Derpy Accidentally a Portal Gun V: Tetralogy
Derpy Accidentally a Portal Gun 4: Tetralogy
Admiral Biscuit
Portal guns are dangerous tools, which was why Derpy kept it in the closet.
It probably would have been smarter to just get rid of it: the first portal gun had gotten Derpy in trouble with Princess Celestia, and this one—the replacement—was slightly unstable, having been made of marzipan by a sugar-fueled maniac. Besides, Derpy, Amethyst Star, Dinky, and Chell had eliminated all the humans from Equestria, so it really served no purpose anymore.
Hindsight is of course 20/20, and Amethyst Star had plenty of time to reflect on the misfortunes in her life that had led her to this sorry state of affairs. She'd simply been intending to get a scarf from the closet after a rogue storm in the Everfree brought a spring chill to Ponyville, but her hoof had slipped, and she'd accidentally pulled down the portal gun as well.
A small chunk of marzipan broke off the hoof-grip as it hit the closet floor, and for one brief moment, Amethyst Star thought she'd escaped completely unscathed, but it was not to be. She saw a bright flash of light as the gun portalized her and the next thing she knew, she was falling.
Amethyst Star had fast reflexes, and she cast out her telekinesis in an attempt to grab onto something—anything—that would save her.
All she got was a lousy scarf.
She slammed to the ground in a desert wasteland, knocking the wind right out of her. It took her a moment to shake her head clear, and in that moment her opportunity to quickly return home vanished—the portal winked out as if it had never been there.
At this point, most ponies would be cursing their luck, or perhaps praying to Celestia for deliverance. Stuck in a desert, with no supplies except a wool scarf, her chance of survival was already exceedingly low.
Amethyst was not such a pony. She had a very special set of skills, and world-hopping was old hat to her. She knew rescue would be forthcoming; all she had to do was hold out until then.
Her entire assessment of her situation hadn't taken much more than a few seconds, although it was almost a few seconds too long. A familiar whizzing noise caught her ears and she dropped back to the ground, wincing as a bullet took a notch out of her ear.
Exposed on a battlefield, she might last only a few seconds. She could play dead, but for all she knew whoever or whatever was holding that gun knew that trick and would make sure that she was completely dead before approaching her.
She got her hooves back under her, and quickly fired off a burst of light from her horn—it wasn't much, but predator's eyes were drawn to light and to movement, and it would buy her enough time to get behind a rock, hopefully.
Amethyst Star was halfway to the rock when she felt a couple of shards of rock pepper her hind legs, and then a bullet went clear through her tail as she dove the last few feet, but it didn't matter; she had a brief bit of time to plan her next move.
Her foe must have realized that, too, because the shots stopped after a futile fusillade against her flinty fortress. Anypony else might have thought that her opponent had given up, but she wasn't an idiot—whoever it was would be looking for an opportunity to flank her, or waiting for her to stick her head above the rock to try and get a bead on her enemy, or any of a number of other options which would not end well for her.
She gritted her teeth—until she got her hooves on a weapon, she didn't have much of a chance.
• • •
Mark was sitting where he usually did on a Saturday night—at his computer desk, playing Battlefield. He had what was, by all accounts, a wicked setup: dual flatscreen monitors, lighted gaming keyboard, mouse with programmable side buttons, a wireless headset, and a really comfortable chair with cupholders prominently featured.
Outside, a thunderstorm was raging, but his awareness of the world was only what he could see on his monitors. He was currently making his way through a building, trying to get to the top floor, where he'd have a good look at the battlefield map.
He shot the lock off a door and kicked it open, then lobbed a grenade inside. It exploded, and he charged through, darting up a flight of stairs and ducking back as gunfire hailed down from above. For a moment he thought he was going to make it, and then he got shot in the back.
Mark took the opportunity to have a drink of Mountain Dew Code Red while he was waiting to respawn, and then rushed right back in, attempting the assault again.
And again.
And again.
Even the worst-laid plans sometimes succeed, and on his tenth attempt he actually managed to get up the stairway, with the assistance of a rocket from one of his teammates that cleared the upstairs room for him.
