Fallout: Equestria: Stars & Stripes

Chapters

Chapter One: The Facility
Theme Music
Chapter Two: Phobia
Chapter Three: Mortality
Chapter Three and a Half: Revelations
Chapter Four: Welcome
IMPORTANT NOTICE
Chapter Six: Counting Stars

Chapter One: The Facility

Me and Wing Six G walked down the pristine blue hallway.

I know, right? Pristine blue hallways! Whenever you picture a top-secret, underground facility, ponies always tend to imagine a white hallway! But no, this was fucking BLUE!

I'm getting off topic, aren't I?Well then. The hallways were adorned with all kinds of iridescent, old, flickering lights. The wall paint was peeling, giving the entire hall a creepy feel. The floor was pristine, cleaned 'till it shined, each individual tile eerily showing reflections of every pony. The O.I.A. wouldn't give us any lights that would do us any good. Almost everyone in my Wing, Wing 6-g, had developed weird headaches because of them.

Fuck! Why does staying on topic always have to be so frickin' HARD?

Okay. I'm gonna try harder. I don't have much time.

Alright. My name is CyRus. But most ponies just call me Cy. Why the capitol R, you may ask? Well, I have no idea. It had something to do with my cybernetic liver. I was walking through the facility with a crowd of eight other ponies (And I use that term loosely). I am a Pegasus pony, and the sharpshooter of my Wing.

Wait, you guys have no idea what a Wing is. Right. Forgot.

You see, the Equestrian Royal Army consists of a simple hierarchy. Princess Celestial rules over the two sections of the military, who, in turn, have about seven hundred Wings each. Everyone in a Wing has a specialty. I happen to be a sniper, and am bunked with my Wing mates 24/7. The rest of my Wing consisted of Five others, so six to a wing.

Next to me was the second-in-command, Colgate. She was the only one in my team that actually took care of her teeth. She was a sharpshooter, like me.

After her, Char, a Pegasus. Unlike most Pegasi, Char was multicolored, taking on a relatively fire-colored theme. Her full name is Char Broiled, but if you call her that, you'll find yourself dying a fiery, painful death. her specialty is demolitions and pyrotechnics.

Kilowatt. The only other male in Wing 6g, he was always full of energy, maybe due to he fact that most of the waking minutes of his life were spent working with electricity. He was the only one in our group that knew how to do anything fancy with our insanely bulky PipBucks.

Lost Star was a Zony. Not only that. She was a red-striped Zony. These two traits got her brutally tortured in Roam, the zebra capitol. Needless to say, she hates other Stripes now. However, when in Roam, she did manage to learn Fallen Ceasar Style, making her our melee and close quarters combat specialist.

HalfHeart. Oh... HalfHeart. I had just a tiny crush on her. As the leader of our Wing, she made all the hard calls. Her coat was a vibrant yellow-gold, her snout actually more like a male's. She is our heavy weapons mare, and is the only one allowed to carry a weapon on site, much to our dismay.

We continued down the hallway. Celestia be fucked, this is a long hallway. I had time for that entire musing intro.

"...and therefore, helping save the world, and causing the glorious rebirth of Equestria!" The voice droned on.

"You know, we've heard this speech a thousand times. We are combat ready! The simulator hasn't been very fair the last few runs."

She glared at me, and I blushed, thinking about my latest fuck-up in the simulator. How was I supposed to know that the bullet would penetrate all the way through that zebra? Also, whoever would leave flammable gas tanks around is just plain fucking stupid.

"Ok." Said the scientist. I should know his name, I guess, but after a while here, they all look the same.

"Wait, what?" This was Char. "Just like... that? Just... let us? Now?"

"Ayep. I think that you're ready now."

I should explain.

You see, Whiterun Research Labs, or W.R.L., was Equestria's "failsafe." Exactly six teams of six ponies each resided there, 24/7, ready to be put into stasis, a cryogenic freeze, and sent into orbit in a suborbital craft, called a SI-21 Skreex, in case of a megaspell war. About 150 years later, we would wake up, and save Equestria.

And it was and still is the most boring place on planet earth. When not on active duty (which, apparently, was not until the end of the world), none of us were even allowed to touch real ordnance. And trust me, we have been seeking out the weaponry in this place for almost a month now, and still no bang.

Get it? Got it? Good. Back to the present.

The scientist from earlier walked about two feet to the right and opened a wooden door.

Simultaneously, all of our jaws dropped.

"What... The... FUUUUCK!" This was me now.

"I've been looking for that for weeks!" That was Colgate.

"I assumed it was the John." Said Halfheart.

The wooden door swung open. We all stepped inside.

Again, my jaw dropped.

The room was everything I had dreamed it was, and more. The room was a pristine white, long and angular, tapering downtown a needle point at the end. There were six pods inside, each about the size of a pony. The walls were lined with guns and knives of all sorts.

