Lost planet: Equestriaby MoonShineChaptersIntroductionsSnow piratesNEOSSeeing redBig Red OneIntroductionsChapter 1: Introductions “Shit, get her up, her harmonizer isn’t kicking in, this isn’t good. We’re pinned down.” A voice shouts out in the darkness as a pink mare in armour with a large thermal backpack on lays in the snow while her helmet is half missing and blood staining the snow around her head, the voice shouts again, “Command, we need back-up, evac or anything, just send us anything, we’re pinned down by ex-NEVEC soldiers. We have two dead, one more badly wounded with a harmoniser failing and we have only four other troops send anything.” The voice this time sounded different, more feminine, the pony that the voice belonged to lifts up and leans onto a rock that they are behind and aims her rifle at a soldier, waits for the best moment and takes the shot then quickly aims to the right to take out another soldier before taking another shot at it to confirm the kill, she then falls back down behind the rock. “Treacle, where is our support, we can’t last out here forever, we’re starting to run low on ammo and our thermal supplies won’t last forever either.” Another pony shouts, this time it definitely was male, the first, female pony with the rifle turns to face him, he’s behind another rock about 4 meters away from them. “Don’t you think I know that?! How much thermal do you have left....everypony, thermal check NOW!” she shouts, quickly everypony falls down behind cover and checks their harmonizers to check their thermal levels, the male then shouts out. “Treacle, I have plenty, 3000+ units.” “Good to hear Nix!” Another female pony shouts out to her, “I have 1200+ units.” ”Right Claire. Copy that” The third pony, a male goes to check after taking a couple of shots at the soldiers but it caught by surprise as a soldier vaults the rock and over him only to aim with his gun down at him in one hoof and fire the entire clip into his head, the harmoniser glowing as it tries to heal him but then suddenly cuts off as his life signs go null. The soldier lands not far ahead of him and uses his anchor to latch onto a structure just to the right of him, the anchor then retracts lifting him up and along while the others turn and open fire on him, Treacle managing to get a lucky shot at him causing him to collapse as soon as he gets to end of the anchor, she then takes her time to get as steady aim as he crawls away, she gets the shot and takes it, the bullet flying right into his cranium and out the other side, the nearby wall getting a new paintwork. “Good shot Treacle!” Nix shouts to her before pulling out a rocket-launcher, “One rocket left, hope this helps.” He says to himself before standing up to look over the rock, launcher on shoulder and aims over by a bunch of soldiers taking cover by a destroyed VS, as soon as he goes to squeeze the trigger the ground shakes slightly but over by the soldiers it must be shaking more as they fall over and panic. “Treacle, what is that? An Earthquake?!” he shouts to her, she looks over to him and shakes her head. “No, it can’t be!” “Then what is it?” “I have a feeling it might be...” she says at the right time, a Chrysalis then shoots out of the ground just in front of the ex-NEVEC soldiers and lands facing them, “AKRID!” she shouts, they all slam against their cover to hide from it, the Akrid turns to look about as the soldiers open fire on it and scatter from their cover and fire on the orange points on its legs, the Chrysalis then faces the soldiers as it shrieks in pain from the bullets impacting on the weak point, it jumps up and slams down on a soldier with one of its front legs, it then lowers its head to look at him before its entire head splitting into three pieces and grabs the soldier’s upper body with it, clamps shut and pulls, the abdomen part of the acrid coming under heavy fire from all directions, it pulls up quickly to have the soldier be ripped in half completely, even to the point of his legs still wailing about on the floor as the snow turns red around them. Treacle peeks over the rock to see the soldier be spat out by the Chrysalis and it swings for another soldiers, “I’m low on thermal Nix, only got 400+ units, share me some of yours!” she shouts to him, he looks over to her after resting the rocket-launcher on the rock and then pulls out a medium sized pistol, he aims it at her and pulls the trigger, the barrel starts to glow as his thermal energy is drained from him and into his gun, he gets up to 1000 units in the pistol and releases the trigger, the orange coloured energy bullet shoots forward and hits Treacle, her harmonizer absorbing it quickly, she checks it and her T-Eng levels now at 1400+, she pulls out a similar pistol and aims at the pink mare on the floor. “I hope this works.” She says. “Me too, or else that’ll be a waste of thermal, we need her to help us.” Nix shouts at her as he grabs his launcher and slides it down the face of the rock towards him to behind it. She pulls the trigger and allows it to reach 600 units before letting go and the energy shoots at the body of the mare, the energy hits the body and forms a pool around it for a brief moment, Treacle watching and sighs as it hasn’t worked, she turns to face over the rock and fires at the abdomen of the Akrid as it still tries to fend off the NEVEC soldiers, now down to two left. She watches as the Akrid swipes and hits one of the soldiers, the last ex-NEVEC soldier dives forward into a roll to end up under the Akrid and uses his anchor to latch onto the abdomen, it pulls him up and he rides on the back of the Akrid as it squirms about to shake him off, multiple round whizzing past him from Treacle and the other male pony along with Nix. The Chrysalis finally manages to shake off the soldier as it throws him off into a wall and stomps on him, his harmoniser not getting a chance to even activate before he dies, it then turns to look about in the direction of Treacle and Nix but they had already taken cover behind the rocks, Treacle looks over to Nix who gets ready with the launcher, she then looks the other way to see the other male pony running for the structure to get the high-ground to snipe the Akrid if it were to get close to see them, she looks to see the dead pony on the floor, then watches as the ex-NEVEC soldier drops from the structure. The Chrysalis sees the body and slowly makes its way over to it, Treacle and Nix shuffling round the rocks as it moves to keep out of its sight. If it were to look down at them now it wound definitely find them as it stands practically over them. Nix slides round the rock slowly so that he can get a clear aim at one of the legs of it while Treacle slowly heads the other way and creeps up on the abdomen area, just as she goes to run up to it a shadow blacks out the area around her and she looks up to see a pony jumping over her. “WOOOOOOO!!!!!!” it shouts as it lands just ahead of her and charges at the Akrid which has now turned to see them, Nix fires the launcher and it hits the leg blowing it clean off, it flies up and as it falls to the floor it turns to pure ice and shatters upon impact, the pony jumps up into the air at the Akrid squirms about in pain, it goes to swing for it but the pony uses its anchor to attach onto the abdomen area and pulls itself onto it, as it rides the Akrid it pulls out a shotgun and fires on it before letting go to be thrown up onto the structure safely. The Akrid limps over to Nix as it spots him first as he runs over out into the storm, it closely following him, Treacle firing with a machine gun on its other leg to try and slow it down, she looks back at the structure to see theta the pony is in fact her sister the one dead on the floor earlier, the thermal energy worker, her harmonizer worked. “Moonshine give us covering fire!” she shouts to the pink mare who ducks down and then reappears holding a rocket launcher, she then charges at the Akrid while firing on its leg, Nix quickly dives into the snow where a pile is covering something, he starts to dig quickly as if he could see something he likes, the Akrid goes to swing for him with its other remaining arm but is stopped as Treacle jumps up and lands on its abdomen and goes to fire but it quickly shakes her of and she lands down next to Nix, she rolls over and starts to dig too, Moonshine takes aim just as the Chrysalis faces back at Treacle and Nix, the other pony firing his rifle on it, she pulls the trigger and the Akrid turns just right so that the rocket impacts the abdomen, it starts to glow bright red, an indicator that its getting weaker. “Yes, just what we need.” Treacle says as she turns and fires and the leg of the Akrid, Nix stands up quickly with a Gatling gun in his grasp, he spins himself round and spools it up while turning, as soon as the Akrid comes into sight he opens fire, the first few rounds whizzing past it then they start to impact on it and rips apart the abdomen, soon the Akrid roars with pain before going to eat Treacle as she runs under it but it starts to freeze up as it gets close to her, the head freezing last as she slides to come out the other side and roars in achievement as they finally kill the Akrid. Moonshine and the male pony jump down as Nix and Treacle head over to them, a helicopter with four rotors quickly comes into view, Moonshine waves her hooves in the air to guide it down, it lowers down and the snow around them starts to fly past them from the force off the helicopter, it lands down meters ahead of them and they run up to it and get on, Nix still holding the Gatling gun for support. Moonshine then jumps on and pipes up on the radio channel, “Let’s go, time to get out of this hell-hole, I could do with a drink too....oh and Treacle, thank you.” The helicopter takes off and they leave the dreaded place to head back home to their command base. Snow piratesChapter 2: Snow Pirates Last chapter: Moonshine and the male pony jump down as Nix and Treacle head over to them, a helicopter with four rotors quickly comes into view, Moonshine waves her hooves in the air to guide it down, it lowers down and the snow around them starts to fly past them from the force off the helicopter, it lands down meters ahead of them and they run up to it and get on, Nix still holding the Gatling gun for support. Moonshine then jumps on and pipes up on the radio channel, “Let’s go, time to get out of this hell-hole, I could do with a drink too....oh and Treacle, thank you.” The helicopter takes off and they leave the dreaded place to head back home to their command base. The helicopter quickly finds its way back to base despite having to navigate through a rough snow storm; the base was in fact a large fort built into the side of a large hill, the fort being half inside the hill but most of it poking out of it, below the fort is a snow filled city and is the only passage to the fort, the only other way is by helicopter. The helicopter slowly makes its way over the city towards the fort which suddenly lights up and landing lights flash in sequence to light the runway for them, some VS’s quickly activate and aim at them as they home in on the landing area. The helicopter slowly lowers as it comes in to land, the VS’s guiding it in, and the pilot then calls in through the head piece, “Command, this is Osprey-037, I have them, we have one pony down, the others are fine. I will have them inside within a few minutes.” A voice then replies over, this one female and a little crackly, “Roger than Osprey-037, I hope to see the dead to wish then a safe passing before we leave them, as for the others, tell them to come to me, I wish to see them.” “Yes ma’am...” he says before the channel goes dead, he checks about as the storm gets pretty rough and the wind blows the osprey about, thankfully he manages to get low enough for the VS’s to grabs hold and guide it down safely, “Ok, Claire and Nix, you take the body....guys, where’s the dead guy?” Nix and Claire looks about to see that the dead pony isn’t with them, “Oh guys, Commander