Mark's eyrie wasn't going to be tenable for all that long, but it was long enough to help his teammates out, and he managed a couple of beautiful sniper shots before the opposing team noticed where the gunfire was coming from and dispatched him with a coordinated assault on his citadel.
He respawned once again at the edge of the map and sprinted along the old, familiar route to the building, when he heard one of his teammates shout that there was something off to the west, and then the link dissolved into static.
A moment later, the game froze completely, and he looked over at his router, a frown on his face. Thunderstorms don't usually take out my internet.
There was a bright flash of lightning, and then the thunder crashed loudly enough to shake the house to its foundation. He turned back to the screen in time to see a strange, orange-bordered hole in one of his HP Omen monitors, and, rather unwisely, he touched his finger to it.
• • •
It had only taken Amethyst Star a second to decide that if she didn't act quickly, she was a dead mare. So she stuck her head up above the rock long enough to make herself a target again, and ducked back down just in time—another burst of gunfire chipped a few thousands of years’ worth of geology off the rock. It didn't matter; she now knew for sure the bearing on her enemy. Even better, she knew that he had an elevated position, so maybe he wouldn't give it up that easily. And even if he did, it would take him time to come down from there, and that was time that she wasn't going to let him have.
She was actually glad for her scarf, because it would give her just enough diversion to do what she needed to do. A quick, sloppy illusion on it and it looked kind of pony-like. Not enough to fool anyone for any length of time, but enough to work for a moment, and that was all she needed.
She cast a come-to-life spell on it, as well, and when she was good and ready, she fired off another light spell to her left, then kicked the scarf to her right, motivating it. Her enemy had already seen this trick, and she could imagine him tracking maybe halfway to the light burst, and then catching the movement of the scarf out of the corner of his eye—its erratic movements probably made it look like it was wounded.
A fool might have waited for the gunfire to start, but she didn't. She knew it was coming, so she stuck her head out of the left side of the rock, long enough to get a glance at the building and balcony, and then she struck.
Distant demolition wasn't a spell that was terribly useful, but every now and then a mare could find herself needing to collapse a support beam, and she did, grabbing the one right under his feet and yanking it sharply out and down.
The sound of his gun changed as he lost his footing, and then the whole balcony came crashing down in a billowing cloud of dust, bringing the metal awning along for the ride.
Amethyst didn't need an invitation; she came out from behind her rock at a full gallop, making for what cover that building offered. Her scarf, somewhat lacking in intelligence, began to slither along behind her like a snake. It couldn't feel pain, which was just as well, because the man on the balcony had hit it several times.
She found him at the base of the rubble, still alive but unconscious. While it was usually unwise to keep an enemy alive, she did need information, so the first thing she did was take all his weapons away from him, and once she was sure he couldn't get to them, she proceeded to take his flak jacket and helmet as well.
He didn't have any rope, which was a pity. Rope was always useful.
He did have shoelaces in his combat boots, and she unlaced them and used them to tie him somewhat securely to a cast iron drain pipe, then she got out his canteen and splashed a little bit of water on him to see if she could bring him around.
• • •
Mark found himself in a familiar world: one that he had spent thousands of hours looking at through a computer screen. Luckily for him, he discovered that whatever magic had caused him to become a character in one of his favorite games had also seen fit to give him appropriate attire, which was probably just as well. A t-shirt with nacho cheese stains, shorts, and Crocs wouldn't have served him very well in the world of the game. He also had a pistol.
He'd arrived somewhat distant from the action, near the edge of the map. Obviously, the developers couldn't have made a level that went on forever, and when he thought about it, it would have been stupid if they did. What if his character re-spawned fifty miles from where his teammates were? What if he had to walk all that way?
A rapid burst of machine-gun fire drew his attention, and he watched in awe as a distant helicopter swooped over the battlefield and raked the ground, then tried to evade as a retaliatory rocket sought out its engine. It failed, dropping to the ground like a crippled bird.
Mark was in heaven. He quickly checked his own weapons, and rushed towards the combat. Which, it turned out, was further from him that he'd thought.