This was by FAR, the coolest room that I had ever seen. I mean, the medical rooms they used to give us flux injections were O.K., but this was fucking EPIC!

"This is the inside of the Skreex." Said Mr. Scientist.

"This is an airplane?" I asked.

It most certainly was!

The walls of this room were actually white! WHITE!

Oh, and not to mention, you know, covered in deadly weapons of all sorts. I immediately ran over to the longest weapon on the wall, an elegant yet deadly-looking rifle with a rubberized mouthgrip.

"IF-81 Hummingbird..." I read aloud. Everyone else was checking out weapons of their own.

"OH... MY... CELESTIA!" Yelled out Char.

I saw her holding a flamethrower, one which I identified as a BI-9 Hellhound. On the side, it was written: BBQ

"Nice find... what are those?" I pointed to one of the pods.

"Those are your Stasis pods. Better get comfy, cuz in a few short months, chances are you'll be blasting off, and staying in orbit for quite a long time." Said the scientist.

I chuckled.

I mean, I couldn't help it! Have you ever tried taking a scientist with a Dixie accent seriously?

CURFEW LIMIT IN THREE MINUTES. PLEASE REPORT TO YOUR DORMITORIES IMMEDIATELY.

A deafening screech filled the room, and I tried not to lose my lunch of canned flux-meat.

'Ahhh... claustraphobia. Nice to see you again. Hear any new gossip lately?"

For a pegasus pony, being cramped up in a small, enclosed lab 24/7 wasn't esactly the most enticing choice of employment. MY head tried not to imagine a cave-in, crushing my wiry body under tons of....

Forget it. I got up, and used the blue security passcard around my neck to un-engage the lock on the door to my room, and again to get into the dorm common room.

The common rooms in the facility were all the same, save for the touches of our own that we added to preserve our ever-teetering sanity. The table in the center was a solid block rising from the floor, with six floor cushions around it. The lights at night were always off, but Kilowatt had managed to make it so that the red emergency lights were always shining in our dorm and the rooms surrounding.

And I almost made it to the door undetected.

As I was carefully sneaking to the door to the dorm, I jumped in shock as the tiny Char jumped out from the threshold of the door. My, my. what an imposing figure.

"Get out of the way, Broiled. I gotta heave...."

My speech was interuppted by a swift applebuck to the chest.

I winced. "Maybe in hindsight, I shouldn't have called you Br..."

"Don't you fucking dare." Interjected Char.

"That's wierd. My urge to vomit just increased!"

"You like your testes where they are, Flyboy?"

"That depends. Where are they?"

At this prescise moment, Halfheart walks intot he common room. Things could get bad if he saw us awake after curfew!

"Dive for it!" Whispered Char.

I knew better. I opened the interface in my PipBuck with a few quick blinks an went into S.A.T.S., or Stable-Tec Assisted Targeting Spell. Immediately, time flowed down to a sluggish rate, and I could lock onto details like I was looking through a scope. I saw the threshold to my right, queued a move, and dove into it before Halfheart even was fully into the common room.

He looked around suspiciously, and walked back into his room.

"Still need to hurl?" Asked Char.

"Surprisingly, no. Let's head for the loo just in case."

"You sound as if it'll be hard."

"The punishment sure is..." I remembered. My short time of Flux withdrawl had been terrible.

"Still think sneaking around is easy?" I hissed through my teeth, at Char. We were only halfway to the restrooms, and we were almost caught no less than five times!

"Eh. It sure is fun!"

I should've expected that response. Char, as always, maintained a lighthearted demeanor. I loved her. Well, in a sisterly way, I guess. Like teammates.

"Here we are!"

Down about a hundred-hoof hallway was the ultimate prize: an actual toilet. It was so much better that using the holes in our rooms.

"And here I am!"

Aaaaaand... Caught. Fuck.

I turned around to see who had managed to find us, and instead, went for a headbutt.

My nose was promptly shocked, and my hairs stood on end.

"Voltage." Said I. That was our nickname for Kilowatt. "I would've known."

"C'mon back." He said in that deep, raspy voice of his. "They've had guards on the lookout for a while now. Don't want us up past curfew.

"You got me!" I said, putting my hooves out, as if he could cuff me.

"Cmon!" I waited expectantly, with a smile on my face.

He grumbled, but pretended to cuff me nevertheless. He led me off, and I got one final look at Char smiling at me from around the corner, running for the bathroom.

"Fuuuuuck...."

Dear Readers: Thanks for reading! This is my first FoE fic, so critisism (constructive) is appreciated. Chapters will update anywhere from twice a week to twice a month.

Theme Music

Theme Music. Play it when shit's goin' down.

Play With Ending Credits

Chapter Two: Phobia

The world was in slow motion.

