's body turned blue and metallic, the blasts bouncing off harmlessly.

Heavy snorted before charging at group with a roar, Medic chased after him. Most scattered, only the largest changeling attempted to counter Heavy's attack only to be knocked aside and thrown into a nearby wall. The small changeling drone was stomped under Heavy's hoof just as the metallic armour flickered out.

Two other changelings, upon realising Medic had caused the armour, chose to attack the smaller stallion. One dove at the oblivious Medic only to receive a baseball to the skull and getting knocked to the ground.

"Coming through knuckleheads!" Scout called as he swung his baseball bat at the second attacking changeling sending it flailing. The pegasus turned to the first changeling and brought his bat down on it's head while shouting, "BONK!"

Eleven changelings remained, two drones and nine soldiers, they all grouped together watching to see if any more ponies would start attacking. The townsfolk of Teufort had already fled into shops and buildings at the first explosion. That's when they heard a whistling sound came from above them.

"Scatter!" One of the soldiers yelled as a firework shot towards them, exploding in a red and yellow flash and sending them flying in different directions.

One of the two drones recovered quicker then the rest, he lifted his head and charged green magic in his horn before releasing it into the air where it exploded in a green flash with a loud 'bomb'. Soldier narrowly avoided the blast and glared down at the drone.

"You missed, MAGGOT!" He shouted, diving down and throwing a firework directly in the changeling's face, destroying it.

"That light could've been seen for miles." Demo mused as he darted around, placing more bombs towards the entrance to Teufort to prevent the changelings from retreating, "This has been too easy..." Demo watched as Pyro swooped down and incinerated eight of the ten changelings remaining, the insect like creatures apparently being highly flammable.

There were only three changelings left, the brute facing off Heavy and Medic and the two survivors of the firework attack, both the survivors making a charge for Scout, who was taunting some of the changeling corpses. As one reared up to bite Scout with his sharp fangs an arrow buried itself into it's skull, killing the changeling instantly. At the same time the other was killed with a bite to the neck from Spy, who appeared behind it.

Spy groaned at the blood splattered onto his suit from both Sniper's arrow and his own bite, "Ruined." He muttered.

"Why the suit, traitor?" The changeling drone spat, he was being pinned to the ground by Heavy, any small cuts or bruises on the stallion's body were being rapidly healed by Medic's magic.

Spy casually pulled a cigarette case out of the inside pocket of his suit, removed a cigarette and lit it, "So my colleagues know who to aim for." He said just before an arrow pierced the brute's eye.

Heavy snorted and stood up straight, "That was too easy." He rumbled, the other nearby mercenaries agreeing.

"I understand that changelings are better stealth fighters, but that was pathetic." Medic added.

"Maybe they are.." Spy began, but was cut off by a pair of shouts.

"INCOMING!" Demo and Engineer chorused, the two unicorns quickly retreating from the entrance of Teufort, followed by an even larger group of changelings, possibly three times the size of the first batch.

Demo flared his horn again, an explosion going off amongst the changelings, but many were flying and were unharmed.

"There's more coming the other way too!" Scout shouted, backing away from an equally large group of changelings flying down from the sky, "Really starting to hope we didn't get trapped in our trap you know." He said, laughing nervously.

"Bring it on you love eating MAGGOTS!" Soldier bellowed as he dove down into the small army with magical grenades in his hooves, he threw them down only for one to be shot back up and explode close enough to Soldier to send him off balance and crashing into the ground, his saddlebag of explosives breaking and falling away. Medic quickly ran over to heal the pegasus.

Pyro then dipped down and washed the changelings with her fiery breath, as she came low enough to them, the changelings began firing magical blasts at her, forcing her to fly higher.

The changelings came to a stop, surrounding the grounded mercenaries, who had retreated into the centre of town. They all were seemingly keeping their distance between themselves and the mercs.