That was for the best. While his character normally had unlimited endurance, when he was actually there, he didn't. After only a couple of blocks, his legs started to hurt, and he was breathing more heavily.
If he'd been wiser, he would have figured out right then and there that if he was in the game, he was playing for keeps. However, his enthusiasm overcame the warning bells in his head, and he vaulted over a railing and started running up a flight of stairs, then across the empty room on the other side.
He took a quick glance around for loot drops, in the hopes of getting a better gun or something, but he didn't see any, so he sprinted across the room.
At the far end was an open window frame, and rather than backtrack, Mark employed his favorite technique for quickly getting out of buildings—he jumped.
In the game, as long as he wasn't more than a story or two up, this had little consequence. His character would take a little bit of damage; if he was low on health, he'd use a medkit, and then keep on going.
After it was too late to change his course of action, the rational part of Mark's brain finally kicked into 'oh shit' mode as he went out the window, and reminded him that falling hurt, quite a lot, actually, and perhaps this hadn't been a wise decision.
When he smashed into the ground, his world turned to pain. Even though he'd flexed his knees, which prevented any serious damage, Mark still pitched forward and landed on his face. Rationality had a moment to say 'told you so,' before all the various parts of his body he'd injured reported in, and he let out a high-pitched, rather girlish scream that would have gone on for quite a while, except that that landing had mostly knocked the wind out of him as well.
He dragged himself back to the wall of the building, figuring if he had something to lean against, it might hurt less. And when he'd gotten there, he rummaged through his pockets until he found a medkit.
Mark thought Use Medical Kit, and nothing happened. It was still there in his hand, and he still felt like he'd just gotten out of a rock tumbler.
He picked it up and looked at it more closely. There was a zipper on the side, so he opened it up.
How to actually use the medkit to regain health was a great mystery to him. He recognized most of the contents; he'd watched House and Scrubs, after all. None of it did him any good, though: he had no wounds to bandage, had no idea how to use the sutures, and the kit was strangely lacking in good painkillers. There was aspirin, which he supposed was better than nothing.
Mark took two of them and dry-swallowed them, wincing at the bitter taste in his mouth, and then zipped the medkit back closed and set it down.
In the game, he'd respawn if he died. And he had a way to make that happen . . . but he was beginning to wonder if maybe that technique wouldn't work now. Maybe if he got killed, he'd stay dead.
He wasn't sure he wanted to risk it.
So he got unsteadily back to his feet, picked the medkit back up and shoved it in his pants pocket, and then he limped around the outside of the building, looking for someplace good to hide.
• • •
Amethyst hadn't learned too much from the first soldier, although she'd gotten a few new weapons. On top of that, while she was interrogating him, her wounded scarf had finally made it back to her, and she de-spelled it and draped it across her back. It was no towel, but maybe in a pinch, she could use it for something else.
She glanced around behind her once again, just to make sure that nobody was coming, and then bent down long enough to undo the temporary bindings around her former captive. No sense in leaving the shoelaces behind, either; they might be useful, too. And it wasn't like she had to worry about him coming after her any more.
She lit her horn and lifted up enough rubble to make a small path to the window she'd noticed before collapsing the balcony, and then she vanished inside the pile, dropping the rubble back in place once she was past.
The inside of the building had been pretty well picked through by previous soldiers—nothing inside was of any use to her, so she went up the stairs, her ears swiveling around for any noise that might indicate a possible ambush. The soldier had said he was alone in the building, but she wasn't sure she could trust him. Captives often tell you what they think you want to hear, not the truth.
The top of the stairs might be a deathtrap. Anybody could be on either side, just waiting for her to poke her head around the edge, or there could be a tripwire, a boobytrap—really, anything. If she'd had some grenades, she would have lobbed them upstairs, but she didn't, so she couldn’t.
Amethyst Star moved quickly but cautiously up the stairs and breathed a little sigh of relief as she got into the top floor still intact.
A ladder went up to the roof, and while ladders weren't exactly pony-friendly, Amethyst could use one in a pinch. She stuck her head up above for just a moment, hoping that there weren't any snipers keeping close watch, but just in case she made a little shield around her head. A mirror would have been really useful, but the soldier she’d killed hadn’t had one, and his knife had a matte finish.