Luna wanted to see the pony to give him a safe passing, you’ve screwed that up, now he’s fresh meat for the Akrid....anyway, Commander Luna wishes to see all of you, so make your way there right away.” He orders, Moonshine grabs the door and slides it open, only for them to be hit with gale force winds and freezing temperatures, she covers her face with a hoof to stop the snow from bombarding her face then jumps out, Treacle and Nix close behind, all followed by Claire. They all make their way off the landing strip and into the fort, thermal energy barrel scattered all over for refuelling of the many ospreys that lay on the strip, and for the many VS’s that guard it, Treacle dashes ahead and strains to twist the bulkhead door open due to the cold, she then suddenly jerks round as it gives way and she pulls the door open, instantly they are hit by a wall of warm air and they head inside, Nix closing the door behind them. They take a few seconds to savour the lovely warm air before heading off down a long corridor marked with a sign saying ‘Commander this way’, on the way they pass many other ponies, some of them wounded from other skirmishes, some of them happy and ecstatic about the many victories they have had recently against NEVEC. They reach the end of the corridor and open the door to be presented with a large staircase, Moonshine steps forward and looks over the barrier and looks up to see at least 20 flights of stair, “Is it me or am I going to hate these stairs?” she asks, Treacle groans in agreement, Nix giggles to himself and Claire says nothing as she looks at Nix, she has always had a crush on him. “You may hate them Moonshine but we have to go up them to get to the Commander, no other way.” Treacle says as she walks past her, patting her on the shoulder and starts to make her way up the first flight. Nix follows and gives Moonshine a beaming smile as Claire follows him up but stops next to Moonshine and whispers to her. “You leave my Nix alone, I see the way you look at him, he’s mine ok?” she then heads up the stairs while keeping an eye on her, Moonshine looking confused as she had never like Nix in that way and she has no clue why Claire would say something like that. “The General wishes not to be disturbed right now Lieutenant, you will have to come back later.” A guard says to the Lavender mare who is in full armour with the high-tech thermal pack on her back, but no helmet on, that is clipped onto her side for ready-use, the four lines going down it and meeting at the front are lit up with bright lavender lights, on her other side is a rifle and a couple of magazines. “I don’t care; we just got report of some activity in the plain land area, some snow pirates and ex-NEVEC. I wanted to ask if I would be able to....wait why am I telling you?” she says to herself before pushing past the guard who tries to stop her but she just barges past him. She enters the room and walks into a large office. “I thought my guard was to tell you that I wish to not be disturbed.” The large, white pony in front of her sternly comments, the lavender mare then walks over to a chair and sits. “General, I have some news; we have just had word that a fight between ex-NEVEC forces and some Snow pirates...” “Why are you telling me this Lieutenant Sparkle?” “Hear me out General, the snow pirates, they have now acquired harmonizers somehow, they had come under fire from the ex-NEVEC soldiers but then were able to turn the tides after one of them revived and a Chrysalis Akrid joined in the fight.” “Harmonizers you say, how have they got such tech on them?”The General asks her. “I don’t know but we have also got pictures from NEOS of a Cat-G Akrid, I’ve never heard of such things before...” “What....what do you mean?” “This Akrid General...has been reported to be in space, the Cat-G was in space, it passed right in front of NEOS.” “I see, that is rather odd....see to it that you keep surveillance of it, but for now I want to you to go sector 6 location 4, I have heard of some snow pirate activity in the area.” “Yes Ma’am, I will take my team right away.” Twilight replies before saluting and walking out of the room. Moonshine opens the door panting, holding onto the door handle to keep her up, Nix and Treacle just walk past her like nothing happened, “Moonshine, you should try just walking next time, not running up them then sliding down the rails then running up again...no wonder you’re out of breath.” Treacle lectures her as they all enter the room. Once in Moonshine closes the door, now having caught her breath, the Commander stood looking out of a window out to the snow covered land, “Commander, you wanted to see us?” Nix asks as they stop just ahead of her desk. “Yes, I have some bad news, I sent two Ospreys to survey sector 6 location 4, they went out four days ago, they haven’t returned...now I know you have just come back from your last mission but you’re going back out, I want you to see if you can find out what happened to them.” She orders. “Ma’am” Nix replies before leaving, Moonshine sighs as she thinks of the dreaded stairs; Treacle looks at her and pats her on the shoulder. “At least you can slide down the rail this time Moonshine.” “Yeah, I guess. Right let’s go, some friends need saving.” She says before running out the room, Nix following, Claire keeping close to her love, and Treacle slowly walking out. She stops at the door and turns to look back at the Commander, “We will try our best, if anything goes wrong, will we have support?” “I can try to get a couple of Ospreys to you within five minutes if all doesn’t go to plan. Now get to that jungle and find them.” She orders, Treacle salutes and leaves closing the door behind her. All of them quickly get down the stairs, Moonshine sliding down the rails, Nix and Claire running alongside her, once they reach the bottom they stop to notice treacle missing, they wait a couple of second to see a orange blur that slams into the ground, stands tall and faces them, “What you lot looking at?” she says to them as they stand shocked that she had just dropped 20 flights of stairs and now even gave to winks about it. “That...was...epic.” Moonshine comments. “Never mind that, we have to go.” Nix says as he heads out the door, pulling on Moonshine to get her moving, the others follow them to the Osprey which is already powering up and roaring to go. They jump aboard, the engines whir faster as they slowly take off, the storm now a bit calmer than before, once in the air the Osprey turns and heads to the left of the city and heads off at full speed. “We’re coming over the area now, get yourselves ready, I’ll circle the area first then drop you down.” The pilot says to them before cutting the channel, Nix gets out of his seat and walks over to the door, grabs the handle and slides the door open, he is right away hit by a heat-wave, the area has no sign of ever being covered by snow, “Yeah, should have told you, the area has been completely melted, there is no snow here.” “Aww, smells like shit.” “You’re not used to it, snow has no smell but this...this is something different.” “Yeah, sure is...” he says before seeing a crashed osprey in the middle of bowl like area with a deep pool of water in the corner, there is a large column of rock poking out of the bowl and a small mound of rock just to the left of it. Treacle walks up next to Nix and looks, “Down there...look!” she shouts as she points at a crashed Osprey next to the small mound, it looks trashed, like something crushed it, “Looks like something big tore it apart...we should go down, see if we can find anyone.” “Roger than, landing now.” The pilot says before pushing the joystick forward, the Osprey head down towards the ground and Treacle jumps out to land down next to the crushed helicopter, Moonshine follows her bit jumps further to land on top of the mound. The Osprey stops and hovers only meters above the ground, Nix and Claire jump out and run over to Treacle who is already searching for survivors, the Osprey lifts up and leaves the area. Moonshine runs over to the far side of the downed helicopter and rummages through the wreckage, Treacle searching the cockpit, Nix goes and climbs the mound of rock to get a higher view of the area, and Claire starts to look about seeing if she can see anypony about. As they search, the ground starts to shake; Treacle is half inside the cockpit and pokes her head out, “Is that and earthquake, or another Chrysalis?” Nix gets to the top and looks about to see the pool of water starting to rise; he looks through the sights of his rifle to see a large, six-legged something, it’s black and has two large, forward-pointing horns on the front of its head, the giant Akrid emerges from the water and roars as it lifts out of the water, standing on its hind legs. “AKRID, WE GOT A CAT-G AKRID!!” Nix shouts down to the others who scramble to get out of the helicopter, Claire dashing for the column of rock, a VS is perched up against it, it had seen better days but will have to do, she dives and slides in front of it and starts to repair it with her portable repair kit. Moonshine uses her anchor to get up the mound of rock, Treacle finds a small mound of mud and starts to dig just as Nix starts to open fire on the Akrid but has no effect, the Akrid lowers down to slam on the floor with four legs, the knees then glow orange along with some spires on its back but the larger one in the centre glows bright yellow, this was its core, its weak spot. Nix throws a grenade and lets it hit a leg before shooting it, the grenade explodes and the Akrid roars, faces him and its mouth opens, the top jaw splitting into two piece revealing three tongues, one tongue shoots out and impacts the ground just in front of Nix causing him to fly back off the mound, Moonshine runs forward past his flying body and jumps off the mound towards the Akrid and uses her anchor to get atop of it, she holds on for a bit as it starts to run ahead, she then runs along the top of it and fires at the many spires on its back, many of them shattering but the main core lowering down into the body as it takes hits. Claire finally finishes and climbs into the VS, it is a GTF-11 class, and the right weapon is a Gatling gun while the right is a rocket launcher. She activates it and the frontal plate slides down from above, she grabs the controls and the VS runs forward, she aims at one of the legs and lets rip, the Gatling gun spraying rounds into the weak spot, she stops to steady the aim and fires the launcher, the large rocket flies forward and hits on of the legs as one of the tongues heads for Treacle who is shooting at another leg from below. The leg flies off and the tongue misses Treacle who had already rolled out of the way, the Akrid roars with pain and faces Claire, she fires again but this rocket hits the Akrid right in the mouth as its roaring. Soon another leg falls off as Nix and Treacle concentrate fire on it. The Akrid roars again as Claire fires on another leg with the Gatling gun, Moonshine firing on the core on its back, Nix and Treacle now firing on the last leg on its right side. The Akrid charges for Claire, she jumps up into the air and hovers to get a better aim, its mouth open and the tongues flying past her as she dodges in an attempt to not get hit. Nix fires a rocket and the last leg falls off, the Akrid falls with a loud thud, the mouth open and tongues flailing about, Moonshine runs over the head and jumps down, she quickly turns round 180 and dives into the mouth, Treacle shouts her but then sees her alive inside and running down the body of the Akrid, she too then runs up and dives in, both of them run through it and come to the core, they both open fire on it while being swept to the back of the Akrid my a mini-river inside of it. Nix and Claire wait as the weak spots have hardened, Moonshine and Treacle fly out of the tail end and land on the floor, the legs the regenerate and burst out, allowing the Akrid to stand back up and continues its rampage. Claire and Nix then take aim as