Well, not exactly. I blinked once at the little sniper scope icon in my H.U.D., and the world slowed into a sluggish crawl as I targeted the lone zebra charging at me, and took it out with a well placed shot to the head, it's brain matter splattering the rubble in the street behind it.

I clenched my throat, activating my larynx mic, and mumbled clearly:

"Tango down, sector seven dash two. Where the fuck is Colgate?!"

"He's down for the count. KIA. Lost is end route to you, over."

I started to respond, and promptly began choking on my mic, and swallowed it. Using these things required you to surpress your gag reflex, a talent, that, apparently, I did not nor ever would possess. I turned on my ear bloom instead.

"This is Lost Star. Rendezvous with me at point E3, OK?" Yelled the Zony. "It'll be a while, I'm pinned down at the moment. Remember, E3!"

I always sucked at Battleship.

I started sprinting down the ruined city street, roughly south-ish of where I started. My E.F.S, or Eyes Forward Sparkle,told me that my destination was about five clicks away. Along the way, I observed the city ruins. Almost every window was shattered, and as I ran farther, I noticed that the buildings were almost crumbling into gray dust at points. I skidded to a stop as my huge PipBuck began clicking like crazy, alerting me that the radiation levels were at about 3 rads per second.

"Gaffer!!!" I yelled. This was the challenge word. Only a teammate of mine would know how to respond.

"Sundown!" Came the response. Lost Star, in all her glory, stood up directly in front of me. She had been blending into the ground using stone dust. She was almost as good a camoflauge as she was at melee, which is saying something.

"What a quaint little town. We should go here on vacay sometime." Her usual frown curved up at the edges, some of her native Zebra accent coming out.

I looked around. Although I wasn't exactly the smartest pony, I could still tell sarcasm when I heard it. The entire city of Baltimare was a wreck, somehow managing to be both creepy and endearing at the same time. Sometimes I found the wasted, broken teeth of the charred, scorched buildings to be emvued with incredible beauty.

Eh. I'm probobly just losing it.

"Yo. Cy. Snap out of it." Said Lost, clapping her hooves in my face. "Half heart and Char are pinned down to the north.

"Let me guess. We gotta go get their asses out of the heavy fire, right?''

"Do not use such vile language around me. Luna will not tolerate it."

Oh yeah, Lost and her language. She had no tolerance for any swearing or innuendo of any kind.

''Let us go." We sped down the block, into the radiation.

Yeah, we were all fucked.

We were just coming over the last rise when the heli came into view.

"Shall we take it out?" Said Lost.

To be honest, I was completely torn between yelling "Fuck yeah!" and charging, and cowering under my childhood blanket. The thing was huge, firing grenade bursts on full auto down into whoever was below, killing indescriminantly between Zebra and Pony alike.

"Lost, buy me some time." I said with a gulp.

I got out from the shell of a truck we were in, and looked at Lost expectantly. She nodded and moved toward the courtyard where the battle was taking place. I moved towards the largest sniping post I could see, the old clock tower overlooking the yard.

I spread my wings, taking flight towards the clock tower.

Bad idea.

The zebra gunner in the heli had seen me, and opened fire with the grenade machine gun. I went into SATS, trying to dodge. Each individual grenade went whoshing past me, flying into the distance. In the Zen of SATS, I could even seen the contrail of each grenade as some of them came so close that I could feel them brush my coat. I saw that they were all flechette grenades. Even at slowed-down time, however, they were still moving pretty fast. I tucked in my wings, slow-like, and fell, dodging most of the grenade burst. However, one clipped my wing, and detonated several feet behind me, propelling me down into the courtyard.

I saw the fight in the courtyard as I went down. Lost was fighting two zebras hoof to hoof, while Char put on the heat with massive gouts of searing flame from BBQ. I opened fire with my belt-fed shotgun battle saddle, clearing a landing space. The massive gun strapped to the left side of my body turned the courtyard into a living blender, the anti-personnell flechettes teraing apart flesh and bone.

I crashed with a sickening CRUNCH.

<--simuation terminated-->

Fuuuck.... it hurts. Mommy, don't make me get up. Five more minutes... OW!

I woke up with Colgate's face in mine.

"Huh. Would've expected Char to go before you."

My headache was going to overpower me!

"Yeah, me too. You watching from the monitors?"

" Yeah. Halfheart's in the observation room."

About then, Char and Lost came out of thier pods, and Kilowatt a few seconds later. The objective of our simulated mission was to distract the Zeebs, while Voltage planted explosives on an ammo depot.

"Effin YEAH!" Shouted Char. "we took out that heli!"

My jaw dropped. "How!?!? Wait, no. On second though, don't tell me. I don't need to know.