"Oi Medic," Demo hissed while searching his saddle bag for more grenades, "You got a charge yet."

Medic shook his head as he helped Soldier to his hooves.

"A plan like, right now, would be nice." Scout said, hovering nervously over Heavy.

"They get too close and they'll get blasted." Engineer whispered, "But I think they already know that."

Back in the abandoned building Sniper swore quietly, there were too many changelings to shoot effectively and so much as one arrow could give away his position. He was forced to just sit and watch his team, but still prepared his bow, just in case he saw an opportunity.

The match on the ground was at a standstill, there were too many for the mercs to attack head on, but the sentries stopped the changelings from attack any further. The two groups were just glaring at each other in silence. Spy decided to make a move, he sneaked back into the centre of the group and turned invisible, his movement went unnoticed by the surrounding changelings.

Soldier pushed Medic away to glare at the changelings around him, "I'll tell you what we're going to do stallions," He snapped, "We are going to fight! We are going to tear every last one of these maggots limb from limb and crush their brains to make BEETLE JUICE!"

Almost instantly after Soldier spoke laughter broke out around the mercs, the older pegasus growling as the other mercs winced at the changeling's shrill laughter.

One of the changeling's managed to catch their breath, "There's only six of you idiot ponies," The changeling called out to the group, "Six ponies, one dragon and one traitor against over a hundred of us."

Engineer blinked and exchanged looks with the other mercenaries, all of them realising the same thing; the changelings didn't know about Sniper.

Soldier simply continued to growl, "Alright love bugs, you asked for it." He addressed the changeling army, the pegasus grabbed Medic with one forelimb, before the unicorn could protest Soldier screamed, "ATTACK!!", and took off into the air, taking Medic with him.

The remaining mercenaries were in shock for a few seconds, as were most of the changelings, until a spitball of fire fell from the air, the distracted changelings not noticing quick enough to move out of the way got hit. As the fire spread from the panicking changelings, the other mercenaries choose this opportunity to attack.

Engineer used his magic to pack one of his sentries away and take it closer to the fight. Some of the uninjured changelings fired their magic at Engineer and his relocated sentry to force the unicorn from retreating to collect another, instead he stayed to repair and protect his first. The short unicorn hid behind his device as he made constant repairs with his wrench to stop the magical blasts from destroying it, the sentry firing magical blasts back at any changeling that got too close. Engineer looked helplessly back over towards his other two sentries, one was still out of range of the changelings, the other was firing every so often at the changelings that swooped too low to it. If the unicorn had had enough magic left over he could of teleported one of the sentries over, but inorder for his sentries to work he had to sacrifice a large portion of his magic to them, building one would have been fine but building three left him with only the strength to do basic levitation.

Elsewhere Demo had collected the broken saddlebag that had been dropped by Soldier, inside he found around half a dozen fireworks but no magical grenades. It'll have to do, he thought. He darted back to a safer position and levitated a match box out of the saddlebag, he wasn't surprised to find that not many were left, but he would have to make do. Demo took three of the fireworks in his magic and held them horizontally, using a spell to enchant them with more power, the enchantment making the explosives glitter with the same red magic that came from Demo's horn, he then lit a match and fired all three at once. The fireworks wizzed towards a group of changelings charging towards Engineer from behind the unicorn's back, one firework exploded in front of the group, blinding them, the two exploding in the middles of the group, scattering and maiming them.

Heavy however, wasn't finding it as easy to fight the horde of changelings, especially with Medic gone. If he charged in to them he would get swarmed and taken down, but he wasn't fast enough to dodge the changeling's magic. He found himself feeling quite useless in the middle of the town centre.

Scout seemed to sense this, he swooped down close to a small group of changelings, "Yo knuckleheads, over here." He taunted, hitting one over the head with his bat. The changelings hissed angryily and chased after him, Scout luring them straight to Heavy, flying over the giant stallion's head.

