On the way there, I learned the two Guards’ names. Lightning Flame and Wizard Handle. One was good at defensive magic, and the other was exceptionally good at all things electronic.

Sarah, Ranger, Firestar, and Flash were dressed in Crimson Justice uniforms left over from either the base attack or from the defection. Sarah and Ranger actually just grabbed their old uniforms and put them on.

Lightning Flame apparently noticed the familiarity that Sarah had with her outfit. Without thinking, he asked her “Why do I get the feeling that that fits you better than the rest of us?” He asked her.

Sarah just looked him in the eye, and said “Because I used to wear it.”

Lightning Flame’s face went red in embarrassment as he realized what she meant. “Oh… um… sorry.”

Sarah just grunted, and waved it off.

I’d decided that I was vulnerable carrying only a shotgun and pistol. If I was stuck with somebody that was outside the range of either, I couldn’t hit them. Luckily, I had room for a much-longer-ranged assault rifle.

Ranger had his marksman rifle, Sarah had her own assault rifle, and the two Guards had SMGs from the Police Station’s Armory. I could only guess that Firestar had an assault rifle and his personal pistol. I didn’t have a clue what Flash Sentry had.

At one point, there was a knock from the front. “We’re almost there.” Firestar’s voice filtered through. “Sarah, handle the radio.”

Sarah took his cue and went up to the front. She pressed a button, and the wall between us and the driver’s section opened up.

There was a radio in between the two seats. Sarah knelt down next to it, and waited.

When Firestar gave her a thumbs up, she pressed transmit.

“Ears Nine, Ears Nine, this is Delta Two Echo. Do you have room for a few more, over?”

There was silence for about ten seconds. Then a voice came back. “Delta Two Echo, this is Ears Nine. We are not a hotel, over.”

“Ears Nine, we’ve been on the road for the better part of the day, and it’s getting late. Authorization Bravo eighty-six, we’ve got local passengers, over.”

“Copy, Delta Two Echo, standby.”

Half a minute later, we stopped the car. We were at the edge of the safe zone, where, if we went any closer without permission, we’d be automatically perceived as hostile. Remote charges along the road would be detonated, and we’d be blown sky-high.

“Delta Two Echo, this is Ears Nine. You have a green light. Come on in, over.”

“Roger, Ears Nine. Delta Two Echo, coming in from the south road, over.”

“South road, received. This is Ears Nine, over and out.”

“Copy Ears Nine, Delta Two Echo over and out.”

Sarah let go of the transmit button, and we all heaved a sigh of relief. Now we actually stood a chance of getting in there.

“Okay,” Firestar said. “We’ll park outside. Flash, Sarah, and I will go in first. We’ll do the paperwork. You guys just sit there and look scared. Jackson, Ranger, keep ‘em still.”

I pulled out my pistol, but let it rest on my knee, facing the floor in front of me, on the opposite side of the compartment. We needed to look tired. Tired people aren’t the most alert, or careful.

Firestar and co. got out after we parked. About three minutes later, someone banged on the back. “You’re clear.”

Ranger, who was closer, went over and slid the door open. A sunset sky’s light filtered into the dark compartment.

Ranger took a quick glance around. He got out and circled the vehicle. “Looks clear. Firestar just banged and went back in. We’ll get inside and meet him there.”

A nodded, and motioned everyone else to follow.

When we walked inside, there were only a couple guards there. Sarah was talking with one. “Okay, thank you. We can handle it.”

The guard nodded and turned around. He jerked his head towards a door, and both the guards left.

Now it was just us.

Firestar immediately turned around. “Okay, there are two floors we can hit at once, and I don’t want anyone getting out.” He said. He looked at me. “Jackson, take Sarah and Ranger and hit this floor. We’ll hit underground.”

I nodded, and my group went over to me.

By then, everyone had pulled out their weapons. I saw the Sheriff dual-wielding pistols, but there was a shotgun on his back. Police issue.

I signaled my team to stack up at the door, then took one last glance in Firestar’s direction. He and his team were already set to breach their door, which opened up into a stairway heading down.

He looked at me and caught my eye. He smiled at me, and said “On you, Jackson.”

I turned back around. My team was waiting for me.

I moved into my position, and said loudly “Go!”

Ranger opened up the door, and I tossed in a flash-bang. Ranger closed the door.

A muffled explosion worked its way through the metal, and Ranger opened the door again. He got out of the way as Sarah went in, followed by me.

There were three guys in the room. Sarah took one down, and then we shot the other two at the same time.

I scanned the room. Seeing no one, I reported “Clear!”