She got lucky, and nobody took a potshot at her. And even better, there was a coaming around the entire perimeter, which gave her decent cover in three directions.
It wasn't so good on the fourth side where there were taller buildings, which meant that a sniper could fire down on her.
She saw all that in an instant, and then she was back inside, relatively safe. A burst of gunfire raked across the roof—somebody had been watching. They’d been more trigger-happy than they ought to have been; they should have waited for her to expose herself all the way.
Amethyst trotted across the room, towards a window that looked towards the tall buildings. She didn't make the mistake of going all the way to the window; that would be an invitation to be shot. Instead, she stayed back, studying the terrain around her as well as she could. Getting to the high building would be her first priority, and then she'd have a better viewpoint and maybe could figure out a way to escape.
• • •
From the outside, the building didn't look like much. It was pocked and scarred from countless bullets and artillery rounds, but that wasn't unique. And the front door was wide open, much like the mouth of a dragon who was about to devour somepony. To go in that way was death, she knew that. A boobytrap, or a pair of soldiers flanking the door—there would be something there.
The second floor window probably wasn't guarded, though. Not as well as the front door would be. And it was a jumpable distance.
She unstrapped the Glock from her tactical vest, and checked to make sure that the magazine was full and a round was in the chamber, then set it on the floor and brought her M1 around, cycling the action to make sure it was ready to go as well.
The pistol went out the window first, and then her field guided it to her left. Even though she couldn't see it, she could feel it, and she sent it a little ways down the narrow alleyway, somewhat close to the death door. She was committed now—any moment they'd see it, and the longer they had to think about it, the more likely they'd figure out what she was doing. So she tugged at the trigger as she started to gallop, the machine gun off on her right side.
Disciplined soldiers would have kept to their posts until their help was called for, but these weren't. The three men who were in the upstairs room had all been drawn to the adjacent windows, hoping to figure out who was in the street, shooting at the entrance. It was an opportunity not to be missed, and Amethyst brought her gun to bear on each one in turn, dropping them before they even knew what had hit them, and then she was across the room, ducking into a corner that shared a wall with the door. If reinforcements were to come, that was the way they'd arrive.
She kept her M1 trained at the door as she quickly stole all the weapons that the soldiers had been carrying, which were more than a fair replacement for the Glock she'd lost. Frustratingly, every time she went to pick up a second copy of a weapon she already had, it simply disappeared, although the ammunition at least appeared in the pockets in her vest.
After she'd gotten herself fully equipped, she moved towards the door frame and considered her options. She had to assume that the rest of the soldiers knew where she was and were grouping up for a counterstrike, and the longer she waited the more effective it would be.
Luckily, among all the weapons she'd just grabbed were a few grenades.
She pulled the pins on two of them and sent them left and right outside the doorway, hoping that the wall was strong enough to stop the blast. It felt strong, but a mare could never be sure.
It was. She heard a shout, almost instantly followed by a pair of explosions and the rattling of shrapnel up and down the hallway, and Amethyst was out the door, one gun pointed forward and the second spraying down the hallway, covering her back. It was a huge waste of ammunition, but at the moment she was outnumbered and outgunned and if things went like she hoped, she was about to get a lot more ammunition anyways.
She didn't stay in the hallway long enough to examine her hoofiwork; there would be time for that later. Instead, she trotted down the hallway and stuck her nose down the staircase, yanking it back just as quickly. The soldiers downstairs were covering the staircase rather effectively, and she was lucky they'd aimed high. They wouldn't make that mistake again.
Casting illusory sounds was foal's play, and making something that she was familiar with was simple. She even added in a bit of echo to the hooffalls, which wasn't really necessary, but completed the illusion. Meanwhile, she slowly and quietly backed up, vanishing into the shadows of the hallway, her gun held at the ready.
The men downstairs would have had to be superhuman to not fall for the aural illusion, and they weren't. She let the first one go by, and when the second crested the top of the stairs, she shot him in the head, and then got the other one in the back before he could even turn around.
