Writer's Blok: Air Rattle

Chapters

Morning Banter
Big B
Warm up Skirmish
Game 1, Round 1
Game 1, Round 2

Morning Banter

“I don’t see why we have to be up so early!” Whined the tomboy riding shotgun, she had her boots propped up on the dash.

“and I don’t see why you had to be up late missy.” I retorted glancing at her as she yawned.

“oh right, You and I were kicking so much ass last night, I didn’t want to leave that lobby.”

“Dash, we had two clans playing alongside us during those operations, not to mention I actually was pushing, you just followed as support while I was mopping the floor with them.”

“Yeah, but you had to run and gun with a sniper rifle!”

“Correction, that was the Infantry variant of the M95 and you be surprise how easy it is to skirm with bolt rifles.” The humanized Pegasus mouthed my words mockingly before looking out the window.

“Of course you did lead us right into that bunker tunnel, where I don’t know, half the fuckin’ team was!”

“So What? At least I took some with us, gas nades for the win!”

“Then there was that debacle holding the middle in ballroom.” I laughed at her, remembering how most of our team had been slaughtered just before the other team stormed in, trying to capture ‘C’.

“Ah, good times, Lucky I was playing medic that time, now that's teamwork.”

“Uhm, more like the both of you were screaming at each other trying to defend until your team rejoined you both,” A soft voice joined in from the back.

“Nuaght-uh, we had that in the bag before they decided to rain tank nades on us!”

“It sure was intense enough that you both were calling out to each other in opposite rooms, never mind using your headsets.” A posh voice added to the commentary about our gameplay last night.

“I blame Rainbow for that,” I pointed to her before she swatted my hand away.

“Bull, I had to take mine off because you damn near blew my ears out shouting over the mic!” Rainbow Dash shook a fist to me.

“Yeeeah, then after our guys finally caught up with us, oh man, now that was a party!”

“Mmmmm, I don’t see how, it looked more like a bunch of soldiers playing tag with bullets.” I heard the slap of a face palm next to me while I just chuckled.

“thank you pinkie, what a way to sum it up!”

“Your welcome!” I glanced at the rear view mirror. The Volunteers for today’s event sat in the backseat.

Rarity, wearing a pair of navy blue, urban camo cargo jeans, a white blouse with matching camo BDU shirt over it, borderline formfitting, she also had a beret that matched the color of her hair, which was a purple, complete with a diamond pin. she was touching up her face with quick, light dabs of make up. Her hair neatly folded into a tight bun under that beret.

Fluttershy, middle, was wearing olive drab fatigues with no hat but she fidgeted with the goggles I loaned her. she sat with her legs against her chest, she was the only one wearing tennis shoes. I could note that the clothes were a bit baggy on her, but the pants at least won't get caught under her heels (i hope). She didn’t pull her hair back, because she made it clear before leaving that she was only going to admin and observe. Which I don’t think she really knows what being an admin is about.
Pinkie Pie, god bless her, was wearing Tiger stripe camo BDU trousers with a plain t-shirt, matching BDU shirt and sure, wore a beret too, but was a dark red, around her neck was a black face cover, she sat cross legged while looking out the window, her head gently bobbing to some tune playing in her head. She somehow made her wild, bushy hair vanish under that beret, not even going to ask.
Rainbow dash, next to me, wore digital camo BDUs complete with the modern combats that zipped up along the side. she wore knee pads and elbow pads, she just needed a vest and she was set. I don’t think I ever saw her hair any longer passed chopped but loose strands of multi colored hair stuck out around the sides of the matching camo hat. She texted away to someone(maybe the girls back at the house) on her phone between talking with us.
I, on the other hand, wore my trademark hundred-first airborne uniform, complete with the patches and the canvas gaiters. Trademarked on the field being that I made an impression fighting like they did back in the day. My hair was recently shaved, so I didn’t have to pull back anything, just needed to readjust my helmet when we get there. I was driver, so I could only mess with the tunes from my phone and drive.