Sarah repeated, followed shortly by Ranger. I turned around to see him shut the door behind us. He pulled something out, and I saw him stick red tape on the door and the wall next to it. Now the only way to open it up, would be to break the tape. If anybody came this way, they’d either be stuck, or risk giving away the fact that someone got out.

And they weren’t exactly welcome in Manehattan, anymore. The police there had been informed of what uniforms to look for. Anybody they saw wearing them would be arrested.

We had them cornered, already.

We stacked up against another doorway, but this time, we didn’t use a flash-bang to clear the room. We just opened the door and went in. Granted, the gunshots from before had alerted them, but that didn’t matter to us. We took them down, anyway.

It went on like that for a while. Room after room of varying size or shape was cleared of all life.

I knew our luck couldn’t last, and it didn’t.

“Mayday! Mayday!” Firestar’s voice came through my earpiece radio. “Jackson, there’s a balcony on your floor in one of our rooms! We’re pinned down! There’s a sh*tton on bad guys over here!”

“Roger, we’re on our way!” I said.

We quickly cleared a couple more rooms that were annoyingly more populated than some others. The ones in those rooms were also waiting for us. We couldn’t even go in. We had to fire from the doorway.

We stacked up at one final door. I could hear a he**uva lot of gunfire on the other side.

“It sounds like a whole army’s out there.” Ranger remarked.

“Well, then it’ll be an even fight.” I replied.

Sarah opened the door, and the volume increased exponentially. It was almost deafening.

We moved onto the balcony. “Over there!” Sarah pointed across the room.

Firestar and co. were huddled behind some crates on our end.

I took a quick visual scan. Oh, dear Celestia! There must be at least fifty guys!

I wasn’t even exaggerating. Whatever this listening post was, it was unbelievably heavily staffed. At least fifty people wearing Crimson Justice uniforms were firing at the crates that were temporarily stopping the absolute wall of bullets being directed at Firestar’s team.

And the crates were starting to fall apart. As I watched, a few planks of whatever the crates were made out of fell off. Something started pouring out. It looked like sand. The Guard that was using it looked at the crate for a second, and then dashed out towards another one.

I quickly realized he’d be out in the open for at least a few seconds. “Engage!” I yelled, and pulled out my still-not-used assault rifle.

My team and I rained lead down on the enemy just as the Guard hit the edge of the crate. We disoriented the enemy just enough that he managed to make it to another crate.

“Glad you could make it! Liking the party?” Firestar yelled over the radio.

“Yeah, but there’s a few too many people, for my liking!”

“Well, I know I didn’t invite them! How about we remind them of that little fact?”

“Sounds good! Wolves, take them down!” I yelled.

I started shooting at anything that moved on the Crimson Justice portion of the room, which was just about all of it.

This place is the size of a Hoofball Field! How big is this Listening Post!?!

“Jackson, we gotta move! Cover us!” Firestar yelled over the radio.

“Copy! You heard him, Wolves! Covering fire!”

As I started laying down the pain on the enemy, I saw out of the corner of my eye Firestar and his team dart out and sprint across the No Man’s Land that was the open parts of the room.

When they all took cover again, Firestar radioed. “We made it! Thanks for the cover; we didn’t even get hit once!”

“You’re welcome, now start shooting, already!” I shouted. I’d apologize for that later, I told myself, but right now was not the time for formalities. Besides, Firestar put me in command of my team for a reason. I didn’t know what that reason was, but I figured it meant I was good enough to be the one giving orders.

I was not going to be the one to let him down.

It went on like that for five or ten minutes. Hostiles kept pouring out of the open doorways on their side. Eventually, Firestar and his team made it three quarters of the way through the room. That just made the baddies all the more concentrated in the quarter they had left.

“Is this normal?” I shouted to Ranger.

“No, but it’s not too unusual! Listening Posts are important! Most of our Intel on you guys comes from facilities like this one! Makes sense that it’d be heavily defended!”

“Heavily is right! There must be over a hundred of them in this room alone! What is this, some idiot’s book where the heroes kill everyone!?!”

“Do I look like I’m made out of cartoon drawings to you? No? Didn’t think so!” Ranger yelled back.

Despite the seriousness, I had to grin. There was just something about our group that made us constantly crack jokes in the middle of a firefight.

“You done rambling, over there?” Sarah yelled. “Cuz I’m seeing a lot of dummies that are just asking to be used for target practice!”

“What kind of dummies?” I yelled back, as I fired some more.

“One, the other, both, neither, pick your choice!”

“Ranger, you sure this isn’t some kind of bad story?”