She shoved the bodies down the stairs—it was getting crowded in the hallway—and when she didn't hear any new cries from below, she risked another quick peek. The room was now blessedly empty.
There was no way of knowing how many there were in the building, but she didn't really care. She now had quite a collection of guns, a rather large supply of ammunition, and more grenades than she'd had a moment ago. One of the men had even had a rocket launcher strapped across his back, which was quite the prize.
It didn't take her too long to get to the top of the building. The soldiers weren't all that clever, and apparently had no wards against magic. That was a terrible oversight on their part, but she wasn't going to complain about her good fortune. It was about time that something went right for her.
The top room was the toughest nut to crack. It had a reinforced steel door, which was closed. It didn't take a genius to figure out that if she opened it, something bad would happen to her, although she couldn't foresee what that might be. A mine, perhaps, or a couple of grenades lobbed out in the hallway, or perhaps just withering gunfire. However many people were up there had to be nervous, and fully prepared for her to come in through the front door.
There was more than one way to make a stormcloud, though, and she retreated down the staircase. A dead soldier had kindly provided her with plenty of explosives, and she had a plan.
Stringing charges in the room below didn't take her very long at all, and she covered most of the perimeter of the room, paying particular attention to the corners, since that was the best place for people to hide. Then she carefully inserted detonators into each block of C4 and unwound the spool of detacord as she went out into the hallway and back upstairs.
Ideally, she wanted to be right by the door so she could finish off anyone that the blast didn't get, but she was a little bit worried about the integrity of the walls, and had no desire to be hoist by her own petard. So she stayed at the far end of the hallway, alongside a nice, safe outside wall, and felt around the door, hoping that they'd left it unlocked, which would make things much easier for her.
They had, which further reinforced her belief that to open the door would be death.
She pinned her ears down and counted to three in her head, twisted the handle and yanked, and the moment she heard the first burst of gunfire, pushed the button on her detonator.
The effects of the explosion were all that she could have hoped for—half a soldier tumbled across the hallway, along with a blast of fire and shrapnel, and she felt the building quake under her hooves as the floor fell out from under everyone in the room.
To her good fortune, the rest of the building remained standing, and when there were no more sounds from inside the room, she shook all the bits of loose plaster out of her mane and went down the hallway to peer through the doorframe.
Not too bad, Sparkler, she thought as she admired what was left of the room. The floor had collapsed completely, just like she'd hoped. There was one small section still clinging to the edge of the building, enough that their tripod-mounted gun had survived the explosion, but otherwise the room was nothing more than a smoking crater.
That hadn't been ideal—she'd destroyed the observation post she'd hoped to use—but she'd come out of it unscathed, so overall that counted as a win in her book.
• • •
Mark saw her from his hidey-hole, and at first mistook her for a packhorse. She was festooned with guns, and grenades, and he scooted back a little bit, worried that whoever was using her might be on the hunt for him. But as she slowly crossed his field of view and he saw no-one else, he slowly came to realize that she was on her own.
He should have shot her then and there, but he didn't. Instead, he whistled, because he thought that was how you got a horse to come to you.
Her ears snapped around and she dove behind the remains of a wall, and Mark's hopes sank as he saw an M1 come up above the rock, surrounded by a strange lavender glow. But it didn't fire, and his hopes began to rise, briefly.
Then a rocket launcher came up alongside the gun, and Mark did the only sensible thing. He surrendered unconditionally.
Derpy Accidentally a Portal Gun V: Tetralogy
Derpy Accidentally a Portal Gun 4: Tetralogy
Admiral Biscuit
Amethyst Star regarded the human warily. Thus far, her experience with humans in this world was that they were all trying to kill her. It had turned out that most of them weren't that good at it, but she hadn't survived this long without being cautious, which was why her first thought was it's a trap.
Nevertheless, she didn't fire her rocket launcher right away.
“Stay where you are,” she demanded, in a voice which brooked no argument.
“I'm not going to hurt you,” Mark insisted.
I'll be the judge of that. “Paws where I can see them.”