I have shown them during this whole week, videos of gameplay of the game we are about to play however, none would be prepared for the first-hand experience they are about to witness.

“Then uhm, well, didn’t Twilight turned off the router before sending you two to bed?” Fluttershy asked innocently
“AWWGH!” Me and Rainbow cringed at the mention of our game being ruined.
“Why did she have to do that?!”
“Well, it was only three in the morning by the time she did that.”
“and? she could’ve put earplugs in!”
“Nah, It was high time to turn it off that night.” I nodded while watching traffic roll by on around us. It was a sunny day in terms of the wet march we have been having. So, expect mud, loose soil and damp brush.

With me behind the wheel, I had our destination memorized from my solo trips to the Saturday games. Now, since I’ve made Friends with the Mane six, they have been interested in everything that can be done in the human world.

Wished I had gassed up the van, maybe AJ and Twilight would’ve liked to of come along for the ride. Then again, I remembered:

“I have been watching the strange happenings around the world, I’m going to have to stay here, besides, you kept me up late!” I recalled Twilight’s words this morning before she vanished into one of the guest rooms with a cup-correction the entire coffee pot.

“I would if I could J.E., however, I don’t think i’ll be into this air whatever ya’ll be headin’ to, I’ma just hang back and help out where I can.” i remembered Applejack admitting bluntly before going back to working around house, even though I insisted that she wait till we got back.

I didn’t mind them turning down the offer to join us, but at least I’ll be able to spend time hanging out with the rest of the girls while these brave Equestrian’s follow me into the field of battle.

“oh and one more thing,” I shook a finger at Rainbow, “One is better than four, am I right?”
“ehhh, I guess so, just can’t stand the scopes though.” I briefly threw my hands up.
“Seriously, that has been a common complaint about the new battlefield I think.”
“So, what exactly is going to happen when we get there?” Rarity interrupted, changing the subject.
“Oh, You girls are going to come with me to talk to big ‘B’ to get signed up and you all have to fill out some paperwork then I’ll take care of the rest.” I explained glancing around, checking my mirrors and at the girls in the back.
“What kind of paperwork?” Fluttershy questioned as she glanced up from the book she brought with her, tilting her head, the goggles were fitted on her head, sitting on her forehead.
“A waiver, declaring that whatever happens to you, he or the park is not to blame.”
“Oh whatever, I’m going to send those punks home crying to their mamas when I’m done out there.” Rainbow dash punched her palm, the half fingered gloves made a muffled clap.
“Oh I don’t think it’ll be that easy, some of those guys are good at the game too.”
“Oh really?” she folded her arms looking at me doubtfully.
“Yeah, I mean, sure, there are kids out there, but there are adults that play too. I mean, I know for a fact that at least four or so of the regulars are former servicemen.”
“Former?” Rarity chimed in as she clasped her mini-mirror shut.
“Yeah, as in ex-military.”
“wait, Ex-military?” Rainbow blinked in brief disbelief.
“yeah, one of each branch one army, one navy, one Airforce and one Marine I think.” I recalled trying to remember, the memories of those guys were kinda fuzzy as all I could remember was the hail of BBs that would fly my way during a match or the constant getting jumped by them during base rushes. my luck had always pitted me against them, never ended well…

“Sounds like it’ll be scary playing against them.” Fluttershy noted worriedly.

“More like pure awesomeness!” Rainbow, despite how i mentioned infantry branches in there, she still got a little giddy as if she was about to meet a celebrity in person.

“I’ve always wanted to see your country's soldiers fight!”

“Right and get your ass handed back to you on a hot plate.”

“Oh come on, they shouldn’t be that bad right?” she nudged my arm with an elbow.

“I Don’t, I’ve always played against them and they some how function together as a four man wrecking ball.”

“Well, Tough luck son.” Rainbow tucked her hands behind her head as she tipped her hat over her eyes, “You just suck I guess.” she nonchalantly stated with a grin.