they get ready for a long fight, “CLAIRE, GET READY, HERE IT COMES!!” he shouts as it charges right for them, mouth open. NEOSChapter 3: NEOS Last chapter: Nix fires a rocket and the last leg falls off, the Akrid falls with a loud thud, the mouth open and tongues flailing about, Moonshine runs over the head and jumps down, she quickly turns round 180 and dives into the mouth, Treacle shouts her but then sees her alive inside and running down the body of the Akrid, she too then runs up and dives in, both of them run through it and come to the core, they both open fire on it while being swept to the back of the Akrid my a mini-river inside of it. Nix and Claire wait as the weak spots have hardened, Moonshine and Treacle fly out of the tail end and land on the floor, the legs the regenerate and burst out, allowing the Akrid to stand back up and continues its rampage. Claire and Nix then take aim as they get ready for a long fight, “CLAIRE, GET READY, HERE IT COMES!!” he shouts as it charges right for them, mouth open. The Akrid charges right for the two of them, as it gets closer Moonshine suddenly appears next to the VS and pulls off the rocket launcher only to attach a VS laser rifle to it, she then lands down next to it, “Fire it up, charge it all the way....” she orders to Claire who immediately does that, the blue rifle starts to charge and a blue light emits from it, the light getting brighter and the larger as it charges, “TREACLE, GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!!” she shouts, Treacle struggles to get there as the Akrid stomps about and its tail slamming down to try and hit her, she finally gets round the tail and dashes out from under it, uses her anchor to grab onto a leg and just as the anchor brings her to the top of the leg she lets go and sling-shots up and over to the others, Nix and Moonshine now giving fire-support. “Get ready to fire Claire, here it comes!” she shouts while firing multiple rifle rounds into the mouth, one tongue flies out and hits just next to her, she flies back and hits the column of rock, Nix runs over to help her, Treacle runs over to the VS and points her horn at the laser rifle, her magic boosting the power of it much further than what is normally possible, the light becoming blinding, soon the beam is almost breaking the weapon, the casing of the rifle starting to crack form the sheer force being put into it. “Wait for it.” Treacle says as she uses her magic to hold the power in on the weapon. Moonshine takes off quickly and flies over to the now charging Akrid, she flies past its mouth causing it to open in an attempt to eat her, just as it goes to swipe for her Claire fires and the large beam shoots from the weapon, the rifle shatters from the force and the beam enters the mouth of the Akrid and hits against the weak core, the Akrid stops and roars loudly in pain, the core starting to shatter from the beam, it lifts up onto its back two legs and an electrical surge can be seen building up, the horns having electric jumping between them. Moonshine flies back over to the VS, Treacle now hanging onto the side, Nix jumps down and flaps his wings to soften then landing so he can grab onto the other side, Moonshine hovering above as the VS jumps up and hovers in the air. As the Akrid gets higher and the electric builds up, they can see a faint blue targeting beam pointing down at the Akrid, the beam gets darker and then flickers before stopping, over their intercom they can here, “H.A.R.M.O.N.Y systems online, Generosity: Online....Loyalty: Online....Kindness: Online...” “What the hell is this, what’s Loyalty and Kindness?” Moonshine question to the others who look up and her, all with confused looks. “I don’t know but it isn’t good, we should get out now.” Treacle replies before reaching over to look in the VS, “Get us back, away from the Akrid.” She orders. The VS then flies backwards away from the Akrid, the Akrid then slams down and an electrical pulse flows over the floor of the bowl, the electric pulse causing all electronics to fry. The voice continues, “Laughter: Online....Honesty: Online.....Magic: Charging.....Online, Firing Orbital Friendship Cannon....Standby......Charging......All system running, ready for firing.” A female voice then can be heard, “Fire.” “Firing” The computer voice says, just then the thin blue beam flickers before disappearing and a large thicker rainbow beam fires and engulfs the Akrid completely, it roars as it is torn apart by the beam, after about 20 seconds of constant fire the beam stops, the sound deafening. “Orbital Friendship Cannon fired, now powering down. Target hit and destroyed.” The voice says to confirm. Luckily the blast area of the beam stops just ahead of the VS and they hold on tightly as air rushes past them, the blast dying down as the beam stops, “What in the world was that?!” Moonshine shouts as she gets back to above the VS, the VS then stops boosting and falls down to the ground, landing up right but drained of T-Eng, Claire drops out of it, landing on her knees, Nix gets off and helps her out as Treacle and Moonshine stand and look at the scorched corpse of the Akrid. “I don’t fully know what it was but I have an idea....I heard rumours, NEVEC they apparently have a space station, I thought somepony was bullshitting when they told me about it. I guess they weren’t after all, I just thought....never mind what I thought, this is bad; we need to get this info to the Commander.” She says before putting a hoof to her helmet and calling for evac. As they wait they search about casually at the wreckage and at the Akrid which is now frozen in place but scorched. Minutes later they can hear a whirring noise coming from over the side of the bowl, Nix stands up from sitting on a piece of scrap metal, Claire sat next to him but doesn’t get up, Moonshine and Treacle stood admiring the Akrid, the Osprey enters the bowl from the south and lowers down to see the Akrid and corrects course slightly to land next to it, “Get in...This place is going to hell; you can tell a Cat-G tore through here.” The pilot says as he lands and the side door slides open, they all rush over and climb in, the door closes and the Osprey lifts off and heads back to the fort. Back in the snow storm, the Osprey approaches the fort once more, the landing light and VS’s guiding it in, once landed they all, pilot included, head for the door and get inside to warm up, “You lot go and relax, I’ll tell the Commander.” Moonshine says as the others then head in the opposite way to the stair-case, Moonshine heads towards the stairs, gets to the door, opens it and stares at the stairs, “Oh god, not the stairs, why did I offer to do this?” she says to herself before ascending the 20 flights. Once at the top she takes a while to get her breath then enters the room, “Commander, I have some bad news and then even more bad news.” “Great...what is it now?” “Well, we found the team’s Osprey...it was trashed, no survivors found.” “Damn it.” “And then we were attacked by a Cat-G, it came out of no-where....but to top it all off, NEVEC, they have a space station...I must say it probably saved us but this is bad news, if they find our base, they could kill us all.” “That is bad, I never thought it was true but I guess it is, rumours were that NEVEC had a space station called NEOS, the Orbital Friendship Cannon.” “WHAT? You knew about this?” No, it was only rumours that I heard....but now you have given me real proof, go now, you have worked hard, you need to get some rest.” The Commander says before waving a hoof for her to leave. Moonshine knods and then leaves the room, slowly descends the stairs as she thinks about what had been happening. Twilight is in a diner-type area with the other five, a guard walks up to her, “The General wishes to see you about your findings.” She gets up and heads off with the guard out of the diner and towards the General’s office, soon reaching it, the guard stops and stands outside the door, she enters the room and is welcomed by Celestia, “Please, come in Lieutenant Sparkle, I wish to hear about what you found.” “Thank you General...” she replies as she heads inside and sits on a chair, “I found that I can definitely confirm the snow pirates have Harmonizers, seen them myself, I was watching them battle against a Cat-G Akrid designated Gordiant...we did manage to destroy the Akrid but the pirates got away...” She continues to explain. “The cannon was successful, all system worked and the Cat-G is now history, we are still unfortunately no further with finding the Snow pirate’s base either, but I have heard from NEOS that there has been more reports on Akrid X, it has returned to the surface of the planet and is now currently in sector 2 location 5, we will continue surveys but more importantly is that there has been some unusual weather activity lately, the result possibly of an abnormally large Akrid, maybe larger than a Cat-G, an Over-G Akrid.” She explains before leaving as she has no more information. “An Over-G Akrid, not possible...I will have to see this myself.” Celestia says to herself before sitting down in her large chair and looks at the table which has a computer screen in it, she looks to see photos of Akrid X. Seeing redSeeing red Moonshine, Treacle, Nix and Claire are all sat in a large mess hall in the Snow Pirate fort, in front of them are bowls of orange glowing slop, the possible remains of an Akrid. A merc dashes over to them and announces that the Commander wishes to speak to Moonshine, she gets up and immediately heads off, stopping at the door to comment, “Anything to get out of eating that shit.” When she opens the door to the stairwell she looks up and sighs before starting her laborious trek up the many flights. Once at the top she stops for a quick breather only to have a thick Scottish voice call out from behind her, “You’re getting’ a wee bit out of shape lassie.” She scrunches her face as this pony was the last she ever wanted to see, she turns around with a blank face, hiding the hatred for him. “What do you want Colin?” she asks him as he walks up to her and towers over her, she looks back to avoid looking at the fact he was very tall and build like a Dongo. “So, the Commander wants t’see ya. Can’t be nothin’ good for ya lassie. Aye that’s right, I’m ‘ere because she wants me to go with ya.” He says to her, she quickly turns to look at him forgetting he was right up to her and jumps back in fright then looks up, straining her neck a bit to see him face. “You’re coming with us, what do you mean come with us, where to and what for?” she questions. “Well, if ya go see the Commander, I’m sure she can full ya on the info.” He replies before heading down the stairs, “I’ll be meetin’ ya downstairs.” She turns to head right for the Commander’s office. She knocks on the door and a voice can be heard just after an electrical shutdown kind of noise emits, “Come in Moonshine” the voice calls, she pushes the door open and steps inside. “Commander, I heard that you are sending us off somewhere already?” she asks. “Yes, we have just got a distress call from some Desert Raiders that have captured a thermal energy supply train from the Carpet Baggers. They have come under attack by a Cat-G Akrid, unknown designation. I want you to go in with your team, but I have assigned Colin and one other pony to go with you….” She explains before teleporting to the door and opens it, a tall pony, about the same height as Moonshine enters the office; he is navy blue with jet black hair having a sky blue streak running down his hair, his cutiemark being a heart with a knife piercing it. “This is Friedrich, he well be going with you also. I believe you having a six member team will be much better than four, especially if you…….never mind that, you need to go now.” She stops herself. “If what Commander?” Moonshine asks but Luna says nothing and forces them out. “Ha, sie sagt nichts.” He says in a foreign language. “You what? Come again handsome, I mean Friedrich…is it Friedrich?” she asks to confirm. He