Jeez, this headache was starting to get out of hand! I felt like someone took an eggbeater, shoved it in my ear, and turned it on max speed!

"Anyone else developing a migrane worse than anal sex with razorwire? I asked politely.

Everyone agreed.

Kilowatt piped up. "I... think I'm gonna hit the john. Back in a sec." He sprinted away.

And as my luck would have it, a klaxon alarm went of at that exact moment.

You know how in movies, when a klaxon alarm sounds, everyone runs in circles and panics?

Well, the movies were wrong. They hardly even did the real thing justice! Almost every resident scientist in the q underground facility was running for their lives. It was total chaos. And nobody was even thinking about us, Equestria's only hope.

My PipBuck's HUD interface, projected directly onto my retina, displayed a message.

<---ALL-EXITS-SEALING-IN-TWO-MINUTES--->

Way to help prevent chaos and disorderly conduct. This just fanned the flame!

And the cliche would not be complete without.....

CRACK! A support beam from above us dislodged itself. And began falling. Right towards me.

My last thought was: "really....."

mmmmmmm. Cheese. I love cheese. Moldy milk... milky milky moldy........

My vision went fuzzy and I blacked out again.

Someone was yelling loudly. I could see the crumbling hallway around us. I attempted to move, and I was in a stretcher.

"Not agaaaaain...."

I woke again.

I saw the titanium walls, the elegant weapons hanging on the wall.

"The Skreex...."

I lifted my head up from my resting place.

THUMP!

"Stasis pod. Hm." I said aloud.

Get out get out now don't just ignore it outgetoutnow

I had no energy. All I could do was listen helplessly as the oxygen drained from my pod.

Hiiiiiiiisssssss.......

Chapter Three: Mortality

Mortality.

Sometimes, a pony will think about death. Is it painful? Scary? Is there really an afterlife?

Well, death is also an objective idea. Every pony has a different idea of death. Coma. Cardiac arrest. Even brain-death. But all of the old pony-tales tell us that in order to pass into the great beyond, one must die completely.

For now, I really hoped that I wouldn't have to find out in the immediate future.

I struggled futiley against the glass enveloping me as the sedative filled the pod with an unnerving hiss.

get out now no room to fly mommy mommy oh god I'm sleepy

The glass was reinforced. There was no getting out. Even the powerful srikes of my hooves did nothing. In such a small space, I could gain no leverage. I might as well have been hitting it with a twisty straw.

I took a look at my H.U.D.. Even as I activated the squad mate application with a few quick blinks, the icon for Char went from "healthy" to "unconscious".

I activated my throat mic. Static. The insulated stasis pod was blocking all transmissions.

"HEY!" I yelled, as the icon for Lost Star went uncon.

The sound simply reverberated back at me. These were soundproof, apparently.

"Please breath in deeply." A microphone in the pod informed me helpfully.

"LIKE FUCK I AM!" I struck the glass again, to no effect.

My brain was being starved of oxygen now. I felt the sudden urge to take a piss, and wondered vaguely how that worked.

And, now I had to drop a duece. Go figure.

With that last though in mind, I faded into blackness.

I was sitting on top of a cloud, eating the cotton candy out of it.

OK, this is probobly a dream. But at least it's a good one!

I buried my snout into the pink, fluffy goodness, and began chewing. I could get used to this!

I stopped. In less than two seconds, I had eaten the entire cloud. Yet I was somehow still sitting on it.

I had just bag an to taste the chocolate rain, when a voice rang out from nowhere.

"Dance, my puppet. Give me some chaos!"

I froze, and then realized that I was in a dream. Nobody could hurt me!

His voice was low and soothing, with a slight lisp.

I realized what I needed to ask him.

"Are you GAY?!"

The dream ended just about there.

Yawnn...

A familiar burst of claustrophobia took root just as the glass pod hissed open, slowly revealing the interior of the SI-21 Skreex. I attempted to roll out of the pod and stand up.

"I could really go for some cof- "MOTHERFUCKERTHATHURTS!!!"

In hindsight, it should've occurred to me sooner that 150 years locked up in a cryogenic freeze would leave you a little cramped up. My hind legs, both spasming, refused to obey my brain's commands to get up. Instead, my front legs pulled back and forth.

"Spazz." Char was in her pod, but had not yet gotten up. She was stretching out her legs, and practicing breathing deeply. I had missed a lot of training when I was... well... zoned out.

I continued to struggle futiley against my own fucked-up limbs as Char got up and began pacing slowly in circles around each pod. She pressed each red button, and the glass slid open, revealing the occupant. Until she got to the front of the room, next to where I was having my spazz attack.

"Oh my god! Look at Halfheart's pod!"

My spasms had stopped wracking me as badly as they were before, and indeed, something was definetely wrong with her pod. The top part of the glass was smashed clean off. HalfHeart herself was nowhere to be found. Her glasses and battle saddle were missing.