“If it were a bad story, there’d be explosions all over, so what do you think?”

Just then, coincidentally, I caught a guy pulling the pin of a frag grenade. I quickly fired at him, but I miscalculated. Instead of hitting him in the head or the chest, I hit his grenade dead-on.

Let’s just say I didn’t see any of him after that.

“You were saying?” I deadpanned.

“Fu** you!” But I heard a laugh in the midst of his reply.

After at least five more minutes of shooting, and finally no one came out of the enemy’s door.

“Hoo!” Firestar shouted. He didn’t even bother to use the radio. It was almost silent in the room, now, anyways. “Nice party! Kinda wish I could call it quits. Gotta go all the way, though! You ready?”

“You crazy ba**ard!” I yelled down, voice cracking as I laughed. “Yeah, we’ll see you on the other side! Of what remains to be seen.”

“Then let’s see it! Come on, old man!”

“Ah, youngster, you’ve still got a lot to learn!” I replied.

“Don’t think so, Pappy! Ah’m a grown colt! Ah know everythan’!” He yelled back, imitating a little foal’s voice, method of speech included.

“Make ol’ Papa proud, then, boy!”

Firestar stacked up next to the doorway, but couldn’t resist one last jibe. He looked up at me, and said, just loud enough for me to hear, “Why should I?” He went through before I could reply.

I shook my head and mumbled “Cheeky a**hole.” I chuckled as I walked to my own doorway.

Surprisingly, there were actually a few guys left in the next room. They went down quick.

My route ended, while Firestar’s split. My team and I walked down the stairs at the end of the balcony to him, and then we split up again.

But, we ended up together again. “Two doors to the same room, less than twenty feet from each other?” I asked rhetorically. “How does that even make sense?”

“Uh, maybe one’s a highway, and the other’s an expressway?” Firestar said.

“You do realize that doesn’t even make sense?”

“Yes. Your point?”

I laughed and shook my head. “How do you even come up with this stuff? I’ll never know.”

“You’re right, you won’t. Then again, I don’t, either.”

“Again! What are you, unofficial court jester?” I said as I burst out laughing. I couldn’t hold it.

He’d had everyone rolling around the Mess Hall one time, a few months back. Even he doesn’t know how he does it. Just sometimes he gets into one of his moods, and he tries to suffocate you through laughter. And the best part is that he rarely prepares anything. Almost all of his humor is spur-of-the-moment.

After I recovered enough that I could see more than pitch black, we stacked up against the final door. Even though it was a double door, it was a tight fit. Seven people on one doorway? Things get very close-quarters.

Firestar mouthed numbers as his hand counted down to one. When he made a fist, I kicked the doors in.

Gunfire erupted through the open entrance, and we had to dive for the sides. Somehow, none of us got hit. During a lull, I peeked in. Technicians holding pistols.

I popped one in the chest with my shotgun, then ducked back as his buddies tried to return the favor.

Suddenly, all the gunfire stopped. I glanced at Firestar, and he mouthed ‘What the he**?’

Before any of the rest of us could wrap our heads around the silence, Flash Sentry and his dual pistols decided to. He checked to make sure it wasn’t a trap, and then rushed in, guns blazing.

Apparently the idiots hadn’t staggered their firing, and they’d all run out at virtually the same time. By the time they’d finished reloading, there were only four left.

Time seemed to slow. I saw Flash whip around and bring his pistols up on his targets, while Firestar and I aimed at ours. We all fired at the same time.

Four bodies hit the floor. None of them were ours.

We now stood in the control room of the Listening Post. Just us. We’d officially, just the seven of us, taken down over two hundred Crimson Justice personnel.

A major victory. While I was congratulating my team, I overheard Firestar saying something to Flash Sentry

“You’re good. Ever thought about the Guard? I’d bet you’d Royal in no time!”

Author's Note

Ha, I loved breaking the fourth wall (ish) here! I also gave a little of my own origin story of Flash Sentry, too. He grew up with Firestar until he was ten, then moved to Manehattan, eventually becoming a policeman, and then eventually worked his way up to Sheriff.

Saving the two Guards (killing the bad guys fast enough) streamlines Flash's progress getting into the Guard. It also gives the player extra money, as Celestia personally hears the two Guards' stories and rewards you for keeping them alive.

In the game, it is possible to choose Firestar, but his route his harder, as none of his companions have any special abilities. While Flash Sentry is invincible, the two Guards aren't. They can die easily. They're not super skilled, either.

It doesn't have to be Jackson, it's just what I picked. Player's choice of what character.