nods, “Ja, my name is Friedrich, you must be ze….well, I’ll just leave it at Moonshine.” “Yeah, that’s me. My sis’ is downstairs, she’s a nice filly to meet once you…” she stops as she’s interrupted by an alarm. A computer voice calls out, “Warning, unauthorised departure detected, one Fastray taken.” They both look at each other before dashing down the stairs as fast as they can. Once at the bottom they open the door and can see Colin waiting at the end of the corridor with Treacle and Nix rushing past him towards the landing deck, “Hay Colin, what’s going on?!” She shouts as they catch up to him as he begins running for the deck too. “Well lassie, we’re in a wee bit of bother, our mission was to go to the desert, aye? Well Claire has a brother in the Desert Raiders, she now gone an’ rushed off.” He explains, they reach the deck to see Nix and Treacle in full armour, Colin now putting on his helmet and boots but leaving out the rest. They all look about as they hear a roaring noise, not creature but more mechanical, Moonshine puts her thermal pack and helmet on, and while she is putting her armour on, Friedrich presses a button on his backpack that causes his armour to unfold round him in an instant. “Nice suit ya got there laddie.” Colin compliments, just then an Osprey pops out of nowhere and swiftly lands in front of them, the propeller engines missing and been replaced with the boosters packs off a PTX-40A, the boosters in pairs at each corner of the vehicle. The pilot opens the door and comments, “Had to do some major remodelling, do you like it?” they all jump in and the door closes behind them at the boosters come to life and the Osprey shoots up into the snow storm over to the city where Claire is riding through the streets on a Fastray whiles being chased down by a couple of Dongos and an Undeep that is diving in and out of buildings to try and cause them to collapse on her, the Dongos dive-bombing her by rolling up ramps and cars and falling down at her. Moonshine opens the door and grabs a pair of binoculars, she looks over to a street where she can see faint flashes of light, she zooms in to see Claire firing her machine gun at one Dongo that has rolled past her and she hits the weak spot, it immediately turns to ice and she uses it to jumps up onto the tops of the buildings. “Over there, she’s in trouble, we’ve got four Dongos, 30 plus Trilids and an Undeep after her.” She says as she points down at them, Nix looks over her shoulder to see only for Colin to move them both to the side and swing round a VS rifle, he takes aim of a Dongo and fires, the round instantly killing it, the buildings now starting to collapse as the Undeep digs through them. He takes aim of the Undeep just as it pops up in front of Claire and fires art one of the spots on its side causing it to shriek in pain and fall back into the building, Claire confused looks about for the cause of the shot, she see’s nothing from the storm and continues to head for the exit to the city. Nix climbs up out of the side and onto the top of the Osprey, “NIX, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Moonshine shouts to him but he doesn’t reply as he can’t hear her, he heads for the front and climbs into the gunners seat, he closes the hatch and takes aim with the two Gatling guns at the Trilids which are diving at Claire, he squeezes the trigger and the guns open fire at a fast rate, the rounds flying past Claire into the snow covered roofs, the Trilids getting shot down one by one from the spray. Claire punches the boost and flies off as amazing speed, the Osprey being left behind, “Hold on to something.” The pilot says before hitting the boost, the Osprey is thrust forward at three times the initial speed, they soon catch up to Claire while Nix picks off the Trilids and holds off the Dongos, Colin taking pot shots at the Undeep as it surfaces. The Osprey lowers to be just meters above Claire who is ignoring the fact it’s there and concentrating on getting out of the city. The Undeep emerges and heads right for the Osprey head-on, the pilot quickly reacts and evades the attack, Treacle opens the other side door and aims her hoof at Claire who is heading right for the giant Akrid, she shoots her anchor which attaches to the Fastray and pulls her out of the Akrid’s wake. Claire grabs hold of the wire and Treacle detaches the anchor causing Claire to be pulled up to the Osprey, once aboard they close the doors and the Osprey heads for the desert. Big Red OneChapter 5: Big Red One The Osprey reaches the desert area rather quickly, the vast landscape littered with large boulders and cliffs, in the centre of a cliff valley is a single pair of train tracks, along it as a long train going at high speed, the Osprey changes course as it passes right over the train, Moonshine opens the side door after feeling the sharp turn, “There they are, we found them, they don’t seem to be in trouble at all.” She says but just then as if she had jinxed it, a huge Akrid, Cat-G, emerges from the sand behind the train, it charges forward, the mouth opening wide, the many teeth and bristles showing before clamping shut taking a carriage with it, the thermal energy in the tankers exploding causing the Akrid to roar in pain then dive down in the ground. “I’ll take it back; they’re in huge trouble…” Moonshine corrects herself, she turns only to be shocked as nix and Colin jump out of the Osprey and fall down towards the train, “What a pair of jackasses.” She says only to be grabbed by Treacle who jumps out with her in grasp, Moonshine screaming all the way down with legs flailing, Claire staying behind to give air-support as she climbs up and into the gunner seat of the Osprey. Nix and Colin land first and immediately check on the Desert Raiders, Treacle and Moonshine after them who use their anchors to get higher up to get a better tactical view, “Where’s Friedrich?” Treacle asks as she looks about, just then he shouts as he jumps out of the Osprey and lands on the train with a huge thud, he is wearing full battle armour and holding a VS Laser rifle. “I’m right here, ze Akrid won’t be hurt too much by those silly little weapons, and we need ze big guns.” He says as he takes aim with the gun and waits for the Akrid to re-emerge. “Oi, Moonshine, I need ya to hold of the beastie, we can’t kill it…” he orders before turning to the Raiders, “And you lot, get as much thermal energy gathered as ya can, you’re getting of this piece of crap.” He orders again, Moonshine and Treacle start rushing about to gather any weapons that can help that are laid about, as well as weakening the supports to the crates, the Raiders head for the front of the train where they have a couple of standard Ospreys and they start channelling the thermal energy to them. Just as they reach the front everypony stumbles as the Akrid emerges again, Friedrich charges up the rifle and fires at it only for it to not even notice the shot, he charges again but waits, Moonshine fires on the a crate holding bolt and it smashes to pieces causing the barrels of T-Eng to fall out and roll to the Akrid, the impact causing them to explode and the Akrid roars with pain, just then Friedrich fires the rifle into the mouth and the Akrid recoils back into the ground. “JA, that’s it everypony, aim for ze mouth, that seem to be ze weak spot.” He advises everypony who knod in acknowledgement. The T-Eng starting to flow into the Ospreys as they work their best to get it flowing faster, the Akrid emerging again and the Pirate’s Osprey hovering over the train while Claire fires round into the Akrid’s mouth only for it to slam shut and eat one of the carriages and then submerge. “HURRY IT UP BACK THERE!” Moonshine shouts as she takes position next to Friedrich with a VS Rocket launcher in hoof, Treacle holding a Gatling gun, the three of them waiting for it to come up again. One of the Raiders in running back to them when the train is shook about by the emerging Akrid, this time from the side causing the Raider to unfortunately tumble and collapse then roll off the train and onto the sand bellow where due to the shear speed the train is travelling the impact kills him instantly as he rolls and tumbles across the sand soon coming to a stop. Friedrich watches as this happens and then turns to face the Akrid which is firing pods at the train while it travels side by side with it, he pulls his gun back and runs forward towards it, he gets a good jump and leaps for it, his trajectory showing he won’t make it. “Friedrich!” Treacle shouts as she spots him ‘flying’ across the gap between train and Akrid, literally just before he hits the ground he raises a hoof and fires his anchor pulling him to the Akrid, he shoots up and into Akrid which doesn’t even notice him, shows no reaction. Once aboard, he climbs his way up the Akrid with the weapon on his back, he soon reaches a large, red spot on its side, he fires the anchor into the side of it and uses it to keep him upright while he wields the rifle and aims it into the spot then starts to charge it up. The others fire at the pods to stop them from hitting the train, the Osprey doing a flyby to get airstrikes on the other weak spots using the Gatling guns that Claire is using. The Laser rifle is fully charged and he shoves the end into the spot then releases the trigger, the blue explosion causing some minor damaged to it but enough for the Akrid to feel it, the explosion also causing Friedrich to be knocked back enough that he lands back on the train as the Akrid starts to submerge again. “And the whole point of that was…?” Moonshine asks him as he gets up and pulls out a machine gun. “Well, it would seem that it has caused it to submerge, and ze Akrid has been hurt a little, might not come up again, with a bit of luck.” He answers just as a Raider runs up to them all. “Let’s go, the Ospreys are fully loaded, we’re ready to go, we’re going to disconnect the rest of the carriages to ‘feed’ the Akrid.” he explains before running off with Moonshine, Treacle, Nix, Colin and Friedrich right behind him. As they get closer to the front an ear-bursting roar emits from behind them as the Akrid rises from underground with mouth wide open and makes its way towards the train. “Hurry, it’s coming to get us!” Treacle shouts as they rush over the last carriage, the Akrid ripping up one of the carriages and throwing it to the side the advancing towards them, they jump aboard as the engines start up. “You lot got on, I’ll stop the beastie…” Colin orders as he turns to face the carriage coupling. “Separating now.” A voice over the intercom says. Nothing. “Damn it….looks like we’re doing this the hard way.” He says before aiming the Gatling gun at the coupling and opens fire, the rounds taking chunks out of it but to no effect. He soon runs out of ammo and throws the gun as it, the coupling slowly starts to separate after the impact. He jump onto the other carriage that has the Ospreys and turns to watch as Moonshine and the others race up the carriage, Treacle runs up ahead as if to have a run up to the increasing gap, she reaches the edge and her horn glows bright as she teleports onto the other carriage as if they weren’t disconnected. Nix runs up next and leaps up into the air then spreads his wings allowing him to glide onto the other carriage, Friedrich lowers his head and steps on the gas as he runs at full speed to the gap which is almost now twice the gap it was when Treacle went over it. He jumps with legs sprawled out wide as he nears the edge of the other carriage but he slowly starts to fall looking as if he won’t make it but then Moonshine suddenly grabs his armour and pulls him forward as she flies over the gap and they both land on the carriage, all of them rush over to the Ospreys as the left behind carriages are swept up but the Akrid causing them to explode and it rears up in pain then advances again, it’s mouth opening as the Ospreys take off. They just make clear of it as the Akrid slams shut on the remains of the train, “Let’s go home.” Moonshine says to everypony who all finally have a bit of time to rest.