"Char. Wake up Voltage. I need to open the medical record, and he's the one with the pass codes."

Char trotted into the weapons room, where the quick-awakening systems were located. She ran her hoof over each of the red buttons, numbered one through six. In the other room, anti-sedatives were pumped into everypony's neck, waking them up. However, the little post-it note taped to the main terminal reminded us that it still took five minutes to act.

"Why do you need the medical records?" Asked Char.

"I need to see if the back hatch was opened in the last few years." I grimaced at the morbid thought. I did not want to have to think about this right now.

Char and I trotted back into the stasis room. Kilowatt's muscles were starting to stir under his electric-blue hide. Most of the needles in him were now retracting from his body, back into the stasis pod. He still had a good three minutes before the last dose of anti-sedative was administered, shocking him awake.

I turned to Char.

Char. "I know this is a bad time for you, and you don't want to think about it." I looked at the smashed pod. "But is there any... blood, on the glass?"

I think I already knew the answer.

Char turned to the pod, and scrutinized it closely, an expression of fear on her face.

"Y... Yes. Lots of dried blood. Inside."

We were silent for about a minute. Although no one said anything, it was an unspoken vibe in the air that our leader was probobly dead.

"Please don't be dead, sis. Please..." Cried Char softly.

Kilowatt awoke after about ten minutes of anti-sedative, leaving me out in the cold for a good seven minutes of extreme awkwardness with Char.

"Ughhh..." Kilowatt woke in the Skreex

"KILO! KILO!" Char yelled.

"Wha..." Kilo started, until he started to roll out of his pod.

"NO! Not anyone else!" No one else should have to experience those spasms!

"Stretch out, Voltage. 150 years in a pod isn't exactly good for your muscles." I said.

We sat for about a minute while he stretched his legs.

"You need me to access the terminals? He guessed.

A look from me told him "yes". We had been "bronies" for long enough that we had a sort of telepathy going. He started typing, entering the passcodes and his account codes into the system. The rest of the team began waking up.

Colgate was first.

"What happened?" Yawned Colgate.

As she said this, I began to wonder exactly how many of us actually remembered the last night.

"Char?" I asked.

"Yeah"

"Ummm... what happened? I wasn't exactly... conscious for it all."

"None of us were." This was Lost Star, who had apparently just woken up from stasis.

"We were all tranquilized. None of us have any idea how the scientists even got us here.

I pondered this. This was certainly fishy.

"Then who was wheeling me through the hallways? The scientists? They were all running for thier lives."

"DONE!" Announced KiloWatt, interrupting.

We all raced to the terminal in the back of the jet, crowding around it like virgin nerds at a whorehouse.

The screen was still on the main interface page, and Voltage double-clicked on the icon for "Entrances/Exit Records." A screen pulled up, showing only two lines of code.

Stasis_Pod_1_Y1079M4D7/1134_Exit_Forced.

Back_Hatch_Door_Y1079M4D7/1146_Exit_ Forced.

Stasis_Pod_1_UnOccupied_Y36M4

This was bad. Very, very bad.

The two lines of code on the terminal screen, simply put, stated that a stasis pod was abandoned, and someone jumped out the back hatch roughly twelve seconds later.

"Wait!" Said Char. "Check the parachutes."

"Already did." Replied KiloWatt. "All six are right where they're supposed to be.

"Oh..." I could hear the dissapointment and sadness in Char's scratchy voice.

"Ok, now acess the medical and stasis records." I told KiloWatt.

More strings of code appeared.

Stasis_Pods_2-6_Activated/Awaiting_CryogenicsY1015M3->

Life_Support_1_Pods 1-6

"But this means..." Began Char.

I interrupted her.

"Yeah. C'mere."

I wrapped Char in a tight embrace with my right wing, feeling the stub of her amputated left wing.

"Maybe he's still alive somehow...''

"No. I'm sorry, but you're gonna have to get over this." Said KiloWatt. "We touch down in twenty-four hours."

"But..."

I piped up. "Char, those lines of code clearly stated that the life support for Pod One went on. Do you know what this means? This means that she spent over 75 years, unable to move, still concsious. If he somehow made it out alive, she would be stark raving mad!"

I looked at my cutie mark, a brain. I still haven't figured out what it was for, although one of the common guesses was pshycology...

I hugged her even tighter. I knew what it was like to lose a sibling.

"So, who wants some, umm, coffee? Suggested Kilowatt. I smiled. One of his talents, other than engineering, was cheering other ponies up. He came into the weapons/terminal room with five cups of steaming hot, creamy mocha.

"To Halfheart." He prompted.

"TO HALFHEART!"

Chapter Three and a Half: Revelations

The earth is round!?!?