This girl has no clue what she is talking about honestly, playing against ex-military that may have been out of the service for some years but they play to keep themselves in healthy shape, also because it is just a hobby for them. Even aside from them, the others in their team they run with, they’ve been trained by those guys. Buut, i’ll let her figure that out the hard way.

“Sounds to me that you have experience playing this game, how long have you been playing?” Rarity asked adjusting her beret for a final time.
“Are we there yet?” Pinkie Piped up out of nowhere.
“Uh, just a few more minutes, the exit sign should be showing up shortly.” I replied quickly, “As for you Rarity, I have been playing for a few years, but some of those teams have been playing maybe as far back as the sport was introduced to the states.”

“I see, So, at least we won’t be horribly mangled out there.”

“Preciate the confidence Rare....” Rainbow mumbled out from under her hat.

“Hey, at least she and I are being realistic, you are all about ramboin’ that shit.”

“And is there no other way?” she smiled at tipping her hat up with a thumb. Why do I feel like she is going to go Leeroy on us today.

“See, there it is ladies!” I pointed to the Gold hill road sign as we drove passed it, “Next up, the golf course!”

“oh! are we going to be playing golf out here too?!”

“Oh Yes pinkie, we’ll just use the guns I brought as golf clubs, maybe shoot a few holes during lunch” There was a stifled snicker from Rainbow while I caught Rarity cover a smile with the tips of her fingers like a proper lady before glancing out the window.

“Well, Mister sarcasm, I was just asking,” Pinkie folded her arms staring at me with a playful glare, “Never know when we’ll be able to come out here again!” she stuck her tongue out at me.

The off ramp came up on our right. popped the blinker and pulled off the freeway. Keeping the right turn signal on, I pulled up to the stop sign before turning onto the main road, heading towards the golf course.

“Like I said, we’ll be able to play as long you all have done the proper paperwork, Big ‘B’ doesn’t really care for it, but the golf course managers would still insist because of legalities.”

“ugh, then let's get in there and get that shit done and over with then!” Rainbow groaned impatiently.

Quick to get whipped today eh Rainbow Dash?

Author's Note

I don't think the awkwardness of being a guy leading a team of girls has set in yet...

Big B

I
J.E. Clockwork

When I made the turn into the driveway, the golf course lodge stood just beyond a gravel parking lot, several cars were parked here, but their owners were scattered shooting golf balls around the massive eight hole golf course.

“Is that the main lodge?” Rarity asked looking at the antique looking building.
“Yup, it is.” I glanced at the passing building.
“How quaint, I very much like how it looks like a cabin, very rustic.”
“There is a cafe’ and store inside, pretty much where we are going to head during lunch.”

We passed through an open gate that was the start of a dirt road that contours along side the artificial grass field. Nature itself also grew around the fake grass, a stream sliced through the landscape, a neat bridge covered the gap on the golf course while we drove over a culvert that was covered by the dirt and gravel.

What did pass us on our right was a wall of blackberry with the groundskeeper’s house and shop just before the wall began. As we came to the wall’s end, a quick right turn and there was a large, flat, open patch of dirt that was a parking lot for the saturday games.

“Looks like some of these guys are already here.” Fluttershy noted the six other vehicles present with wide teal eyes.
“Oooo, this looks exciting!” Pinkie became suddenly animated after being still for most of the car ride.

“This is cool,” Rainbow sat up, taking her boots off the dash, “where’s the boss of this place?”

Funny how she mentioned that as I pulled left then back the car up between an old, beat up white and yellow pick up and a sleek, dark green, SUV. I came to a stop with plenty of space to set up. Behind us was a custom built trailer with an open air vendor shop with it’s steps folded down. Beside that was a smaller clearing with a beat-up looking table where two partially geared up teens stood zeroing in their guns.

“Here we are ladies,” I exclaimed turning the car off then pressed the trunk release, heard a muffled click as the trunk opened, “Everybody out.”

