The mission was simple. Fly into the base, kill the commander, bang his wife. The last part was optional. In fact, it hadn’t been mentioned by the general at all, but it certainly should have been. In fact, now that he thought about it, it wasn’t simple at all. How would he get into the base? Why was this all the general had told him? He didn’t even have a floor plan or a basic idea of what the base looked like.
“It’s like I live in a goddamn TV show…” Dusk muttered to himself as he pulled his suit on, clipping the various straps and holsters to his body. He chuckled and walked to the edge of the airship, gazing downwards.
The base was far larger than the one he had taken out a few years ago. Technology had come a long way since then, but war hadn’t. The only difference between the war years ago and the war that Dusk was participating in now was who they were fighting. Instead of griffons, they were killing rebellious ponies who were claiming that Princess Celestia was a tyrant. Needless to say, they had worshipped Luna.
The base itself was in a large valley, making it a strategic location. This specific valley was steep, making it impossible for ground troops to get in and difficult for ponies to parachute or fly in without being gunned down. The only land route into the base was tightly controlled, and ran through the entire length of the valley, connecting either side. Dusk thoroughly assessed the situation by taking a glance off the edge before turning to check his equipment.
The division which supplied his personal weapons and equipment was running low on funds, mainly due to the insane stunts and ‘car surfing’ that he did quite often. Luckily they could technically not run out of money, but they had made cutbacks. All he had at the moment were two side-mounted shotguns (which he had mentioned were ineffective as the holster was so far back the fragments would hit his suit), three beacons with which he could call in one item each, and a motorcycle (Pony technology had advanced considerably since Princess Twilight took to inventing).
“What fucking idiot put the motorcycle ON the airship?! How am I supposed to get it down?!” He yelled to no one in particular, since he was the only one on the small ship. “Oh, that’s right…I put it here. Right….” He groaned and sat in the seat, holstering the two shotguns and adjusting his suit. He flicked the switch to turn on the powerful bike, revving the engine before driving right off the edge of the ship.
Now, most ponies would classify what he did as insane. They might have even called it suicidal. Dusk didn’t even know what he was doing. The good thing was, the ponies manning the anti-aircraft guns had no idea of how to respond to a motorcycle falling to the ground, so they left it alone. Once he was nearly to the ground, he jumped off the motorcycle and flew to the side. His wings would never stop his momentum of course, but that was not a problem for him anyway. He slammed into the ground, cracking the dry earth beneath as the motorcycle flew to the ground and exploded.
“That was literally pointless.” He said to himself, before sneaking off to find a truck to enter in.
Dusk stopped at the edge of the road, smiling as he saw a slow-moving truck trundling along. There were no guards, just a driver and (presumably) soldiers in the back. He looked to make sure there were no cars or trucks coming from other directions before flaring his wings and hopping onto the top of the truck. He swung himself from the top of the cabin into the window, happy to find that it was bulletproof and didn’t break. He grabbed the door and ripped it clean off of the truck, then did the same with the driver. Somehow, the soldiers in the back heard nothing.
It seemed perfectly normal to the checkpoint guards that the truck was coming to the gates. They waved, expecting the truck to slow down as it approached so it could be searched. Instead, it sped right past and shattered the guard barrier, flying down the road towards the base. The guards were shocked to see the truck’s rear doors wide open, the dead bodies of six soldiers inside. They immediately radioed for backup, but by that point the truck had reached the base.
One moment, the pristine interior of the main entrance to the base was calm, the next it was a massacre. The truck crashed through the main gates, the driver’s side door opening as Dusk jumped out. The truck was sent careening into a wall, exploding in a mass of fire and shards of metal. The soldiers who survived immediately opened fire, but the bullets that hit him did nothing. Despite the suit looking as though it was made of Kevlar or a similar material, each time a bullet hit him it bounced off as if it was solid metal.
Dusk had tossed a beacon at the same time that he had jumped out of the truck, so with the sound of a freighter airship passing overhead a container crashed through the roof. He ducked behind it for cover as he ripped it open, jumping inside. To prove how utterly wasteful he was, he left the armoured APC in the container and ripped the machine gun off of the top. He swapped one of the shotguns on his side with the more powerful and accurate weapon before hopping on top of the container and biting down on the left side of the bridle in front of his face. Immediately soldiers were sent sprawling to the ground as he opened fire, bullets flying from the muzzle of the gun with the smell of hot lead filling the air. He laughed to himself as the soldiers crumpled in front of him and he cut them all down within seconds.
He sighed as the chaos somewhat abated, the flames from the truck now a dull blaze while the guns had stopped firing and the screams had ceased. He hopped down from the container, hurrying through the hole that the truck had made in the wall opposite the entrance. Dashing past dead bodies and broken equipment, he shot and punched his way to the middle of the base where the reactor and control room were. This would be where he would find the commander.
He wasn’t expecting to have no resistance whatsoever when he entered. Instead, he walked in to find the commander in full body armour, standing in the center of the reactor chamber.
“Ah, shit.” Dusk said aloud. “These guys are all about honour fights…” He growled and walked forward, looking the slightly taller commander in the eyes.
“I’m sure you’re wondering why I-“ The commander began, only to have a grappling hook fired into his chest, digging deep into his muscles. He let out a shrill yell of agony as Dusk retracted the hook to pull him closer.
“Yeah, shut the fuck up.” He spun, sending the commander flying off the edge of the platform in the center of the room and into the reactor itself. Dusk pulled the grapple out, chuckling as he rubbed the blood off of it and flew straight up through the main steam vent. He shot out through the vent and landed on the edge, pulling a beacon out of his suit.
“Huh…which would make it the coolest…” He tapped his hoof on his chin.
Only a minute later, Dusk was driving away in an armoured Hoofvee as a container slowly fell towards the vent. The container broke open, revealing a sleek jet with a radioactive symbol on the side. Dusk made sure not to look back, as the ensuing reaction would have blinded even himself.
The jet shot right down the vent, crashing through the platform and falling into the chamber below. A dull rumbling came from deep beneath the ground, followed by a torrent of flame shooting several dozen feet into the air through the main vents and their various offshoots. The ventilation shaft ripped itself apart, radioactive flame and chemicals pouring through the base and igniting the generators in the next room. This caused an overload of the reactor itself, which was already destabilized by the material in the jet. The explosion that ensued ripped the base from the ground, shredding it to pieces and sending massive shards of burned and molten metal hundreds of feet into the air as the entire valley heaved. The force of the explosion created a crater so large that the remains of the base fell neatly into it, though some landed on a few surrounding checkpoints and barracks. A massive plume of green, white and orange flame shot into the air, covering the immediate area in radiation that most likely would not dissipate for hundreds of years and would not be traversable for at least fifty.
Dusk glanced back and smiled, already miles away having jumped onto a jet that was escaping the explosion and commandeered it.
“I figured the jet fueled by hydrogen might come in handy…”
“No you didn’t.” A voice buzzed in his earpiece. “Your funding needs to be cut.”
“Oh shut up Shiny, you know you love me.” Dusk laughed and flew the jet out of the valley, turning it to fly back to Canterlot.