He nodded eagerly and stepped forward. This was the dangerous part; if he did have friends who were using him as bait, now was when they'd strike, when her focus was on him.
“Why should I trust you?”
Mark stopped and considered this. “Because we're on the same team, and only noobs kill teammates.” He pointed to a banner on the shoulder of his uniform, which was the same as the one she had on her shirt. It hadn't been hers to begin with, of course, but she was willing to let that misunderstanding stand, at least for the moment.
Just the same, it could still be a trap. She took a side-step, putting herself a little bit closer to a conveniently large rock.
She was going to take him at his word, though; she already knew that. Maybe she'd known it the moment she saw him—he wasn't like the others. Sure, he was wearing a uniform like they were, but he reeked of cowardice. Or else he'd wet himself.
Aside from the first soldier, she hadn't spent any time talking to any other people, so there was still a lot she didn't know, and maybe he'd be the one to answer her questions.
Mark didn't notice the mental debate that she was having; in truth, he was kind of clueless when it came to interacting with other people, and he had no real chance when he was talking to a unicorn. As far as he was concerned, the ear-flicks and occasional tail-swish meant nothing; anyways, he was more focused on the fact that she appeared to have one of every weapon in the game strapped to her somehow.
“I know my way around the game,” he offered.
“Game?” Amethyst narrowed her eyes. “Is that what this is to humans?”
“Well, yeah. It's a game you play on a computer, except that somehow I'm stuck in it.” Mark absently put his hands back in his pockets. “And I guess that you are, too.”
She snorted. “What kind of person would consider this a game?”
“EA, I guess. Lots of people play it.”
People are weird. But she knew that already, of course. Every one of the people who had come to Equestria before—besides Chell—were a pain in her flank.
“I'm Mark, by the way.”
“Amethyst Star.” She giggled, for the first time since she'd arrived in this Luna-forsaken hellhole. Mark. Appropriate enough. “A lot of ponies call me Sparkler, though.”
“So you've never heard of Battlefield?”
“Nope.”
“Oh.” Mark's eyes narrowed. “Well, I'm like an expert at the game. One of the best, really.”
“Is that so?”
“Yup.”
Then why are you hiding rather than fighting?“So how do we get out of here?”
“I guess we complete the objective.”
“And you know how?”
“Oh, yeah. Well, there's a couple of different ways, you see. It depends on what the objective is. Like, sometimes you have to capture a building, or defend one. You can capture a flag, or protect someone.”
She nodded. It was nice to know that there were rules, and a way to win. “Tell me everything.”
• • •
“You're going too fast!”
“I am not!” Mark turned to glare at her. “Anyways, it's better to be fast—they can't shoot you when you're fast.”
As if they'd heard, a hail of bullets peppered the ground just behind the Jeep, one of them actually hitting the spare tire and deflating it. Mark twisted the wheel and the Jeep slid around a corner, scraping against a building before it dropped back to four wheels.
“Anypony who knows how to lead won't have a problem—“ Her thought hung, unfinished, as the front of the Jeep dropped into a mortar crater and caught its bumper on the other side, flipping it ass over teakettle. Sparkler, no stranger to seatbelts, remained in her seat for the brief duration of the ride. Mark, who was too much of an expert to need one, was flung completely clear of the wreckage, and launched impressively high into the air before limply flopping back down like a rag doll.
Sparkler angled her head down until she could see the seat belt and lasered through it with her horn, twisting as it broke free so that she landed on her hooves.
She'd hardly gotten herself untangled before a soldier sprinted around the corner of the building, intent on finishing what Mark's bad driving had started. She saw him just in time, and ducked back under the Jeep, quickly weighing her options. Of course all the good guns had gone flying when the Jeep rolled, but she still had a flare gun, and the jerrycan off the back of the Jeep had landed right by the soldier.
Flare guns weren't terribly accurate, since they'd never been intended to be used as a weapon, but it was accurate enough, and the resulting explosion was rather satisfying.
She got clear of the Jeep while flaming bits were still raining down, and grabbed up as many weapons as she could find on her way to rescue Mark, who was out cold in the middle of the street.