IntroductionsChapter 1: Introductions “Shit, get her up, her harmonizer isn’t kicking in, this isn’t good. We’re pinned down.” A voice shouts out in the darkness as a pink mare in armour with a large thermal backpack on lays in the snow while her helmet is half missing and blood staining the snow around her head, the voice shouts again, “Command, we need back-up, evac or anything, just send us anything, we’re pinned down by ex-NEVEC soldiers. We have two dead, one more badly wounded with a harmoniser failing and we have only four other troops send anything.” The voice this time sounded different, more feminine, the pony that the voice belonged to lifts up and leans onto a rock that they are behind and aims her rifle at a soldier, waits for the best moment and takes the shot then quickly aims to the right to take out another soldier before taking another shot at it to confirm the kill, she then falls back down behind the rock. “Treacle, where is our support, we can’t last out here forever, we’re starting to run low on ammo and our thermal supplies won’t last forever either.” Another pony shouts, this time it definitely was male, the first, female pony with the rifle turns to face him, he’s behind another rock about 4 meters away from them. “Don’t you think I know that?! How much thermal do you have left....everypony, thermal check NOW!” she shouts, quickly everypony falls down behind cover and checks their harmonizers to check their thermal levels, the male then shouts out. “Treacle, I have plenty, 3000+ units.” “Good to hear Nix!” Another female pony shouts out to her, “I have 1200+ units.” ”Right Claire. Copy that” The third pony, a male goes to check after taking a couple of shots at the soldiers but it caught by surprise as a soldier vaults the rock and over him only to aim with his gun down at him in one hoof and fire the entire clip into his head, the harmoniser glowing as it tries to heal him but then suddenly cuts off as his life signs go null. The soldier lands not far ahead of him and uses his anchor to latch onto a structure just to the right of him, the anchor then retracts lifting him up and along while the others turn and open fire on him, Treacle managing to get a lucky shot at him causing him to collapse as soon as he gets to end of the anchor, she then takes her time to get as steady aim as he crawls away, she gets the shot and takes it, the bullet flying right into his cranium and out the other side, the nearby wall getting a new paintwork. “Good shot Treacle!” Nix shouts to her before pulling out a rocket-launcher, “One rocket left, hope this helps.” He says to himself before standing up to look over the rock, launcher on shoulder and aims over by a bunch of soldiers taking cover by a destroyed VS, as soon as he goes to squeeze the trigger the ground shakes slightly but over by the soldiers it must be shaking more as they fall over and panic. “Treacle, what is that? An Earthquake?!” he shouts to her, she looks over to him and shakes her head. “No, it can’t be!” “Then what is it?” “I have a feeling it might be...” she says at the right time, a Chrysalis then shoots out of the ground just in front of the ex-NEVEC soldiers and lands facing them, “AKRID!” she shouts, they all slam against their cover to hide from it, the Akrid turns to look about as the soldiers open fire on it and scatter from their cover and fire on the orange points on its legs, the Chrysalis then faces the soldiers as it shrieks in pain from the bullets impacting on the weak point, it jumps up and slams down on a soldier with one of its front legs, it then lowers its head to look at him before its entire head splitting into three pieces and grabs the soldier’s upper body with it, clamps shut and pulls, the abdomen part of the acrid coming under heavy fire from all directions, it pulls up quickly to have the soldier be ripped in half completely, even to the point of his legs still wailing about on the floor as the snow turns red around them. Treacle peeks over the rock to see the soldier be spat out by the Chrysalis and it swings for another soldiers, “I’m low on thermal Nix, only got 400+ units, share me some of yours!” she shouts to him, he looks over to her after resting the rocket-launcher on the rock and then pulls out a medium sized pistol, he aims it at her and pulls the trigger, the barrel starts to glow as his thermal energy is drained from him and into his gun, he gets up to 1000 units in the pistol and releases the trigger, the orange coloured energy bullet shoots forward and hits Treacle, her harmonizer absorbing it quickly, she checks it and her T-Eng levels now at 1400+, she pulls out a similar pistol and aims at the pink mare on the floor. “I hope this works.” She says. “Me too, or else that’ll be a waste of thermal, we need her to help us.” Nix shouts at her as he grabs his launcher and slides it down the face of the rock towards him to behind it. She pulls the trigger and allows it to reach 600 units before letting go and the energy shoots at the body of the mare, the energy hits the body and forms a pool around it for a brief moment, Treacle watching and sighs as it hasn’t worked, she turns to face over the rock and fires at the abdomen of the Akrid as it still tries to fend off the NEVEC soldiers, now down to two left. She watches as the Akrid swipes and hits one of the soldiers, the last ex-NEVEC soldier dives forward into a roll to end up under the Akrid and uses his anchor to latch onto the abdomen, it pulls him up and he rides on the back of the Akrid as it squirms about to shake him off, multiple round whizzing past him from Treacle and the other male pony along with Nix. The Chrysalis finally manages to shake off the soldier as it throws him off into a wall and stomps on him, his harmoniser not getting a chance to even activate before he dies, it then turns to look about in the direction of Treacle and Nix but they had already taken cover behind the rocks, Treacle looks over to Nix who gets ready with the launcher, she then looks the other way to see the other male pony running for the structure to get the high-ground to snipe the Akrid if it were to get close to see them, she looks to see the dead pony on the floor, then watches as the ex-NEVEC soldier drops from the structure. The Chrysalis sees the body and slowly makes its way over to it, Treacle and Nix shuffling round the rocks as it moves to keep out of its sight. If it were to look down at them now it wound definitely find them as it stands practically over them. Nix slides round the rock slowly so that he can get a clear aim at one of the legs of it while Treacle slowly heads the other way and creeps up on the abdomen area, just as she goes to run up to it a shadow blacks out the area around her and she looks up to see a pony jumping over her. “WOOOOOOO!!!!!!” it shouts as it lands just ahead of her and charges at the Akrid which has now turned to see them, Nix fires the launcher and it hits the leg blowing it clean off, it flies up and as it falls to the floor it turns to pure ice and shatters upon impact, the pony jumps up into the air at the Akrid squirms about in pain, it goes to swing for it but the pony uses its anchor to attach onto the abdomen area and pulls itself onto it, as it rides the Akrid it pulls out a shotgun and fires on it before letting go to be thrown up onto the structure safely. The Akrid limps over to Nix as it spots him first as he runs over out into the storm, it closely following him, Treacle firing with a machine gun on its other leg to try and slow it down, she looks back at the structure to see theta the pony is in fact her sister the one dead on the floor earlier, the thermal energy worker, her harmonizer worked. “Moonshine give us covering fire!” she shouts to the pink mare who ducks down and then reappears holding a rocket launcher, she then charges at the Akrid while firing on its leg, Nix quickly dives into the snow where a pile is covering something, he starts to dig quickly as if he could see something he likes, the Akrid goes to swing for him with its other remaining arm but is stopped as Treacle jumps up and lands on its abdomen and goes to fire but it quickly shakes her of and she lands down next to Nix, she rolls over and starts to dig too, Moonshine takes aim just as the Chrysalis faces back at Treacle and Nix, the other pony firing his rifle on it, she pulls the trigger and the Akrid turns just right so that the rocket impacts the abdomen, it starts to glow bright red, an indicator that its getting weaker. “Yes, just what we need.” Treacle says as she turns and fires and the leg of the Akrid, Nix stands up quickly with a Gatling gun in his grasp, he spins himself round and spools it up while turning, as soon as the Akrid comes into sight he opens fire, the first few rounds whizzing past it then they start to impact on it and rips apart the abdomen, soon the Akrid roars with pain before going to eat Treacle as she runs under it but it starts to freeze up as it gets close to her, the head freezing last as she slides to come out the other side and roars in achievement as they finally kill the Akrid. Moonshine and the male pony jump down as Nix and Treacle head over to them, a helicopter with four rotors quickly comes into view, Moonshine waves her hooves in the air to guide it down, it lowers down and the snow around them starts to fly past them from the force off the helicopter, it lands down meters ahead of them and they run up to it and get on, Nix still holding the Gatling gun for support. Moonshine then jumps on and pipes up on the radio channel, “Let’s go, time to get out of this hell-hole, I could do with a drink too....oh and Treacle, thank you.” The helicopter takes off and they leave the dreaded place to head back home to their command base.
Snow piratesChapter 2: Snow Pirates Last chapter: Moonshine and the male pony jump down as Nix and Treacle head over to them, a helicopter with four rotors quickly comes into view, Moonshine waves her hooves in the air to guide it down, it lowers down and the snow around them starts to fly past them from the force off the helicopter, it lands down meters ahead of them and they run up to it and get on, Nix still holding the Gatling gun for support. Moonshine then jumps on and pipes up on the radio channel, “Let’s go, time to get out of this hell-hole, I could do with a drink too....oh and Treacle, thank you.” The helicopter takes off and they leave the dreaded place to head back home to their command base. The helicopter quickly finds its way back to base despite having to navigate through a rough snow storm; the base was in fact a large fort built into the side of a large hill, the fort being half inside the hill but most of it poking out of it, below the fort is a snow filled city and is the only passage to the fort, the only other way is by helicopter. The helicopter slowly makes its way over the city towards the fort which suddenly lights up and landing lights flash in sequence to light the runway for them, some VS’s quickly activate and aim at them as they home in on the landing area. The helicopter slowly lowers as it comes in to land, the VS’s guiding it in, and the pilot then calls in through the head piece, “Command, this is Osprey-037, I have them, we have one pony down, the others are fine. I will have them inside within a few minutes.” A voice then replies over, this one female and a little crackly, “Roger than Osprey-037, I hope to see the dead to wish then a safe passing before we leave them, as for the others, tell them to come to me, I wish to see them.” “Yes ma’am...” he says before the channel goes dead, he checks about as the storm gets pretty rough and the wind blows the osprey about, thankfully he manages to get low enough for the VS’s to grabs hold and guide it down safely, “Ok, Claire and Nix, you take the body....guys, where’s the dead guy?” Nix and Claire looks about to see that the dead pony isn’t with them, “Oh guys, Commander Luna wanted to see the pony to give him a