Kilowatt, still screwing with the terminal in the weapons room, had exposed a window, and in doing so, threw my entire world into a whole new perspective. As the wall panels slid into the pristine white floor of the stasis room, a huge, spotless wraparound window materialized, giving me a 270 degree view of the whole earth.

And for someone who had seen the sky every day for my entire life (minus the last two weeks), my stomach wasn't taking it well. The entire cloud-horizon line, ever so slightly curved, reminded me of a fluffy white pillow. I remembered hearing something about a round planet on the Science channel, I'd never actually thought it to be true.

"This is the most hauntingly beautiful thing i've ever seen!" Said Kilowatt.

Kilowatt was staring out of the ship with an intensity that bordered on insanity. Honestly, I had no idea how he could stand it. I had only glanced out, and now I was... oh no.

I turned to the trash-disposal hole as I felt a familiar tugging in my stomach, and bent over it, dry-heaving until my brain cleared up. My breath now tasted like vomit. And stale coffee beans.

"You done?" Asked Lost Star.

"Almost." I bent over the trash again, this time actually throwing up violently. The smell only got worse as the incinerator at the bottom of the can burned up my vomit, realeasing vomit-vapors into the air. I was surprised that nopony passed out.

"Cool!" Yelled Char, her inner Pyro escaping as she began to throw paper cups down the trash, and watching them burn with apparent glee. At least the smoke from the cups dulled down the stench of my vomit.

After a long couple of hours of similar antics, Colgate, whom we elected leader for now, called lights out. We all sighed in approval. I trotted into the other of the two rooms of the Skreex, and laid in my stasis pod.

At Dawn, we begin.

First of all, I want to thank all of the kind FoE fans that have helped this become one of the most popular Foe sidefics released in the past few months (and stick a certain finger to the FoE haters). From now on, the chapters to this story will be about 3000-5000 words long. The first few were just an intro. But, because of this, I will only release one or two chapters a week from now on. For the overall length, I am thinking of going to about 25-30 chapters, maybe submit it to EQD.Thanks for reading!

Chapter Four: Welcome

Chapter Four: Rezzurection

The dawn sun rose over the horizon, streaming the pure white cloudcover with fire-colored ribbons of refracted light miles long. The bright red light streamed through the RexiGlass window, falling over my body and casting shadows on parts of my face, while illuminating others. The stainless steel stasis pod, now used only for sleeping, shined with a dull gleam, dimly reflecting the larger features of the room to whoever may happen to be conviniently clinging to the outside of a subspace vessel miles in the air, looking inward.

With that mildly disturbing thought, the shrill screech of the alarm from my PipBuck was projected directly into my inner ear, vibrating the inside of my skull with more speed than a Wonderbolt on Filly Flash.

"Whaa..." I yawned, rolling over in my pod. I stopped myself as my body almost went over the edge. I rolled over, and punched my pillow repeatedly, thinking it the cause of the innane noise that was disturbing my slumber.

As I pummeled my pillow into submission, the movement of my muscles helped my regain some semblance of consciousness, allowing my brain to dig through my mental files and pull out the dossier marked "sounds" out of an overturned 911 toll-free call box.

I proceeded to violently ram the bulky instrument against the Molybdenum outer ring of my so-called "matress" until I hit the snooze button. This took me about seven tries.

I figured that I had about five minutes before the rest of the team got up, so I decided to suit up myself. But before I did anything, there was one thing that still had to be done.

I walked to the fridge and grabbed a waffle.

I promptly shoved the culinary delight into my mouth and began breaking it down with my teeth thoughtfully. It was indeed an amazing waffle for a piece of 150-year food.

After a few waffles, I decided that another source of edible material needed to go into my mouth to sate my hunger. I eyed the fridge for a while, as if the food fairy would come and restock it with something un-stale, but nothing in the room really caught my fancy. Actually, the sink faucet looked pretty high in pottasuim...

SMACK! My eye collided with the outward-facing faucet of the sink, jarring me from my half-slumber, and probobly giving me a nice shiner in the process.

And, to complete my wake-up, the alarm on my PipBuck went off again, as I had hit the snooze button. My brain now functioning, I pressed the "off button, and swung back into my "bed". We still had a couple of hours...

I camly walked through the lobby of the hotel, keeping my wings still. The special covering for them would allay any hostile suspicion, but it never hurt to be careful. My assistant, Featherwieght, walked next to me in the same manner. I could see the strain on his face to keep calm.

"You're doing good, rookie. Just keep your voice low, and don't talk." I mumbled under my breath into my throat mic, projecting my voice directly into his inner ear. He almost jumped at the noise. "I know this is your first op, not to mention the fact that it's high-risk."

