Everyone in Wolfhound had been issued – per Allen’s request to Celestia – experimental contacts. They were basically eye cameras. They recorded what they saw and heard, overlapping sight as necessary. We could play them back at base. Allen would be analyzing mine to see if I had the makings of a good leader. I didn’t let it get to me. If I was good, I was good. If I wasn’t, then I wasn’t.

At our sector, we were ready. We’d all had lunch, and it was three o’ clock.

I sat at an outside table of a restaurant, Jackie was standing next to an alley on the other end of the square, and Amber was walking a circuit around the middle.

I decided to conserve Amber’s energy. I reached for my earpiece radio. “Amber. A whole hour. You’re gonna make your own road. Please keep your energy and sit down.”

She smiled in my direction, but complied. Five minutes later, Jackie came on.

“Five guys at the grocery store. Dressed the same, and hanging around outside. One keeps looking around like he’ studying everyone, and I’m seeing suspicious jacket bulges.

I looked to Amber. She nodded and got up. She’d keep an eye on them.

After a minute, Amber’s voice came in my ear. “Confirming, they have SMG’s and sidearms in their jackets.”

I set my earpiece to auto-transmit. “Copy. Get what you can and find a spot to take cover.”

It was maybe half a minute later that she reported “they’ve got Crimson Justice stuff carefully hidden underneath the jackets. My guess? They’ll shrug them off, then start shooting.” “…I’m at a good spot.”

“Jackie, you good?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, now let’s- wait, what are they-“

It was at that moment that one of them put a hand to his ear, nodded to the others, and they all shrugged off their jackets.

All he** broke loose.

Someone screamed, and they started shooting wildly. I pulled out my gun and mowed down a couple before the others found cover. Jackie and Amber picked off a few more that were streaming out of the woodworks. In seconds, the place, once filled with four dozen civilians, was now holding half a dozen bodies, a couple dozen people running around screaming, more than a few handfuls of gun-toting terrorist maniacs, and three secret soldiers intent on keeping everyone alive.

The fighting lasted a while. Everyone popped up, took a few hopeful shots, and ducked back down. Most of the time, you hit a wall or a piece of cover. Even so, me, Jackie, and Amber managed to take down quite a few of them. But all of a sudden,

“I’m hit!” Amber’s voice screamed into the radio.

I looked around, and spotted her. She was on the ground, but moving.She doesn't even look hit. Must be somewhere I can't see, because there was some blood.

I worked my way over to her. She’d apparently found her pistol and was tearing into the Judgers with it. I knelt down by her, pulled out a medical syringe full of painkillers, and injected her with it. I'm glad these are low level, or she'd be in trouble, with this much of a dose.

Considering where I injected her, it took effect almost immediately. I helped her up, and she took cover, the painkillers allowing her to ignore her injury.

I took cover next to her, and gave her a thumbs up, my face showing that I was asking her if she was okay.

“I’ll be fine!” She yelled. “I might have to recover back at base, but I can fight, for now!”

I shrugged. Not much else any of us can do about it. I came up and popped a couple idiots before I dropped back down again.

I glanced over and saw Jackie spray one down, creating half a dozen entrances into his chest. I couldn’t resist a jibe.

“You know,” I said to her over the radio, “I think that guy was breathing just fine through the hole in his face.”

“Well, I adjusted his anatomy to help.” She replied immediately.

I chuckled. “Well, he’ll certainly get some air now. Let’s help the others breathe better!”

In unison, me, Jackie, and Amber all came up and brought down three guys each in about as many seconds. Then we mowed a tenth guy down together. Poor ba**ard.

We all ducked down again. I reloaded and took a peek.

Three, four, no. Five more. Oh. Jackie happened. Three more.

I waited until Jackie finished reloading, and then yelled “Take ‘em down!”

As one, we stood and put one in each of our targets.

My target had already been aiming in my direction. Suddenly, as I fired my shot, my shoulder flared, and I found myself spinning a 180 and falling. I heard a bark of a scream that I realized had come from me.

“Star!” Jackie ran over. She moved my hand out of the way and gently grabbed my injured shoulder to steady it.

Even so, it hurt like I’d never felt before. I used my other arm – my right – to clutch her wrist. Somehow, squeezing something helped me handle the pain.

“Just hold on, Sugarcube!” Jackie said.

She pulled a syringe and gave me a dose of painkillers. It helped me stand, but I was still biting my lip to keep from crying out.

Upon seeing my pained face, Amber stated “It must’ve nudged a nerve cluster. Jackie, we should get him to a medical area.”

“What medical area!?! The whole da** city’s under attack!”

“Sh*t, what else can we do? I’m running on both painkillers and adrenaline, and even with both of those, he can barely stand!”

It was true. I was leaning heavily on a supporting Jackie. If she wasn’t there, I’d be on the ground, wondering if I should even try crawling.

“I-I’m a certified doctor!” Came a voice. A civilian was running over to us, carrying an emergency first-aid kit.

Jackie guided me to a long table. Amber cleared it ff, and together they lifted my onto it. I yelled a couple times from the pain.

The doctor came over and looked at my shoulder. After a few seconds, she took something out of her kit and injected me with it.

Everything went black.

Author's Note

Showing off a couple skills that players of the game can have, plus emphasizing the fact that getting a major injury (getting downed) can affect characters. Not just the current mission's performance. Injured characters have to sit out of combat (except for special cases) for multiple in-game days. If you end up doing a mission on one of those days, then they can't participate.

If the player character is injured, then, depending on who is in Wolfhound, one of three things can happen:

Firestar goes on the mission(s), but because of the fact that he's still recovering, he has reduced stats (health, speed, stamina, etc.).

Enough days are skipped that Firestar recovers fully (this only happens if no timeline-based missions occur. (Most missions always occur at a certain point in the timeline. Most of them can be sped up, but some have to be done at a certain point).

Certain characters of Wolfhound (So far, Allen and Jackie are the only two, but eventually a few more will appear. Right now, only Jackie's available) will take Firestar's place. Skill sets and all. Decisions are still ultimately usually up to the player. Certain things can be auto-decided though. (Such as, if Amber becomes available, and you can normally choose whether or not to stop a criminal, or stay undetected, Amber would automatically try to stop the criminal).

Most Wolfhound members can become alternate player characters via befriending them. So far, Jackie is the only one who truly cares about Firestar as more than a squadmate. Leon is grateful for what Firestar did in the beginning, but Firestar hasn't really hung out with him much (that will change). Jackie hung out with Firestar when they were with Rainbow Dash.

I might make a sequel to this story, but it won't be an action/adventure/whatever-this-is. It'll just be a slice of life romance story in Ponyville. Firestar falls for one of the Mane 6. That same character falls for him, and la, dee da, dee da, they fall in love. Pretty much what the story would be about.

You can probably guess from that that whatever romance Firestar gets in this story doesn't last. Don't worry, it's not a messy breakup (They'll still be great friends), nor will it even be in-story. It'll happen in-between. I don't like sad scenes.