II
Rainbow Dash

When we got out of the car I was greeted with the cool scent of rain damp dirt and vegetation. I snapped my attention to the strange noise coming from the kids that stood at the bench. A quick electric whine with a plastic pop that came before a faint metal ping down the long clearing in front of them. The second kid, or teen or whatever, raised his weapon before pulling the trigger to his rifle. The similar sound emitted from it but instead of a single pop, a repeating cycle of the whine and popping sound.

“Those the-”

“AEGs?”

“-yeah, yeah the AEGs you mentioned?”

J.E. nodded, “yup, the bread and butter of airsoft.”

“Huh,” I closed the car door, “They sound different in person.”

“And louder!” gasped Rarity as she walked around me towards the nose of the car.

“This is going to be so much FUN!” Pinkie sprang out of the car as if she was a pony-in-the-box, darting up beside J.E. briefly clinging onto an arm.

“You said we had to do paper work, right?!” I rolled my eyes at her before meeting up with Rarity.

“That’s correct, Just need to talk to Big B over there.” He gestured to the guy that stood in the trailer who looked up from a clipboard. This guy had apparently long hair (pulled back no doubt), a scruffy beard and wore an eyepatch over his right eye. He nodded to our awesome host before stepping down from the trailer.

Pinkie let the human go before as he walked up to the taller man, J.E. gave him a salute, The man grinned before returning the salute before he shook his hand with his, the fuck? Is that hand made of metal?!

“Good to see you, sir.” Nodded J.E.

“Good to see you come back finally,” Big B nodded, he didn’t seem to smile much, “Who are your friends?” he looked at each of us with his only good, blue eye. When he looked at me, felt a chill shoot down my spine and if they were there my wings would shutter, it really was a look of a man who has seen some serious shit but yet had lived a humble life in the end; Is he, a vet too? If so then, AWESOME!!

“‘B’ these ladies are friends of mine from out of town.” He simply described us before quickly pointing up to each of us. Fluttershy had exited the car and was standing beside J.E.

“They intend to join the fight or stay on the sidelines?” the older man asked.

“Well, everyone of them aside of this one here.” He looked at Fluttershy and gestured to her with a faint smile. “Ma’am.”

“Uhm, uhm, H-hi m-mister…” she squeaked as she shifted slightly more behind J.E.; heh, she really is attached to him isn’t she? Eh, then again, I couldn’t help but recall the number of times she stood behind him like that, as if she looked up to him like a protector of sorts.

“So, you know I’m not much of a paperwork kind of guy, so, while I get the waivers, you get the cash out for all of you, the quicker the better.” he turned to head back into the trailer while I walked over to the two.

“You sure you’re not going to play shy?”

“Uhm, I don’t think so, this whole fighting thing sounds scary.” she meekly stated as she placed a hand on her opposite arm nervously averting her eyes from me.

“B-but I can still cheer you guys on, If that counts...” she looked up to me then at J.E. while He fished into his pants pocket to pull out his wallet.

“I’m so glad the sisters are financially backing your visits to my world.” He noted as he pulled out a small green, paper-like bill from the wallet. Human money looked funny in comparison to our bits, but I doubt anyone of these humans would take our bits for anything.

Kinda glad J.E. is a bit of an egg head in that department, then again, he and Twilight tend to lose me in their conversations that tend to change subjects rapidly.

I turned my attention back to BIg ‘B’, I got a better look at him from this angle.

He was tall man that that wore green fatigues like Fluttershy was, only more neatly, one sleeve was rolled up to the elbow as that metal hand was attached to a matching, metallic gray forearm. It seemed to work like as if it was just a costume piece as the metal fingers operated like a normal hand as the guy dug out a small packet of papers. His face looked like it went through a pile of glass, scars over the corner of the mouth, across the nose and one right over his good eye. Right above the patch was a very huge scar, from the way it neatly healed, it was surgical unlike the more jagged marks.