Sparkler considered leaving him for dead, but instead wrapped her scarf through his armpits and used it to drag him around a corner, bundling him up between a couple of crates until he regained consciousness. As hiding places went, it left a lot to be desired, but then Mark hadn't been very draggable, and beggars couldn't be choosers. Maybe his next plan would be better.
• • •
The two of them huddled in an alleyway, studying the fortress in front of them.
“All we gotta do is get up that flight of stairs,” Mark assured her. “'Cause this is one of the buildings that has a flag in it sometimes.”
Sparkler looked at the stairs. Every instinct was telling her that to just gallop up them was a sure way to die—they were open on three sides, and anybody could be at the top, shooting down. Up a floor, around a landing, then up another floor, maybe ten seconds of complete exposure. “Isn't there a better way?”
He shrugged. “Not really, not unless you've got a helicopter. I think that the other guys have them all, ‘cause I haven’t seen any where they usually appear.”
“I don't have a helicopter on me, but I know where one is.” She'd seen it before, but it was of little interest to her—Sparkler's skills didn't extend as far as flying a helicopter. “Should be easy enough to get, too. There was only one man guarding it, and he's not very alert.”
“Let's get going, then.”
• • •
It didn't take them too long to get to the chopper. Once Sparkler had described the location, Mark took off, his injuries not slowing him too much. Sparkler just followed along—he was making himself a rather large target, although she didn't really mind. If there was an ambush, he'd find it, and the more time she'd spent with him the less certain she was that he actually knew anything useful. He was better than no company, but only just.
By some miracle, they made it all the way unscathed. As they approached the last corner, Sparkler tugged Mark back with her field—it wouldn't do to alert the guard that they were there, after all.
“We've got to be subtle,” Sparkler hissed. “There are other soldiers around besides the man guarding it, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Mark leaned around the corner, getting a view of the helicopter. “So what are you thinking, just sort of creep up there and knife him?”
“Garrote,” she said. “It's much quieter. Trust me, people scream a lot when you stab them, and slitting throats isn’t all that quiet, either. And it’s really messy.”
“Got it.” Mark reached back and grabbed a coil of shoelace off her back. “I'm on it—he'll never know that I was there.” He stuck his head around the corner for a moment and nodded. “His back's to us—time to Leroy Jenkins this shit.”
Before she could even ask what a Leroy Jenkins was, Mark was gone, racing along the road. Sparkler sighed and screwed a silencer onto her sniper rifle. She had a terrible idea how this was going to turn out, and she needed him to stay alive long enough to fly the helicopter.
It was a good thing that she did, too. Among the many skills which Mark lacked, garroting was apparently on that list. The guard had been inattentive; he'd never seen Mark coming, but he'd noticed as soon as the loop of shoelace dropped around his neck, and hadn't been willing to stop struggling until Sparkler finally got him through the head.
Of course, that had brought plenty of unwanted attention, and she'd spent the next five minutes picking off soldiers one-by-one until the entire area was littered with their bodies. Mark had contributed somewhat by getting aboard the helicopter and firing its minigun until it ran out of ammunition, successfully killing two soldiers.
Sparkler stowed the sniper rifle—it was bolt action, and not all that great a weapon for a mare on the run—and galloped to the helicopter, leaping aboard before somebody sniped her. “Come on, let's go, before reinforcements come.”
“Uh, I usually man the gun.”
“You’re gonna be the pilot. I thought you knew how to fly one of these.”
“Well, yeah.” He looked into the cockpit. “I mean, how hard can it be? I just thought, since it was your idea. . . .”
“If I knew how to fly a helicopter, I'd've already been flying it.” Sparkler glanced around, hoping that maybe there would be a new box of ammunition for the gun that had somehow survived all the carnage. Sadly, there was not.
“Make me do all the work,” he muttered, sliding into the pilot's seat.
Sparkler ignored his gripes as she slipped on a parachute. She was beginning to suspect that he flew as well as he drove.
