Of Rushes and Proxies

Mike, a fearless commander of the mighty Dominion army, was sleeping away on the couch of a persistently poking purple pony.

        “Mike…” Twilight said again, now shaking the Terran’s shoulder.

        Now there are many commanders in the Dominion military. Hundreds of thousands even.

        “Mike!” Twilight was now raising her voice, but all this elicited from the commander was a snort. He rolled away from the source of the noise.

        It’s also not like these commanders were elite teams of the best in the galaxy. They were fearless and mighty, since nobody feared this mighty large category of idiots.

        And one such idiot was now being thrown off a couch.

        “Ah! What the heck Twilight?”

        “You were snoring loudly, slept through the entire morning, and did you even remember the cutecenera Pinkie is hosting?”

“The who in what now?”

Twilight shook her head and checked a box on her list, she didn’t have time to deal with the Terran as she went to the kitchen where her baby dragon Spike was cooking dinner.

        Mike got up and stretched. He’d woken up to worse. Angry superior officers, pranks from peers, the enemy tearing down his bedroom door with cannons, acid, and/or plasma. “Hey Spike, can you save some of that food for me?” He called over his shoulder as he walked to the back door.

        Mike stepped outside before he could hear Spike’s response, and looked over the glorious sight of the sprawling military complex in Twilight’s back yard. Structures of varying purposes were scattered about, occasionally glowing until they popped more troops into existence using the finest technologies in Terran production ingenuity, with such vigor and impressive show not ever seen before in the land of Equestria.

        Then Mike realized he could’ve checked on his main base from his helmet’s overhead view, and promptly shunned the outside in favor of laying on the couch.

        Before he could be reunited however, another of Twilight’s companions/friends, this one a rainbow maned, Teal furred, annoyingly brash, once a target of his airfleet in that incident with the dragon, pegasus named Rainbow Dash, ambushed his path.

        “Hey Mike, I need to borrow something real quick.”

”Ah,” Mike thought, “Trying to swindle me from more of Applejack’s cider eh? Not a chance lowly noob, this is for officers of the Dominion sucker!”

        Rainbow kicked his kneepad to shake him out of his thoughts.

        “Ow! What is it you feathered rat?!”

        Rainbow probably chose to ignore this, seeing as how…

        “I need to borrow one of your flying machines.”

        “What? Why?”

        “Applebloom is trying to get a cutie mark, and nothing I’ve tried worked. Then I thought, ‘well, what if it’s not for Equestria?’” She walked toward a window and pointed outside toward Mike’s base. “Then I thought of you weirdo’s camping outside Twilight’s tree home. And that’s why I’m here. So, which flying craft should we use? How about the ones you took to the Cloudsdale competition? Those were kinda cool.”

        “No.”

        “What?”

        “I’m not gonna let some small horse alien use such high level machines.” Because that would take work, and he wanted to go back to sleep.

        Rainbow was displeased. “Oh? You don’t want to help Applejack’s little sister?”

        Wait, what?

        “A darn shame, guess Applejack will have to give her leftover cider to more helpful folk, like certain pegasi giving her family awesome cutiemarks.”

        Ohshitnothecider.

        “Hold on! Uh… it’s… an issue of control.” Mike wiggled his fingers. “How are you or the kid going to run the ship without these?”

        “I dunno, guess you’re gonna have to work that out.” Rainbow turned back around as Spike exited the kitchen carrying Mike’s dinner. “Oh sweet, pancakes! Can I have some?”

        “Uh, actually they’re for Mike.”

        “Oh really? Well I’m sure he won’t mind if I have some.” She scooped the whole plate of food into her mouth before Mike could even protest.

        “I’ll be back with Applebloom soon. See ya!” Dash then trotted out of the library. All Mike could do was curse and rage in his head.

        “What was that about?” Spike asked.

        Mike only vaguely heard him before formulating a plan. “Hey uh, I got some stuff I need to get together, talk to you later.” He hastily left to the backyard to rally his plan into motion. This blackmail by technicolor donkeys would not stand.

[Page Break]

        For the last hour, activity within the base had been continuous and bustling as troops and airships were set up on patrols that would actually make the base secure, rather than what they’d done ever since they’d arrived in Equestria, which was wander aimlessly with no attention to anything.

        So after intense work, the military base finally lived up to expectations in security, now being able to repel even the toughest of wandering foals.

        Mike directed the final touches hastily however, he didn’t know when Applebloom and the cider fiend would show up, and so his personal vanguard was on edge.

        “Vanguard Alpha! Go to your assigned mineral line defense position, Vanguard Charlie are the ones supposed to be stationed at the cliff edge!

        This error was corrected, and just in time, as Rainbow Dash and Applebloom made their way over. Team Bravo, consisting solely of surviving ghosts from Mike’s massive storming of Canterlot, activated cloaking, and the sole individual disappeared from visible sight.

        “Hello girls! Welcome to my humble camp!” Mike put on the most non-threatening smile he possibly could. A pointless gesture, seeing as how he wore an intimidating and obstructing full face reaper mask.

        Applebloom looked at the Terran structures with awe. All of ponyville knew of the strange space aliens at the perimeter of town with Twilight’s library nearby, but there was never any opportunity for a reasonable excuse to get a close look.

        Rainbow was not so easily impressed, as she looked through her list. “Tried that one… tried that one…”

        Applebloom then glanced at the hovering terran aircraft moving to and fro above the base. “Hey Dash. What if my cutiemark is operatin one of them flyin machines?”

        Rainbow looked up and noticed for the first time where they were. “Oh. I’d forgotten about this one.” Mike’s concealed smile crashed at her blatant negligence. “Well, while we’re here, you going to help Mike?”

        “... Yeah, yes. I have just the ship for you.” He stepped to the side so that they may behold the Terran starport behind him. On cue, a brand new aircraft, straight from the assembly arms rose dramatically. Alarm lights flashed as the platform carried the savior of infantry in any Terran battle: A Dominion red Medivac transport.

        “Ready for dust off.” The female pilot called out.

        Roaring Vtol rockets went vertical as the ship launched itself into the air, the fact of it keeping horizontal to the ground the whole way up showing the familiarity paired with skill of being in the air only seasoned pilots possessed, while demonstrating the expert precision that professional surgeons had. Medivac transport operators were always both of the above.

        “Waitin on you.” She called out again as the dropship maneuvered itself over the commander and two ponies.

        “Alright, land next to us, I need you to do something that wasn’t covered in your forty-two second training program.”

        “Inbound.”

        The ship lowered itself to the ground, facing the trio, and landed.

        “Good. Now get out of the pilot chair and teach this filly pony how to fly that thing.”

        “... What?”

        Mike kicked open the cargo bay door and marched in, Applebloom following eagerly while Dash trotted in with disappointment etched on her face. “Where’s the cool weapons and stuff?”

        This brought commander Mike to a halt. “You doubt the power of Medivac?”

        “Well, all the other stuff you’ve showed off always made an awesome explosion. And instead of all those other things, you give us a heal bus?”

        The cockpit door behind Mike practically exploded outward