I glanced over to see the teens turn to walk back towards the other side of the parking lot. I could see their eyes stare at each of us. One of them had a big smile on his face as if he was in a candy store. I almost wanted to say something to the squirt, but refrained because I don’t want to make a bad impression to Big ‘B’ by kicking some brat’s teeth in for gawking at me like that.

Behind us I could hear Rarity making conversation with the other players, couldn’t really pick up any real words, but I just know that she was either complementing their clothing and gear or talking about herself and us (in that order too), all the while coating it all in a flirtatious layer of yuck.

Then I looked back to see a second person walking into the trailer, where did she come from?

She had short, brunette hair, she was young looking and for the most part, was more fuller than me In cup size holyshit! Even wearing casual clothing, one could tell very much so. She tapped on Big ‘B’s shoulder to get his attention for a moment, she raised her hands in a series of strange gestures to him.

B simply nodded and said something to her that I couldn’t really hear before she nodded in response before she turned to look at us. She noticed J.E. then waved at him, “Wow, hey Shizuka, Thought I recognized your car, is it new?”

She nodded with a kind smile before glancing at each of us again, then gestured at us with a questioning look.

“They are friends of mine, from out of town.”

Shizuka mouthed ahhh before showing him her hands with interlocked fingers, quickly darting her eyes between each of us again. Is she implying that one of us is with-

“Oh no, no, Just friends.” She nodded with another smile before walking out of the trail, B right behind her. She came up to give J.E. a hug before backing off to let the head admin hand him the papers attached to a clip board. Shizuka started to gesture to J.E. before he put a hand up to her politely.

“I’m sorry, Shi but I didn’t really practice my Sign language as you have asked me too.” her expression changed to a deadpan with arms folded before looking at B who looked at her before she repeated the pattern of gestures.

“She asked if you will be sticking together as a team today.”

“Oh yeah, I would like that if it’ll be possible.”

“Sure, at least there will be someone to lead the way,” B nodded as he fished a pen out of a breast pocket to hand to him.

“That’s Right, so that way we can ace the competition like a boss!” I chimed in boldly stepping up beside J.E.

Shizuka covered a smile but a giggle escaped her throat as Big B looked at me funny, “Like a-” he Looked at both J.E. then his friend, “-Now that is some bold words coming from some chick I haven’t even seen before today.”

“More bold than bold there buddy, I have what it takes to take anyp-anyone on!”

J.E. Simply shook his head as he turn to hand Fluttershy her copy of the waiver with the pen. As he walked over to the nose of the car, Shy sat back in the car to fill out the papers.

“Hey Rarity! Forgetting about something?” J.E. called out to her.

“Bold words don’t mean shit unless you got the skill to back’em up.”

“Oh duh,” I waved the old man’s words away, “Like, I’ve been taught by our buddy everything he knows about airsoft and I’M ready for action!”

III
J.E. Clockwork

“You enjoy yourselves darlings and may we all have a plesant game.” I hear Rarity as she waved to the other players as she walked back towards the car. She put a little extra sway in her hips as she walked back.

Why, Oh why do i feel this is going to be an interesting day?

“What a way to stir the competition, You know they will try to gun for you today right?”
“Psshh,” She rolled her eyes with a scoff, “Hungry Apes they are, all of them…” she took a blank waiver from me, “I seriously doubt they’ll want to shoot me at all today, don’t want to mess up my pretty face correct?” Fluttershy had finished her waiver and passed off the pen to Rarity, “of course I did notice the extensivity of their equipment, I think we will have an interesting fight on our hands, right?”

“Clockwork has the stuff to fight, but how am I supposed to know that you picked up a thing or two from him for today’s game?” I looked over as Big B had knuckles on his hips and towered over Rainbow Dash like General Patton staring down an Army recruit. The girl was either too headstrong or too stupid to still be staring right back at the old man unphased by the test he was pulling on her.