"All yours, big guy." He said as he flew away to find some more changelings to fight/lure. Heavy grinned and turned back to the changelings, who had stopped chasing Scout and stared at Heavy before trying to scramble away. Despite his slowness, Heavy still caught up with the changelings with ease and stomped on them, Scout luring more changelings over to the giant.

Spy appeared and disappeared amongst the army, tearing out throats of lone changelings. He was unable to disguise as other changelings, changelings had the ability to know who other changelings were disguised as, so it would have been pointless to try. The amount of changeling blood in his teeth and mouth, a lot of it getting on his suit. If only he had something else to kill with. Perhaps a knife or something, the changeling thought to himself.

Meanwhile, up in the air, Soldier and Medic hovered high up in the sky. Medic making quiet nervous noises while he kicked his legs around as though treading water, Soldier glaring down at the fight, ignoring the sounds coming from the unicorn he was carrying. Pyro was gliding around the sky as well, she and Soldier were focused to stay up high, flying too low would result in being shot at by the changelings.

"You got that charge yet doc?" Soldier asked.

"N-nein." Medic answered, trying not to look down, "I don't know what you'd do with it anyway."

Soldier looked thoughtful for a moment, as if just realising that he didn't have a plan, Medic sighed shakily.

"Ghh hmm trr mmrr." Pyro mumbled, as she landed on a nearby cloud. The two stallions in the air exchanging confused looks.

"Speak up smokey joe, that's an order." Soldier snapped, Medic wincing from being so close to the pegasus' shout.

"GHH HMM TRR MMRR." Pyro said a little louder then before, Soldier and Medic still looking confused.

"We are going to have to teach you sign language fraulein." Medic muttered, mainly to himself.

Pyro made a sighing sound through her mask, "Ghh hmm," She pointed at Medic, "Trr mmrr." the dragon then pointed at herself.

"You should have said so then private." Soldier said, Medic yelped as Soldier threw him at Pyro, the dragon catching the distressed unicorn with both her arms.

"DON'T DO THAT!" Medic shouted at the pegasus after catching his breath from the mini-heart attack he had in the air, "Bitte."

"Not now oktoberfest, I've got a job to do." Soldier waved Medic away, the unicorn huffed in irritation. Soldier swooped down to a lower cloud, dragging it down closer to the ground to protect him from any magical blasts. "Charge!!" He cried as he suddenly swooped down to a clear area by Demo, the unicorn having run out of explosives and was now attacking with a board with nails hammered into it.

Pyro and Medic remained in the air, the dragon looked down at the unicorn and asked, "Chrrr?", before Medic could question her the dragon pointed a claw at Medic's horn.

"Oh." Medic said, attaching his healing magic to the dragon, "Nearly, just a little longer." Pyro nodded and looked back down to the battle.

Sniper watched the fight take place from a safe distance, the griffin had a limited amount of arrows, so had to make them count. He picked off any changelings that tried to disguised as the mercenaries, like the changeling that crept up on Engineer disguised as Demo, or the Scout that was moving slower then the real one could, as he tried to get the best of Heavy while the giant was distracted. He also kept a weary eye on Spy whenever he saw him. The griffin didn't quite trust the changeling, not after the cut close to his eye when they first met, although Sniper had sliced Spy's ear in return. Sniper allowed a smirk as he remembered their first meeting before taking aim once more and firing.

The team of six mercenaries still fighting on the ground were doing surprisingly well against the army, Pyro's first fire spit having drastically eaten into their numbers, the mercs still chipped away at the remaining changelings. But the ones that remained seemed to be smarter and able to take more hits then the ones that had fallen, even with Soldiers added help there was still many changelings left. Heavy especially was getting swarmed by some of the stronger changelings. The majority of the insect like creatures had grouped together to defend from all sides.