safe passing, you’ve screwed that up, now he’s fresh meat for the Akrid....anyway, Commander Luna wishes to see all of you, so make your way there right away.” He orders, Moonshine grabs the door and slides it open, only for them to be hit with gale force winds and freezing temperatures, she covers her face with a hoof to stop the snow from bombarding her face then jumps out, Treacle and Nix close behind, all followed by Claire. They all make their way off the landing strip and into the fort, thermal energy barrel scattered all over for refuelling of the many ospreys that lay on the strip, and for the many VS’s that guard it, Treacle dashes ahead and strains to twist the bulkhead door open due to the cold, she then suddenly jerks round as it gives way and she pulls the door open, instantly they are hit by a wall of warm air and they head inside, Nix closing the door behind them. They take a few seconds to savour the lovely warm air before heading off down a long corridor marked with a sign saying ‘Commander this way’, on the way they pass many other ponies, some of them wounded from other skirmishes, some of them happy and ecstatic about the many victories they have had recently against NEVEC. They reach the end of the corridor and open the door to be presented with a large staircase, Moonshine steps forward and looks over the barrier and looks up to see at least 20 flights of stair, “Is it me or am I going to hate these stairs?” she asks, Treacle groans in agreement, Nix giggles to himself and Claire says nothing as she looks at Nix, she has always had a crush on him. “You may hate them Moonshine but we have to go up them to get to the Commander, no other way.” Treacle says as she walks past her, patting her on the shoulder and starts to make her way up the first flight. Nix follows and gives Moonshine a beaming smile as Claire follows him up but stops next to Moonshine and whispers to her. “You leave my Nix alone, I see the way you look at him, he’s mine ok?” she then heads up the stairs while keeping an eye on her, Moonshine looking confused as she had never like Nix in that way and she has no clue why Claire would say something like that. “The General wishes not to be disturbed right now Lieutenant, you will have to come back later.” A guard says to the Lavender mare who is in full armour with the high-tech thermal pack on her back, but no helmet on, that is clipped onto her side for ready-use, the four lines going down it and meeting at the front are lit up with bright lavender lights, on her other side is a rifle and a couple of magazines. “I don’t care; we just got report of some activity in the plain land area, some snow pirates and ex-NEVEC. I wanted to ask if I would be able to....wait why am I telling you?” she says to herself before pushing past the guard who tries to stop her but she just barges past him. She enters the room and walks into a large office. “I thought my guard was to tell you that I wish to not be disturbed.” The large, white pony in front of her sternly comments, the lavender mare then walks over to a chair and sits. “General, I have some news; we have just had word that a fight between ex-NEVEC forces and some Snow pirates...” “Why are you telling me this Lieutenant Sparkle?” “Hear me out General, the snow pirates, they have now acquired harmonizers somehow, they had come under fire from the ex-NEVEC soldiers but then were able to turn the tides after one of them revived and a Chrysalis Akrid joined in the fight.” “Harmonizers you say, how have they got such tech on them?”The General asks her. “I don’t know but we have also got pictures from NEOS of a Cat-G Akrid, I’ve never heard of such things before...” “What....what do you mean?” “This Akrid General...has been reported to be in space, the Cat-G was in space, it passed right in front of NEOS.” “I see, that is rather odd....see to it that you keep surveillance of it, but for now I want to you to go sector 6 location 4, I have heard of some snow pirate activity in the area.” “Yes Ma’am, I will take my team right away.” Twilight replies before saluting and walking out of the room. Moonshine opens the door panting, holding onto the door handle to keep her up, Nix and Treacle just walk past her like nothing happened, “Moonshine, you should try just walking next time, not running up them then sliding down the rails then running up again...no wonder you’re out of breath.” Treacle lectures her as they all enter the room. Once in Moonshine closes the door, now having caught her breath, the Commander stood looking out of a window out to the snow covered land, “Commander, you wanted to see us?” Nix asks as they stop just ahead of her desk. “Yes, I have some bad news, I sent two Ospreys to survey sector 6 location 4, they went out four days ago, they haven’t returned...now I know you have just come back from your last mission but you’re going back out, I want you to see if you can find out what happened to them.” She orders. “Ma’am” Nix replies before leaving, Moonshine sighs as she thinks of the dreaded stairs; Treacle looks at her and pats her on the shoulder. “At least you can slide down the rail this time Moonshine.” “Yeah, I guess. Right let’s go, some friends need saving.” She says before running out the room, Nix following, Claire keeping close to her love, and Treacle slowly walking out. She stops at the door and turns to look back at the Commander, “We will try our best, if anything goes wrong, will we have support?” “I can try to get a couple of Ospreys to you within five minutes if all doesn’t go to plan. Now get to that jungle and find them.” She orders, Treacle salutes and leaves closing the door behind her. All of them quickly get down the stairs, Moonshine sliding down the rails, Nix and Claire running alongside her, once they reach the bottom they stop to notice treacle missing, they wait a couple of second to see a orange blur that slams into the ground, stands tall and faces them, “What you lot looking at?” she says to them as they stand shocked that she had just dropped 20 flights of stairs and now even gave to winks about it. “That...was...epic.” Moonshine comments. “Never mind that, we have to go.” Nix says as he heads out the door, pulling on Moonshine to get her moving, the others follow them to the Osprey which is already powering up and roaring to go. They jump aboard, the engines whir faster as they slowly take off, the storm now a bit calmer than before, once in the air the Osprey turns and heads to the left of the city and heads off at full speed. “We’re coming over the area now, get yourselves ready, I’ll circle the area first then drop you down.” The pilot says to them before cutting the channel, Nix gets out of his seat and walks over to the door, grabs the handle and slides the door open, he is right away hit by a heat-wave, the area has no sign of ever being covered by snow, “Yeah, should have told you, the area has been completely melted, there is no snow here.” “Aww, smells like shit.” “You’re not used to it, snow has no smell but this...this is something different.” “Yeah, sure is...” he says before seeing a crashed osprey in the middle of bowl like area with a deep pool of water in the corner, there is a large column of rock poking out of the bowl and a small mound of rock just to the left of it. Treacle walks up next to Nix and looks, “Down there...look!” she shouts as she points at a crashed Osprey next to the small mound, it looks trashed, like something crushed it, “Looks like something big tore it apart...we should go down, see if we can find anyone.” “Roger than, landing now.” The pilot says before pushing the joystick forward, the Osprey head down towards the ground and Treacle jumps out to land down next to the crushed helicopter, Moonshine follows her bit jumps further to land on top of the mound. The Osprey stops and hovers only meters above the ground, Nix and Claire jump out and run over to Treacle who is already searching for survivors, the Osprey lifts up and leaves the area. Moonshine runs over to the far side of the downed helicopter and rummages through the wreckage, Treacle searching the cockpit, Nix goes and climbs the mound of rock to get a higher view of the area, and Claire starts to look about seeing if she can see anypony about. As they search, the ground starts to shake; Treacle is half inside the cockpit and pokes her head out, “Is that and earthquake, or another Chrysalis?” Nix gets to the top and looks about to see the pool of water starting to rise; he looks through the sights of his rifle to see a large, six-legged something, it’s black and has two large, forward-pointing horns on the front of its head, the giant Akrid emerges from the water and roars as it lifts out of the water, standing on its hind legs. “AKRID, WE GOT A CAT-G AKRID!!” Nix shouts down to the others who scramble to get out of the helicopter, Claire dashing for the column of rock, a VS is perched up against it, it had seen better days but will have to do, she dives and slides in front of it and starts to repair it with her portable repair kit. Moonshine uses her anchor to get up the mound of rock, Treacle finds a small mound of mud and starts to dig just as Nix starts to open fire on the Akrid but has no effect, the Akrid lowers down to slam on the floor with four legs, the knees then glow orange along with some spires on its back but the larger one in the centre glows bright yellow, this was its core, its weak spot. Nix throws a grenade and lets it hit a leg before shooting it, the grenade explodes and the Akrid roars, faces him and its mouth opens, the top jaw splitting into two piece revealing three tongues, one tongue shoots out and impacts the ground just in front of Nix causing him to fly back off the mound, Moonshine runs forward past his flying body and jumps off the mound towards the Akrid and uses her anchor to get atop of it, she holds on for a bit as it starts to run ahead, she then runs along the top of it and fires at the many spires on its back, many of them shattering but the main core lowering down into the body as it takes hits. Claire finally finishes and climbs into the VS, it is a GTF-11 class, and the right weapon is a Gatling gun while the right is a rocket launcher. She activates it and the frontal plate slides down from above, she grabs the controls and the VS runs forward, she aims at one of the legs and lets rip, the Gatling gun spraying rounds into the weak spot, she stops to steady the aim and fires the launcher, the large rocket flies forward and hits on of the legs as one of the tongues heads for Treacle who is shooting at another leg from below. The leg flies off and the tongue misses Treacle who had already rolled out of the way, the Akrid roars with pain and faces Claire, she fires again but this rocket hits the Akrid right in the mouth as its roaring. Soon another leg falls off as Nix and Treacle concentrate fire on it. The Akrid roars again as Claire fires on another leg with the Gatling gun, Moonshine firing on the core on its back, Nix and Treacle now firing on the last leg on its right side. The Akrid charges for Claire, she jumps up into the air and hovers to get a better aim, its mouth open and the tongues flying past her as she dodges in an attempt to not get hit. Nix fires a rocket and the last leg falls off, the Akrid falls with a loud thud, the mouth open and tongues flailing about, Moonshine runs over the head and jumps down, she quickly turns round 180 and dives into the mouth, Treacle shouts her but then sees her alive inside and running down the body of the Akrid, she too then runs up and dives in, both of them run through it and come to the core, they both open fire on it while being swept to the back of the Akrid my a mini-river inside of it. Nix and Claire wait as the weak spots have hardened, Moonshine and Treacle fly out of the tail end and land on the floor, the legs the regenerate and burst out, allowing the Akrid to stand back up and continues its rampage. Claire and Nix then take aim as they get ready for a long fight, “CLAIRE, GET READY, HERE IT COMES!!” he shouts as it charges right for them, mouth open.