Featherwieght was only seventeen years old, and yet had been met with great success. Out of boot camp only weeks ago, he showed incredible results on the "stealth and infiltration" portion of the course. Since he needed the real experience, I picked him as my partner to infiltrate the zebra capitol of Roam.

We walked up to the receptionist. The wieght of the small pistol concealed under my right wing seemed to become heavier.

"We're here to see a guest." Said Featherwieght, in a perfect Zebra slur. His accent skills were remarkable!

"Who?" Asked the receptionist, again in that strange accent.

"The Grand Ceaser."

"He will be right with you. Drink?"

"Wake up. C'mon! Up and at them! A fuzzy accented voice interuppted my dream.

Oh god. How long had I slept!?! I asked this.

"Only about an hour, silly flank. We are having coffee and discussing plan of action. I thought you might want to have a say in the discussion." Lost Star beckoned for me to follow her into the weapons room. I noticed she had armed her power hooves, an electrified gauntlet that shocked anyone unlucky enough to be on the wrong end. Plus, you know, having a big metal hoof was nice too.

"Hell, and here I was thinking that I'd have some time to suit up correctly." I mentioned. "We have, what, half an hour till descent?

"We have already started. We are only fifty-three feet above the cloud cover, though. We are directly above Baltimare as we speak!" Said Lost Star, excited.

"Well, nothing's gone boom yet. That's a good sign!" I said casually.

With that, a massive boom sounded across the sky, followed by the distinctive sound of shrapnel striking the side of the Skreex.

I just HAD to open my stupid fucking mouth, huh?

"Flak rounds!!! Yelled Colgate. "I know my big guns, and those are some PRETTY BIG GUNS!"

"Kilowatt, use the manual override. We won't last much longer!" Yelled Char as we were pelted with thousands of tiny pellets at the speed of sound. It felt sort of like it was raining.

Kilo immediately ran into the terminal room and began furiously typing on the terminal labeled "override".

"This is gonna be about thirty seconds!" Yelled Kilowatt, a stricken look on his face.

"We don't HAVE thirty seconds!" I yelled, ducking as a pellet from a flak round punctured the hull and flew over my head, nearly shaving a part of my mane.

We were losing altitude, and fast. The automatic evasive systems in the Skreex's mini-crusader maneframe were bringing us lower, towards the cloud cover. Towards the flak guns!

"Done!" Yelled Kilowatt triumphantly. He eased the craft into a downward spiral, the flak cannons' targeting computers baffled by the evasive manuever.

We drifted down towards the cloud covers, each flak burst detonating where we were a few seconds ago.

"You cut it a bit close..." I said. it was true. The right side of the vessel was already shredded like swiss cheese right through the metal, but the oxygen talismans had enough torque to keep our Oh-Two levels at a minimum.

"Okay, I'm gonna be the first to ask this then." Piped up Char. "What... the hell... WAS THAT?"

"Yeah, the megaspell radiation would've hit the pegasi, too, so it coulnt've been them. Unless it was a total cloud cover across all of...

We all looked at him.

"Ah, shit. Does this mean that we're gonna be persecuted by whoever's down there? Cuz if it was me on the surface there, I'd be pretty fucking pissed!" Exclaimed Char.

"We will just have to wait and see. And watch your tongue around me." This was Lost Star.

DESCENT IN THIRTY SECONDS. PREPARE FOR DROP.

Me and Char were the only ones in the team that needed battle saddles. The rest of us sat with our gun straps clenched firmly in our mouths. My battle saddle consisted of a crappy autoshotgun on one side, and my old, non-hummingbird sniper rifle on the other. The IF-76 was in a safebox, and I could retrieve it later. Char carried her customary load of grenade launcher and machinegun.

DESCENT IN TWENTY SECONDS.

We checked out barding next. Most of the team wore the new Hammerhead combat armor, but I wore the older Tigershark model. It allowed for more mobility. However, because of the O.I.A.'s fucking low budget, almost all of our barding had a slight defect, such as mine, which was stitched over only once in some areas. My Tigershark, which only covered my chest and lower body in multiple kevlar layers, was custom painted with red zebra stripes, the insignia of Wing 6-g.

TEN.The final countdown began.

Colgate, with her magic, racked the chambers of her signature dual G26's, Flesh and Blood. She was getting ready for whatever waited for us down there.

FIVE. Kilowatt farted. A big one, too. I mental-high-fived him, despite my nervousness.

FOUR. THREE. TWO. ONE

The ship began to descend slowly, and then began to pick up the pace, it's aerodynamic hull slipping through the air like a hot knife through butter.

"Umm... Guys?" Asked Kilowatt. "We got a minor fire on the right side, where we got hit. Nothing serious, but we should..."

BOOM!

"RIGHT SIDE ENGINE FAILURE!" Yelled Kilowatt.

