Red and Black 2

The airship that Asterion and Erebus hijacked swiveled at a sharp 45 degrees, cannons shifting to point at another airship that didn't have anyling hovering around it. Behind the barrier, Thorax stood tall and proud on the crow's nest, smiling faintly with a heavily-breathing Charlotte not even three feet away from him. Surrounding them, Jonathan, and their new guests were several split-in-two alicorn bodies, of which one was still impaled crudely by a bloodied axe.

The green unicorn slumped a bit, looking towards the airships as a second turned onto another, cannons poised to strike at a third vessel. Twin volleys from the ships facing the third raced out, but bounced harmlessly off of a barrier that went up. "Fools, the lot of them…" she muttered under her breath scornfully.

"Who, the alicorns?" Thorax asked, averting his gaze to the unicorn to find her nodding.

"First a horde or three, and now airships. What next, will they find a way to move mountains?" Jonathan hissed, taking a few seconds to sit on his haunches.

"I think it's best not to give the alicorns any more ideas," the earth stallion chided, only to get a glare from Jonathan in return.

"Those bastards made us work for them, Vincent! Who's to say they won't get more creative?!" Jonathan yelled, raising his forelegs and waving them about in the direction of the airships.

"Tragically, he has a point," Charlotte agreed. She simply stared at the airships as they began firing at each other, with shields going up to deflect any and all potshots. Magic volleys went everywhere, with some landing on more alicorns who were on the ground. Others painted the surrounding badlands in a few new splotches of scorched black. "Say, Stella, Loretta, what did the alicorns do to you?"

The two mares remained silent for a moment. Jonathan turned to the one with the shaved wings. "Stella, did they pluck you?" he asked rhetorically.

Stella nodded and gave a defeated sigh, shifting her legs to lay down. "More or less. Other than starvation, they've done nothing to me," she answered.

Jonathan's brow climbed up his forehead. "You sure of that? I think I see a bit of white paint on your hoof," he stated.

"I'll clean it off later," Stella hissed, turning to the airships that were engaged in the process of playing a particularly heated game of hit-me-if-you-can.

Loretta sat on her haunches and her horn glowed again, and she used her magic to pick up a stray stone. "Mayhaps we could engage in a game of hot potato to pass the time?" she piped up, waggling the stone for emphasis. "Because I would much rather do anything than mope, especially since things started turning for the better for us all."

"I think I'll pass. Thanks for the offer," Jonathan replied, dropping one hoof and waving the other dismissively. "My legs ache, and I've been slaughtering alicorns left and right."

"Fair enough," Loretta stated with a nod of understanding. She turned back to the carnage below, and watched as it lasted for two hours on end.

*********

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeah!" Foxfire yelled as she, Ember, and Patient teleported again, causing the slowly-but-surely dwindling horde of alicorns to turn to them as they popped up behind them. "Sweet beautiful death in the name of Faust!" With that utterance she charged into the mass of red and black degenerates, burning still more as she went.

"So, how many bits did we rack up?" Ember asked as she resumed hacking and slashing at the monstrosities that dared call themselves ponies. "I mean, we surely have thousands of more bits by now."

Patient could barely hear Ember's utterance over his own slicing and dicing of sable-crimson limbs that were soon flying everywhere. More alicorns piled onto him and Ember, attempting to keep them down, as the airships above fired more potshots at each other. The resulting volleys were deflected, with some vaporizing more alicorns and sending others still skyward.

“A millioooon!” Patient screamed in a horrible, furious tone as he turned for a split second to respond to Ember’s question before returning to the carnage he was sewing. At that moment Foxfire darted past him.

"Shining's gonna pay out the nose when we're done, and the Royal Court will bitch like no tomorrow!" Foxfire shrieked, turning around to sail past Ember. "And there's nothing they can do about it!"

"Tell us something we don't know!" Ember snarked, rearing up onto her back legs to fire off a few lasers at a better angle. The bloodbath had the unfortunate side-effect of making her member poke out, though for the time being she paid it no heed; currently, there were bigger fish to fry. She did, however, notice something else: the flames surrounding her, the fires that kept the gold at bay, were turning as red as the monsters she was slaying.