NEOSChapter 3: NEOS Last chapter: Nix fires a rocket and the last leg falls off, the Akrid falls with a loud thud, the mouth open and tongues flailing about, Moonshine runs over the head and jumps down, she quickly turns round 180 and dives into the mouth, Treacle shouts her but then sees her alive inside and running down the body of the Akrid, she too then runs up and dives in, both of them run through it and come to the core, they both open fire on it while being swept to the back of the Akrid my a mini-river inside of it. Nix and Claire wait as the weak spots have hardened, Moonshine and Treacle fly out of the tail end and land on the floor, the legs the regenerate and burst out, allowing the Akrid to stand back up and continues its rampage. Claire and Nix then take aim as they get ready for a long fight, “CLAIRE, GET READY, HERE IT COMES!!” he shouts as it charges right for them, mouth open. The Akrid charges right for the two of them, as it gets closer Moonshine suddenly appears next to the VS and pulls off the rocket launcher only to attach a VS laser rifle to it, she then lands down next to it, “Fire it up, charge it all the way....” she orders to Claire who immediately does that, the blue rifle starts to charge and a blue light emits from it, the light getting brighter and the larger as it charges, “TREACLE, GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!!” she shouts, Treacle struggles to get there as the Akrid stomps about and its tail slamming down to try and hit her, she finally gets round the tail and dashes out from under it, uses her anchor to grab onto a leg and just as the anchor brings her to the top of the leg she lets go and sling-shots up and over to the others, Nix and Moonshine now giving fire-support. “Get ready to fire Claire, here it comes!” she shouts while firing multiple rifle rounds into the mouth, one tongue flies out and hits just next to her, she flies back and hits the column of rock, Nix runs over to help her, Treacle runs over to the VS and points her horn at the laser rifle, her magic boosting the power of it much further than what is normally possible, the light becoming blinding, soon the beam is almost breaking the weapon, the casing of the rifle starting to crack form the sheer force being put into it. “Wait for it.” Treacle says as she uses her magic to hold the power in on the weapon. Moonshine takes off quickly and flies over to the now charging Akrid, she flies past its mouth causing it to open in an attempt to eat her, just as it goes to swipe for her Claire fires and the large beam shoots from the weapon, the rifle shatters from the force and the beam enters the mouth of the Akrid and hits against the weak core, the Akrid stops and roars loudly in pain, the core starting to shatter from the beam, it lifts up onto its back two legs and an electrical surge can be seen building up, the horns having electric jumping between them. Moonshine flies back over to the VS, Treacle now hanging onto the side, Nix jumps down and flaps his wings to soften then landing so he can grab onto the other side, Moonshine hovering above as the VS jumps up and hovers in the air. As the Akrid gets higher and the electric builds up, they can see a faint blue targeting beam pointing down at the Akrid, the beam gets darker and then flickers before stopping, over their intercom they can here, “H.A.R.M.O.N.Y systems online, Generosity: Online....Loyalty: Online....Kindness: Online...” “What the hell is this, what’s Loyalty and Kindness?” Moonshine question to the others who look up and her, all with confused looks. “I don’t know but it isn’t good, we should get out now.” Treacle replies before reaching over to look in the VS, “Get us back, away from the Akrid.” She orders. The VS then flies backwards away from the Akrid, the Akrid then slams down and an electrical pulse flows over the floor of the bowl, the electric pulse causing all electronics to fry. The voice continues, “Laughter: Online....Honesty: Online.....Magic: Charging.....Online, Firing Orbital Friendship Cannon....Standby......Charging......All system running, ready for firing.” A female voice then can be heard, “Fire.” “Firing” The computer voice says, just then the thin blue beam flickers before disappearing and a large thicker rainbow beam fires and engulfs the Akrid completely, it roars as it is torn apart by the beam, after about 20 seconds of constant fire the beam stops, the sound deafening. “Orbital Friendship Cannon fired, now powering down. Target hit and destroyed.” The voice says to confirm. Luckily the blast area of the beam stops just ahead of the VS and they hold on tightly as air rushes past them, the blast dying down as the beam stops, “What in the world was that?!” Moonshine shouts as she gets back to above the VS, the VS then stops boosting and falls down to the ground, landing up right but drained of T-Eng, Claire drops out of it, landing on her knees, Nix gets off and helps her out as Treacle and Moonshine stand and look at the scorched corpse of the Akrid. “I don’t fully know what it was but I have an idea....I heard rumours, NEVEC they apparently have a space station, I thought somepony was bullshitting when they told me about it. I guess they weren’t after all, I just thought....never mind what I thought, this is bad; we need to get this info to the Commander.” She says before putting a hoof to her helmet and calling for evac. As they wait they search about casually at the wreckage and at the Akrid which is now frozen in place but scorched. Minutes later they can hear a whirring noise coming from over the side of the bowl, Nix stands up from sitting on a piece of scrap metal, Claire sat next to him but doesn’t get up, Moonshine and Treacle stood admiring the Akrid, the Osprey enters the bowl from the south and lowers down to see the Akrid and corrects course slightly to land next to it, “Get in...This place is going to hell; you can tell a Cat-G tore through here.” The pilot says as he lands and the side door slides open, they all rush over and climb in, the door closes and the Osprey lifts off and heads back to the fort. Back in the snow storm, the Osprey approaches the fort once more, the landing light and VS’s guiding it in, once landed they all, pilot included, head for the door and get inside to warm up, “You lot go and relax, I’ll tell the Commander.” Moonshine says as the others then head in the opposite way to the stair-case, Moonshine heads towards the stairs, gets to the door, opens it and stares at the stairs, “Oh god, not the stairs, why did I offer to do this?” she says to herself before ascending the 20 flights. Once at the top she takes a while to get her breath then enters the room, “Commander, I have some bad news and then even more bad news.” “Great...what is it now?” “Well, we found the team’s Osprey...it was trashed, no survivors found.” “Damn it.” “And then we were attacked by a Cat-G, it came out of no-where....but to top it all off, NEVEC, they have a space station...I must say it probably saved us but this is bad news, if they find our base, they could kill us all.” “That is bad, I never thought it was true but I guess it is, rumours were that NEVEC had a space station called NEOS, the Orbital Friendship Cannon.” “WHAT? You knew about this?” No, it was only rumours that I heard....but now you have given me real proof, go now, you have worked hard, you need to get some rest.” The Commander says before waving a hoof for her to leave. Moonshine knods and then leaves the room, slowly descends the stairs as she thinks about what had been happening. Twilight is in a diner-type area with the other five, a guard walks up to her, “The General wishes to see you about your findings.” She gets up and heads off with the guard out of the diner and towards the General’s office, soon reaching it, the guard stops and stands outside the door, she enters the room and is welcomed by Celestia, “Please, come in Lieutenant Sparkle, I wish to hear about what you found.” “Thank you General...” she replies as she heads inside and sits on a chair, “I found that I can definitely confirm the snow pirates have Harmonizers, seen them myself, I was watching them battle against a Cat-G Akrid designated Gordiant...we did manage to destroy the Akrid but the pirates got away...” She continues to explain. “The cannon was successful, all system worked and the Cat-G is now history, we are still unfortunately no further with finding the Snow pirate’s base either, but I have heard from NEOS that there has been more reports on Akrid X, it has returned to the surface of the planet and is now currently in sector 2 location 5, we will continue surveys but more importantly is that there has been some unusual weather activity lately, the result possibly of an abnormally large Akrid, maybe larger than a Cat-G, an Over-G Akrid.” She explains before leaving as she has no more information. “An Over-G Akrid, not possible...I will have to see this myself.” Celestia says to herself before sitting down in her large chair and looks at the table which has a computer screen in it, she looks to see photos of Akrid X.
Seeing redSeeing red Moonshine, Treacle, Nix and Claire are all sat in a large mess hall in the Snow Pirate fort, in front of them are bowls of orange glowing slop, the possible remains of an Akrid. A merc dashes over to them and announces that the Commander wishes to speak to Moonshine, she gets up and immediately heads off, stopping at the door to comment, “Anything to get out of eating that shit.” When she opens the door to the stairwell she looks up and sighs before starting her laborious trek up the many flights. Once at the top she stops for a quick breather only to have a thick Scottish voice call out from behind her, “You’re getting’ a wee bit out of shape lassie.” She scrunches her face as this pony was the last she ever wanted to see, she turns around with a blank face, hiding the hatred for him. “What do you want Colin?” she asks him as he walks up to her and towers over her, she looks back to avoid looking at the fact he was very tall and build like a Dongo. “So, the Commander wants t’see ya. Can’t be nothin’ good for ya lassie. Aye that’s right, I’m ‘ere because she wants me to go with ya.” He says to her, she quickly turns to look at him forgetting he was right up to her and jumps back in fright then looks up, straining her neck a bit to see him face. “You’re coming with us, what do you mean come with us, where to and what for?” she questions. “Well, if ya go see the Commander, I’m sure she can full ya on the info.” He replies before heading down the stairs, “I’ll be meetin’ ya downstairs.” She turns to head right for the Commander’s office. She knocks on the door and a voice can be heard just after an electrical shutdown kind of noise emits, “Come in Moonshine” the voice calls, she pushes the door open and steps inside. “Commander, I heard that you are sending us off somewhere already?” she asks. “Yes, we have just got a distress call from some Desert Raiders that have captured a thermal energy supply train from the Carpet Baggers. They have come under attack by a Cat-G Akrid, unknown designation. I want you to go in with your team, but I have assigned Colin and one other pony to go with you….” She explains before teleporting to the door and opens it, a tall pony, about the same height as Moonshine enters the office; he is navy blue with jet black hair having a sky blue streak running down his hair, his cutiemark being a heart with a knife piercing it. “This is Friedrich, he well be going with you also. I believe you having a six member team will be much better than four, especially if you…….never mind that, you need to go now.” She stops herself. “If what Commander?” Moonshine asks but Luna says nothing and forces them out. “Ha, sie sagt nichts.” He says in a foreign language. “You what? Come again handsome, I mean Friedrich…is it Friedrich?” she asks to confirm. He nods, “Ja, my name is Friedrich, you must be