Pyro waited patiently on the cloud, holding the 'apparently-afraid-of-heights' doctor in her arms. When Medic's horn began to sparkle he nodded, "I am charged." he said, "Do you have a plan?", Pyro nodded and put Medic on her back, the unicorn looked down, "I'll charge you when you get close to the ground." Pyro nodded again and flared her wings.

She swooped down low to the ground, the grouped changelings noticed and began to shoot upwards, before they hit Pyro's body became blue and sparkly, the magical blasts from the changelings doing nothing. She took in a breath then breathed a wash of fire over the changelings in the group, incinerating them with ease before the ubercharge flickered out.

"Alright Pyro!" Scout cheered as he darted away from the burning changelings, he and the other mercs looking around and seeing Heavy, still surrounded by changelings.

"Come on y'all!" Engineer called to the group, he carried one of his remaining sentries closer to the surviving changelings, leaving the other to defend the fire in case a changeling somehow survived. Pyro set Medic down and joined the fight, Medic healing Heavy once the changelings had been killed.

"Are you okay mein kamerad?" The doctor asked, he and Demo pulling the giant stallion to his hooves.

"Da, da, Heavy is fine doktor." Heavy replied as Sniper glided down towards the group.

"Sorry to break it to you mates," He said, landing beside Pyro, "But we missed about four of the pikers, ran out of arrows before losing sight of 'em." He looked around, "And where the bloody hell is Spy."

Heavy shook his head, "Cowards have run away, no point going after them." He said.

Engineer frowned, "You sure partner, they could be warning the Queen."

"Tiny Spy will take care of them, am sure." Heavy nodded, Engineer's frown lightened, but didn't leave his features.

Before the team could argue further they heard a shout, "Guys! Guys!" They turned to see Miss Pauling running towards them, she stopped next to Scout, "Did you get them all?"

Demo nodded, "Spy's after the ones that got away, did the princess get the news?"

Miss Pauling nodded, "She wants to thank you all in person," The mercenaries exchanging excited looks, "Once you've recovered that is.. and cleaned up." she added, gesturing to the state of Teufort, the amount of changeling bodies, burnt ground and small craters, not to mention the terrified citizens of Teufort.

"We better get to work then lads and lassies." Demo said, laughing weakly, "Hey, maybe we'll even get Spy to do some work when he gets back."

"if he get's back," Sniper muttered coldly, "He's probably gonna stab us in the back, you know that right."

"We'll see slim," Engineer said, "Can't be sure that all those things are bad right."

"But anyway," Miss Pauling continued, "You guys deserve a rest, Celestia has sent some guards to do clean up here, nobody knew how bad it would be, and you all survived, you should celebrate."

The surrounding mercenaries cheered to this and began to head back towards the Mane co base on the other side of town. Scout flew over to Miss Pauling, likely attempting to ask her to join in the celebration. Heavy stayed behind from the group, Medic looked at him worriedly.

"(Are you okay my friend?)" The doctor asked in German.

"(Yes, I'm fine.)" Heavy replied in German.

Medic blinked in confusion and looked Heavy in the eye, "(Since when can you speak Germane?)" He asked.

Heavy hesitated for a moment before answering, "Er, have been learning it," He said in English.

Medic was about to question his friend further when the thought suddenly became unimportant to him, a sharp pain sprung up at his temples causing him to stagger backwards, almost tripping on his own backlegs.

"What's wrong doktor?" Heavy asked, catching Medic before he fell, the unicorn shook his head and brought a hoof up to his head.

"I'm.. I don't know." The unicorn shook himself again and after a moment tittered, "Probably just a rush from that battle, ja?"

Heavy smiled, "Will be okay for party though?"

"Of course!"

Demo called Medic over to discuss alcohol with him, thee two unicorns beginning to chatter about the different types and what would be suitable for the evening. Heavy hung back behind the group, the other mercenaries deciding that the giant stallion, who wasn't the fastest on his good days, was just tired, so they continued planning the night ahead.

They were too caught up with celebrating noticed that something was very wrong.