So too did the ball of death surrounding Foxfire, for that matter. Worse still, the flames grew colder with each passing second. Less and less efficiently were they melting the gold, and Ember could feel her third eye starting to get incredibly sore. Her weapons and armor felt heavier, and her horn felt as though it were rammed into a furnace until it became red-hot. The tentacle coiling her horn reeled back, dangling like an exposed worm. "Shit! Patient, how are you holding up?! I don't think I can go on much longer!" she cried, her utterance causing the alicorns to hasten their approach.

Patient’s brain was on fire. He used magic to swing his weapon so much and with such a ferocity that his magic reserves were running low. His face was flushed beyond all belief, his muscles ached, he huffed and panted, and he was soaked, almost douched head to hoof in sweat and blood.

“There’s too many of them!” he shouted, as Foxfire rushed past once more.

"Even the extra love is depleting! I can't keep up!" Foxfire shrieked, stopping dead in her tracks before turning to the airships above. Her fire dimmed and she immediately noticed the lack of an air unit and the changelings retreating back to the safety of the hive. "Looks like we're on our own!" she yelled. "Let's finish this now, and pass out later!"

"You sure?!" Ember screeched as she impaled three more alicorns at once.

"Positive! If nothing else, we can eat at the hive!" Foxfire answered, her voice dripping with equal amounts of determination and uncertainty. With that she charged back into the fray, doing her best to fry as many alicorns as she was still able. Above them, a third airship turned on its fellow, and some of the cannons pointed downward once more.

Trigger's voice droned out from one of the airships, "You three, back to the hive. Me, Rekka, and a few changelings will take it from here."

Foxfire stopped again before she could complete another lap around Patient and Ember. She, the two grounded Surgeons, and their still-breathing enemies looked up at the airships. Their eyes widened, and comprehension dawned. Before the alicorns could react, Foxfire's flames died, and she, Ember, and Patient vanished in a blue flash of light.

As soon as the trio were off the battlefield, the cannons pointing downward fired in unison. The air was filled with explosions aplenty, dust rose in trembling heaves as the remaining alicorns came under heavy fire from which they could not escape as easily as their enemies had. The lone airship that didn't change direction fired at the others, but all this accomplished was a series of reflected shots that merely hastened the enemy's demise.

In seconds, the air was thick with sediment and soot, and a cloud gathered around the hive. Yet still the airships kept up with their onslaught, until their cannons turned white-hot and caved in slightly from overuse several minutes later. Foxfire, Ember, and Patient, having reappeared at the crow's nest, found themselves with legs threatening to buckle from both the earth-shaking attack and their own exhaustion.

Patient dropped his weapon and sat down on the shaking floor, panting heavily and removing his helmet with a hoof. “Fuck…” he grumbled, scooting his way over to the side 'railing' and peering over at the carnage. The cloud of dust had yet to lift, effectively obscuring everything a foot below the nest.

Foxfire dropped to her stomach and her legs spread out. "You said it," she agreed.

Ember made her weapons vanish in flashes of light before likewise sprawling out. "Somepony sign me up for a spa treatment, I think I'm getting woozy…" she complained.

Thorax let the aura around his horns fade away, and in turn causing his barrier to drop. He turned to Patient. "Is it safe now?" he asked.

Patient squinted his eyes as, finally, the cloud began to settle. He did not answer until a full minute later, when the dust gave way as a breeze blew into the area, revealing several skeletons and scorch marks where the enemy stood. Only one alicorn managed to escape with his flesh intact, but he was pinned by several bones and was seemingly immobilized on top of that.

“I wish I knew a blood boiling spell…” Patient mumbled to himself as he noticed the incapacitated alicorn. “We got a live one! Or at least, one who is still in his furcoat.” Then the alicorn moved a leg. "Yep! Definitely alive!"