After what felt like an eternity, the helicopter coughed to life, and once the rotor got up to speed, took to the air like a schizophrenic turkey. It cleared the nearby buildings, barely, and then began an erratic, crippled flight over the battlefield, lurching up and down in the air until Mark finally got the hang of the controls, and then it shot up skyward fast enough to pin Sparkler to the floor.
“Gotta stay clear of rocket fire,” Mark shouted.
• • •
The plan had been to drop down and hover right next to the door, which Sparkler had every intention of opening with her rocket launcher before leaping into the building and finishing off anybody who was still standing. And the first part of the plan had gone flawlessly—the helicopter had indeed performed a perfect drop. There had been no opportunity to perform the second part, due to Mark’s piloting skills; the helicopter slammed into the ground in a spectacular manner. Sparkler, holding the rocket launcher, had no time at all to prepare for a crash landing, and accidentally triggered the rocket when the helicopter hit the ground. Luckily, the side door was open, and the rocket flew harmlessly down the street, bringing down the pitiful remains of a bakery.
Mark, undaunted, climbed out of the cockpit through the shattered windscreen, and Leroy Jenkinsed his way up the undamaged stairs, while Sparkler struggled back to her hooves.
Mark is an idiot, she though, not for the first time.
• • •
“So this is it.”
Mark nodded. “Last building we haven't explored. There are maps in there, see, and if you get them, then you win.”
“And you're sure of that.”
“Yeah.”
“Like you knew how to fly a helicopter.”
“It's easier in the game,” he said defensively. “Come on.”
Without waiting for an invitation, he kicked the door, which didn't open. A few more kicks proved entirely ineffective, and Mark reached for the chainsaw that was strapped across Sparkler's back.
“I have had enough,” she announced. “All this time, I've been doing it your way; this time, we're doing it my way. Stay behind me, and keep your mouth shut, unless there's somebody sneaking up on us.”
“But I know—“
“Shut up.” Sparkler eyed the door. One good buck . . .
She came into the room like a charging rhino, two guns in her field. The men inside were ready for an assault, mostly, but they weren't prepared for an angry unicorn with guns. In less than a second, all eight of them were dead, and it had only taken her nine bullets. She reached across the room with her field and jerked the next door off its hinges, rolling a grenade into the hallway as she dropped the guns she'd been carrying.
“I fucking hate this place,” she muttered, firing a shotgun to her left. “I hate every sun-cursed soldier who wants a piece of my hide.” A short burst from her M1 cleared the room to her right. “I hate how every single vehicle I've ridden in for the last day has crashed.” The firing pin on her M1 clicked as it hit an empty chamber, and she threw it at a soldier and grabbed the Desert Eagle off her back. “And I'm starving.” She kicked open the next door and casually picked off the four guards while turning to her next target.
“I would happily kill someone for a cheesecake.” Every knife on her tactical vest flew forward in her field, pinning a hapless soldier to the wall like some exotic species of butterfly. “Or a ticket out of this Luna-damned hell-hole.” She absently chucked a pair of concussion grenades to her left and right, down the wings of the next hallway.
“Seriously, is that too much to ask?” She glanced back at Mark, who was just watching her, mouth agape. “What's a mare gotta do, huh?”
“I don't even,” he muttered, as Sparkler reloaded her Desert Eagle. “I have so many questions.”
“Learn to live with disappointment,” she spat, emptying the gun into the next room. “Are those the maps on that table?”
“Yeah.”
“And they’re still useful, even with a little bit of blood on them?”
This time, Mark just nodded.
“That was surprisingly easy.” She grabbed them with her field. “And I didn't have to endure crashing in a Jeep or a tank or an armored personnel carrier or a helicopter to get them.” She tucked them under her tactical vest, right against her fur. “So now what, do we have to evacuate?”
“No, it usually ends right after you get the maps.” Mark pulled a chair towards himself, and then saw the blood and guts sprayed across it and decided to remain standing.
“Are there any other ways of winning the game that you forgot to tell me, or that we haven't tried yet?”
Mark shrugged. “I thought this was all. Maps, escort, the flag . . . well, there's survival mode, too.”
“Which is?”
“Last man standing wins.”
Sparkler strangled him with her scarf.