I firmly planted my now-traded feet on the floor, and bit onto one of the bits that came down from the ceiling, stabilizing myself. The craft was spinning faster and faster, and the cetrifugal force only got worse. My teeth were starting to hurt like hell from holding onto the bit.

ALTITUDE LEVEL: 100 FEET.

"HOLD ON TIGHT! DONT LET GO!" Yelled Colgate. She was typing on a terminal hastily, an expression of pure stress upon her face.

The back door opened, but the view was too blurred for me to see anything.

"Almost.." CRUNCH

"Where is he? Do you think we've been found out?" The voice of Featherwieght projected into my ear.

"Nope. There's a lot of security here, so it'll take a while for it to get cleared up. Wait, here comes somebody. Quick, be rascist towards ponies!"

Feather struggled not to snigger at my little joke as the desk attendant walked up to the sofa in the lobby where we were sitting.

"The Ceaser will see you now." She said in her accent of doom. She motioned for us to get up and follow her. We did so, and I took note of how the decadance in the lobby would aid in our escape should the need arise. Those giant pillars would make a great blockade should they fall over...

"Hello, Cyrus." Said the Ceaser.

I awoke into a world of pain.

The Skreex was not a pretty sight. The power had already gone off, and the left side was now the floor, gritted into dust by the friction with the ground.

But, more importantly, my PipBuck was flashing warnings about "servere head injury." That can't be good.

I tried to sit up, but the searing pain in my skull made me fall back down on my back. Then I made a shocking realization.

"I'm not on the floor." I stated simply. A metal strut from the hull of the Skreex had caught on my battle saddle, and I was hanging a good ten feet in the air.

As I reached for my knife with my mouth, I heard a puny-sounding gunshot from outside. But, for now, I focused on getting out of this deathtrap. I grabbed my knife firmly within my teeth, and began sawing at the battle saddle.

I was about halfway through when I dropped the knife, and it fell, clattering among the assorted debris at the bottom (or side?) of the Skreex.

More gunshots rang outside, and this time I realized they were coming from Flesh and Blood. The puny 5mm round wouldn't do much against anything, if it wasn't for the sheer volume of fire she could put out with those things. I...

"OOF!" The backstrap on my battle saddle gave way, dropping me ten feet into the debris. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt, but a new warning flashed on my H.U.D. anyways: Unknown Object Embedded in Leg.

It took my brain a while to process "embedded", and even then, my head was too fucked up to understand what it meant.

I looked down at my leg, and saw a piece of rebar sticking out of it. As I stood up, it slid out of my appendage, releasing a huge gout of blood.

"How nice." I thought. "It doesn't hurt at all..."

My brain came to terms witht the fact that I wanted out.

Ahh... what a nice breeze.

Wait, what? Breeze?

I looked to my left, and sure enough, the backhatch was open. Even more exciting was the mysterious white mist pouring in!

Logic dictated that I stay back, but that part of my brain was full-nelsoned by the stupid part. My HUD helpfully informed me that I should ingest some healing potion.

"Fine..." I said aloud. I opened my saddlebags, and was not surprised to find everything shattered to fuck. I threw them to the ground, disgusted by thier audacity. And they dared to insult me by dripping out of the bottom!

Wait... Dripping... Heaing Potion... Oh.

I sat down, and began lapping up the healing potion dripping out of the saddlebags. It rated a bit like camel piss (don't ask) and it was about the consistency of jello, but it did the trick.

"Ow!" I winced as a piece of my fractured skull slid back into place, albiet very painfully. It felt like my head was filled with hot lead, but at least I could think clearly now.

I had two choices now. I could go into the mist to help my friends, or I could stay in here, warm and cozy.

Dammit, why does my conscience have to screw me over now?

I started towards the sideways back hatch, picking my way through the rubble of broken firearms and munitions. My HUD informed me that I shouldn't have been doing so, but this was time to rock.

As I foraged my way past a sideways stasis pod, a glint of light struck my retina. It was a metal briefcase, wedged between the matress and outer ring of the pod. There was an inscription on the side.

"Render..." Hmm. That might be put to the test in the near future. I opened the clasp, and found a beautifully crafted revolver inside. Sitting next to it was a box of twelve .410 shotgun shells, which would definetely not fit a gun of this size. I broke it open, and found only four chambers. I slipped a shell in, and it fit. I loaded four, and clicked on the safety.

With nothing more to distract me, I took a deep breath.

I stepped into the mist.

IMPORTANT NOTICE

This story is being put on hiatus. I simply felt that I left it too open ended, adn had no idea where to go. Nevertheless, my new fic "Counting Stars" will continue their story, albeit from the perspective of a new main character.

Thanks to everyone who liked this, and remember to check out my new one when it's released. And for not bitching about when a new chapter would be published :)

Chapter Six: Counting Stars

The story continues. Hoorah!

The Story Continues