“What the fuck!?” Patient could hear a changeling soldier from a nearby place respond to him. He turned to find Minos emerging from a hole in the floor, though he was looking at Loretta, Stella, and Vincent instead of the carnage.

“I know, right!?” Patient shouted back before he turned to Foxfire. “Could you teleport me down there?”

Foxfire lifted a hoof and shook her head. "Drained. Legs hurt. Fuck that noise," she replied curtly, dropping her hoof as soon as she made the proclamation.

Patient thought for a moment as Minos trotted over to him and peered over to examine the carnage, just in time to witness the alicorn haul himself up from the pile of bones. A faint rumbling, like a set of train tracks, filled the air, though Patient couldn't care less about it. “Could you fly me down there?”

“Sure, I wanna see how he survived that!” responded Minos, who quickly flew over to Patient’s front with ease.

He picked up Patient by the armpits with his hooves and buzzed the two of them down to the smouldering ground. The earth was still hot to the touch, but not unbearably so. Slowly, Patient and Minos made their way towards the limping, dazed alicorn who barely noticed them even as they touched down minutes later. The alicorn also didn't seem to notice the rumbling sound, which started to grow as the three airships who turned on the fourth flew around the hive and came in for a landing.

“Now how’d you survive that bombardment?” asked Minos, stepping in front of the alicorn.

The red and black pony froze and snapped back into reality, looking around hastily for the source of the voice. For some reason, it didn't register that Minos was right in front of him. “I, uh—w-what?” he asked, sounding like a filly.

“You heard him,” Patient growled from behind, his utterance causing the alicorn to sloppily whirl around to face him. The alicorn glowered at them.

"I… uh…" the alicorn paused for a bit, pursing his lips before his eyes went wide. "My compatriots leapt on me so I could survive!" he exclaimed, sounding none too convinced of his own words.

Patient's brow rose as the rumbling still increased, now causing the bones of the freshly slaughtered to rattle slightly. "Uh huh," he replied skeptically, turning up to the lone airship that still hovered in the air.

"Blow this place to kingdom come, Rim Job! Send them a nice, lovely bon voyage in the name of communism!" a screechy, feminine voice droned from the still-hovering airship.

“... Rim Job?” Patient asked in disbelief as he turned back to the lone alicorn, his lips twitching as he struggled to keep himself from outright breaking into laughter. Alas it was a losing battle; a few chuckles had already escaped the moment he looked down.

"Who would name their kid Rim Job? Somepony must've had some daddy issues!" Ember cried from the crow's nest, her voice echoing across the badlands.

Patient chuckled some more and looked at Rim's face; it was covered in serious burns, and what little he could see that wasn't scorched was a sickly green a pony was more likely to see on poison ivy. Rim Job glowered at him, his horn glowing with light. But he hesitated with whatever spell he wanted to cast, as he noticed the sound of several sets of galloping hooves in addition to more distant cannon-fire. "What's taking you?! Blow them up already!" the voice from the lone airship droned, but the order may as well have fallen on deaf ears.

Minos turned to where the hoard initially came from, blanching as he saw more alicorns numbering in the thousands heading towards the hive, accompanied by airships, changelings both unconverted and reformed, and a swath of gryphons. "You have got to be kidding me," he hissed, his voice so many octaves higher he legitimately sounded like a filly. His utterance caused Patient and Rim to turn to the source of the commotion, and Patient gaped while Rim Job donned a wide but tired smile.

But these airships were different, they all noticed; half of them sported tattered pairs of wings and changeling-esque busts, and the other half had feather-clad wings and talons and beaks on their mantelpieces. One airship contained a bust that was a fusion between a pony, a changeling, and a gryphon, and it had four pairs of wings instead of two. The airships released volleys of their own onto the alicorns, and those who dodged them were swept up by the airborne gryphons and changelings.

Following the alicorns right on their heels was a massive, house-sized dark grey tank, easily discernable due to twin drills jutting out of either side of the massive barrel. With the drills were two smaller machine guns, and the treads had spikes nesting between them. Standing atop the main barrel, precariously at that, was a lone crystal unicorn mare. Her long scarlet mane and tail whipped about as the tank moved, her cream-colored coat only further highlighting her presence. Piercingly blue eyes zeroed in on the alicorns, yet oddly she wasn't armed nor armored.