ze….well, I’ll just leave it at Moonshine.” “Yeah, that’s me. My sis’ is downstairs, she’s a nice filly to meet once you…” she stops as she’s interrupted by an alarm. A computer voice calls out, “Warning, unauthorised departure detected, one Fastray taken.” They both look at each other before dashing down the stairs as fast as they can. Once at the bottom they open the door and can see Colin waiting at the end of the corridor with Treacle and Nix rushing past him towards the landing deck, “Hay Colin, what’s going on?!” She shouts as they catch up to him as he begins running for the deck too. “Well lassie, we’re in a wee bit of bother, our mission was to go to the desert, aye? Well Claire has a brother in the Desert Raiders, she now gone an’ rushed off.” He explains, they reach the deck to see Nix and Treacle in full armour, Colin now putting on his helmet and boots but leaving out the rest. They all look about as they hear a roaring noise, not creature but more mechanical, Moonshine puts her thermal pack and helmet on, and while she is putting her armour on, Friedrich presses a button on his backpack that causes his armour to unfold round him in an instant. “Nice suit ya got there laddie.” Colin compliments, just then an Osprey pops out of nowhere and swiftly lands in front of them, the propeller engines missing and been replaced with the boosters packs off a PTX-40A, the boosters in pairs at each corner of the vehicle. The pilot opens the door and comments, “Had to do some major remodelling, do you like it?” they all jump in and the door closes behind them at the boosters come to life and the Osprey shoots up into the snow storm over to the city where Claire is riding through the streets on a Fastray whiles being chased down by a couple of Dongos and an Undeep that is diving in and out of buildings to try and cause them to collapse on her, the Dongos dive-bombing her by rolling up ramps and cars and falling down at her. Moonshine opens the door and grabs a pair of binoculars, she looks over to a street where she can see faint flashes of light, she zooms in to see Claire firing her machine gun at one Dongo that has rolled past her and she hits the weak spot, it immediately turns to ice and she uses it to jumps up onto the tops of the buildings. “Over there, she’s in trouble, we’ve got four Dongos, 30 plus Trilids and an Undeep after her.” She says as she points down at them, Nix looks over her shoulder to see only for Colin to move them both to the side and swing round a VS rifle, he takes aim of a Dongo and fires, the round instantly killing it, the buildings now starting to collapse as the Undeep digs through them. He takes aim of the Undeep just as it pops up in front of Claire and fires art one of the spots on its side causing it to shriek in pain and fall back into the building, Claire confused looks about for the cause of the shot, she see’s nothing from the storm and continues to head for the exit to the city. Nix climbs up out of the side and onto the top of the Osprey, “NIX, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Moonshine shouts to him but he doesn’t reply as he can’t hear her, he heads for the front and climbs into the gunners seat, he closes the hatch and takes aim with the two Gatling guns at the Trilids which are diving at Claire, he squeezes the trigger and the guns open fire at a fast rate, the rounds flying past Claire into the snow covered roofs, the Trilids getting shot down one by one from the spray. Claire punches the boost and flies off as amazing speed, the Osprey being left behind, “Hold on to something.” The pilot says before hitting the boost, the Osprey is thrust forward at three times the initial speed, they soon catch up to Claire while Nix picks off the Trilids and holds off the Dongos, Colin taking pot shots at the Undeep as it surfaces. The Osprey lowers to be just meters above Claire who is ignoring the fact it’s there and concentrating on getting out of the city. The Undeep emerges and heads right for the Osprey head-on, the pilot quickly reacts and evades the attack, Treacle opens the other side door and aims her hoof at Claire who is heading right for the giant Akrid, she shoots her anchor which attaches to the Fastray and pulls her out of the Akrid’s wake. Claire grabs hold of the wire and Treacle detaches the anchor causing Claire to be pulled up to the Osprey, once aboard they close the doors and the Osprey heads for the desert.
Big Red OneChapter 5: Big Red One The Osprey reaches the desert area rather quickly, the vast landscape littered with large boulders and cliffs, in the centre of a cliff valley is a single pair of train tracks, along it as a long train going at high speed, the Osprey changes course as it passes right over the train, Moonshine opens the side door after feeling the sharp turn, “There they are, we found them, they don’t seem to be in trouble at all.” She says but just then as if she had jinxed it, a huge Akrid, Cat-G, emerges from the sand behind the train, it charges forward, the mouth opening wide, the many teeth and bristles showing before clamping shut taking a carriage with it, the thermal energy in the tankers exploding causing the Akrid to roar in pain then dive down in the ground. “I’ll take it back; they’re in huge trouble…” Moonshine corrects herself, she turns only to be shocked as nix and Colin jump out of the Osprey and fall down towards the train, “What a pair of jackasses.” She says only to be grabbed by Treacle who jumps out with her in grasp, Moonshine screaming all the way down with legs flailing, Claire staying behind to give air-support as she climbs up and into the gunner seat of the Osprey. Nix and Colin land first and immediately check on the Desert Raiders, Treacle and Moonshine after them who use their anchors to get higher up to get a better tactical view, “Where’s Friedrich?” Treacle asks as she looks about, just then he shouts as he jumps out of the Osprey and lands on the train with a huge thud, he is wearing full battle armour and holding a VS Laser rifle. “I’m right here, ze Akrid won’t be hurt too much by those silly little weapons, and we need ze big guns.” He says as he takes aim with the gun and waits for the Akrid to re-emerge. “Oi, Moonshine, I need ya to hold of the beastie, we can’t kill it…” he orders before turning to the Raiders, “And you lot, get as much thermal energy gathered as ya can, you’re getting of this piece of crap.” He orders again, Moonshine and Treacle start rushing about to gather any weapons that can help that are laid about, as well as weakening the supports to the crates, the Raiders head for the front of the train where they have a couple of standard Ospreys and they start channelling the thermal energy to them. Just as they reach the front everypony stumbles as the Akrid emerges again, Friedrich charges up the rifle and fires at it only for it to not even notice the shot, he charges again but waits, Moonshine fires on the a crate holding bolt and it smashes to pieces causing the barrels of T-Eng to fall out and roll to the Akrid, the impact causing them to explode and the Akrid roars with pain, just then Friedrich fires the rifle into the mouth and the Akrid recoils back into the ground. “JA, that’s it everypony, aim for ze mouth, that seem to be ze weak spot.” He advises everypony who knod in acknowledgement. The T-Eng starting to flow into the Ospreys as they work their best to get it flowing faster, the Akrid emerging again and the Pirate’s Osprey hovering over the train while Claire fires round into the Akrid’s mouth only for it to slam shut and eat one of the carriages and then submerge. “HURRY IT UP BACK THERE!” Moonshine shouts as she takes position next to Friedrich with a VS Rocket launcher in hoof, Treacle holding a Gatling gun, the three of them waiting for it to come up again. One of the Raiders in running back to them when the train is shook about by the emerging Akrid, this time from the side causing the Raider to unfortunately tumble and collapse then roll off the train and onto the sand bellow where due to the shear speed the train is travelling the impact kills him instantly as he rolls and tumbles across the sand soon coming to a stop. Friedrich watches as this happens and then turns to face the Akrid which is firing pods at the train while it travels side by side with it, he pulls his gun back and runs forward towards it, he gets a good jump and leaps for it, his trajectory showing he won’t make it. “Friedrich!” Treacle shouts as she spots him ‘flying’ across the gap between train and Akrid, literally just before he hits the ground he raises a hoof and fires his anchor pulling him to the Akrid, he shoots up and into Akrid which doesn’t even notice him, shows no reaction. Once aboard, he climbs his way up the Akrid with the weapon on his back, he soon reaches a large, red spot on its side, he fires the anchor into the side of it and uses it to keep him upright while he wields the rifle and aims it into the spot then starts to charge it up. The others fire at the pods to stop them from hitting the train, the Osprey doing a flyby to get airstrikes on the other weak spots using the Gatling guns that Claire is using. The Laser rifle is fully charged and he shoves the end into the spot then releases the trigger, the blue explosion causing some minor damaged to it but enough for the Akrid to feel it, the explosion also causing Friedrich to be knocked back enough that he lands back on the train as the Akrid starts to submerge again. “And the whole point of that was…?” Moonshine asks him as he gets up and pulls out a machine gun. “Well, it would seem that it has caused it to submerge, and ze Akrid has been hurt a little, might not come up again, with a bit of luck.” He answers just as a Raider runs up to them all. “Let’s go, the Ospreys are fully loaded, we’re ready to go, we’re going to disconnect the rest of the carriages to ‘feed’ the Akrid.” he explains before running off with Moonshine, Treacle, Nix, Colin and Friedrich right behind him. As they get closer to the front an ear-bursting roar emits from behind them as the Akrid rises from underground with mouth wide open and makes its way towards the train. “Hurry, it’s coming to get us!” Treacle shouts as they rush over the last carriage, the Akrid ripping up one of the carriages and throwing it to the side the advancing towards them, they jump aboard as the engines start up. “You lot got on, I’ll stop the beastie…” Colin orders as he turns to face the carriage coupling. “Separating now.” A voice over the intercom says. Nothing. “Damn it….looks like we’re doing this the hard way.” He says before aiming the Gatling gun at the coupling and opens fire, the rounds taking chunks out of it but to no effect. He soon runs out of ammo and throws the gun as it, the coupling slowly starts to separate after the impact. He jump onto the other carriage that has the Ospreys and turns to watch as Moonshine and the others race up the carriage, Treacle runs up ahead as if to have a run up to the increasing gap, she reaches the edge and her horn glows bright as she teleports onto the other carriage as if they weren’t disconnected. Nix runs up next and leaps up into the air then spreads his wings allowing him to glide onto the other carriage, Friedrich lowers his head and steps on the gas as he runs at full speed to the gap which is almost now twice the gap it was when Treacle went over it. He jumps with legs sprawled out wide as he nears the edge of the other carriage but he slowly starts to fall looking as if he won’t make it but then Moonshine suddenly grabs his armour and pulls him forward as she flies over the gap and they both land on the carriage, all of them rush over to the Ospreys as the left behind carriages are swept up but the Akrid causing them to explode and it rears up in pain then advances again, it’s mouth opening as the Ospreys take off. They just make clear of it as the Akrid slams shut on the remains of the train, “Let’s go home.” Moonshine says to everypony who all finally have a bit of time to rest.