In fact, as the tide of alicorns and mechanized death came closer, the trio realized her horn wasn't even glowing. Not one slight spark came from the spire, not one spell was being channeled. She wasn't even using it to maintain balance on the barrel of the oncoming tank.

Patient shuddered as the alicorns were dispensed with well before the force pursuing them surrounded the hive, the airships with this force descended to the ground, and all stopped dead still. He turned his gaze upward to the lone mare, who stared down with an emotionless visage. Slowly, her eyes turned to Rim Job, and one brow raised just an inch in silent askance. "Who are you?" Patient asked, his voice low and quivering.

Reality caught up with Rim Job, and his horn started to gather a bright, unnaturally blood red light. "I, Rim Job, will take you all to hell with me!" he proclaimed.

Yet he did not get the chance to do so; a blue aura grappled him and yanked him into the air by his tail, before a giant, hollow golden star materialized out of thin air and rammed into his barrel. The two held there for but a moment, suspended in mid-impact, before they went sailing into the air away from the hive and the force surrounding it. Within seconds Rim Job was but a fading speck in the distance, before he exploded brilliantly in a ball of white fire that left a sizeable scorch mark in the badlands without hurting anyone else.

Only then did the crystal mare turn to regard Patient and Minos again, before deftly hopping down from the tank with a blue aura surrounding her body. As soon as her hooves touched solid ground the glow dissipated, and she slowly strode over to the two. Patient had to keep his gaze upward to look into her eyes; this mare had to have been at best as tall as Luna. "Lieutenant Admiral Natalie Starcovert, First Division of the Valkyrie Brigade," she responded lowly. "You?"

“Uhh...Patient Care of the...uh, Diabolical Surgeons…?” Patient had no idea what to respond with. Natalie stared at him impassively for a moment longer, before she gave a curt nod. She turned to the airborne airship with white-hot cannons, and as if on cue the barrel of the tank swiveled and turned up to face it. A single shot fired from the barrel, making the machine recoil slightly, and the airship sent up a shield in defense.

Patient watched as the blast slammed clean through the dome and out the other side of the airship, whilst at the same time sending it further away from the hive and the gathered gryphons and changelings in the process. "Anti-aircraft, magic-shield-piercing rounds. Crafted just for such an occasion," Natalie murmured as the airship fell down to hit the ground with an earth-shaking thud.

“We could’ve fuckin’ used these earlier,” Patient grumbled. “We appreciate the help.”

Natalie nodded again, and turned to the tank. "Secure the hive and help wounded and yadda yadda?" she asked, as though the tank were a living being.

A hatch that Patient couldn't see before opened from atop the tank, and for a few seconds all was silent. Then somepony flew out of it, but a blur for another second before stopping to land behind Patient. He whirled around to find a pegasus stallion easily as tall as Natalie, sporting a black-and-silver officer's uniform that only accentuated his burnt orange coat, red mane, torn ears and crimson eyes. "Affirmative," the pegasus replied curtly.

As one, the gryphons and changelings that came after the now-dead alicorns moved, flying into the air as a swarm in itself. The sky was shrouded by bodies upon bodies; there were so many present and accounted for that Patient lost count. He froze as the pegasus turned to look at him and him alone. "I take it you were helping hold the fort here?" he asked slowly.

Patient nodded. "Yes." He saw something in those red eyes of the pony before him; something the red and black alicorns lacked. A slight glint that commanded authority, respect, and intellect. Then, something clicked in his head. The tank, the airships, the gryphons and… "Admiral Lance?" he squeaked as comprehension dawned.

"The one and only," Lance replied, and a slight grin spread on his muzzle. Patient had the feeling it was of the smug sort, but it did not look to be such. "What's the casualty count among you and yours?"

Patient blanched, and his ears fell back. "Several… hundred?" he guessed.