“Just wait and see, you’ll be taking notes from me before the day’s over mister, Just you see!”
Oh gods, why is she-no, just, just stop Rainbow, you’re only digging a deeper hole for not only yourself but for the rest of us too.

Big B looked at Shizuka pointing a prosthetic finger at rainbow, “Okay, i’m convinced, she sounds like tough shit but she looks like she’ll break easily.”
“Excuse me?!” she planted her hands on her hips, “Just so you know, I’m one of the best in my hometown and seen a fair share of scraps before coming here, so you think i’m going to break like that, you got another thing coming!” That was my cue to step up and place my hands on her shoulders.

“Okay Dash, that’s enough,” she wasn’t moving at first before I started to apply some force as I started to pull her away from the conversation, moving her till I was between her and the head Admin.
“We will win, just you see!”
“Down girl, go fill out your damn papers, I still have to pay for the admission.” I turned back to the admins as I walked up to them.

“Sorry about that, she’s, well a bit excited of being here today.”

“She’s got spunk, I can give her that,” admitted Big B, “Yet, it’ll mean shit when the high rollers show up today.” We both looked at Shizuka as she gestured a sentence to me.

“She says she is like a little Sparrow trying to screech like a hawk.” Big B translated,

“I heard that!!” I hear Rainbow squawking from the car, ignoring it for now...

“Well put Ironically enough, you have no idea how bad she wants to join the wonderb-i mean the Air Force.”

“Good on her, they are going to need more mouthy hardasses like her.” I noticed Shizuka look at something which I glanced over to see Fluttershy walking up beside me again, she blushed slightly and held onto my arm with both hands nervously. Shizuka smiled kindly to the shy girl who, for once, didn’t look away, with an assuring nod. Fluttershy’s smile became more visible as she glanced up to me. Fluttershy had a keen sense for body language since her specialty was animals, it kinda translated well into communicating with humans.

“Hey, where did Pinkie go?!” Rainbow glanced around before both her and Rarity jumped as the energetic humanized pony came running in from somewhere, up the hood of my car and bounced into a sitting position on the roof.
“Prrrresent!” Pinkie exclaimed with a salute before Rainbow begrudgingly handed her the last waiver that I handed off to her before hand.
“Ooo, A paper to autograph!” she pulled a pink pen out of her pocket before speed writing her information down, could almost say it sounded like a saw cutting wood.

“That, I’m not going to question” B pulled a cuban cigar out another breast pocket of his shirt before sticking it in his mouth, “She seems to have too much go juice-” he was about to light it with a zippo before Shizuka snatched it out of his mouth with a quick slight of hand.
She scowled at him before gently bopping him on the nose with it.

“Hey, you know I have been doing better on cutting back.”

Shizuka folded her arms with a cocked brow before lifting a hand, tapping her fingers with her thumb several times as if trying to count with one hand while glancing up to the sky thinking of numbers.

“Okay, okay, so I’ve slipped a little.” she stared back at him unconvinced,

“Okay, a lot, how about at least that one around after lunch and no more for the rest of the day.” She pointed an accusing finger close to his unflinching face before she slipped the cigar back into his shirt pocket, her brown eyes boring holes into him before turning to walk back to the admin booth.

“Still having issues with the smoking problem?” The old man shrugged in response before I handed him the payment for today’s game,

“Fifty to cover the admissions and keep the change for donations.”

“Preciated it, as always,” he simply tucked the fifty dollar bill into a pocket, “The waivers?”

“Girls, are you done with the waivers yet?”

“Alll done!” Pinkie slipped from the roof right over my trunk, which closed it shut, with the wad of papers attached to a clip board. Taking the clipboard I walked up to admin booth, or trailer, however you want to call it. Big B looked up and reached out to take the clipboard that I handed up to him.

He glanced down at the top page, then flipped a few pages to examine them before turn to tap his friend on the shoulder, who glanced up to take the board, she turned to walk out of the trailer when she froze in step, I noticed her brows rise as she thoroughly read the information that was jotted down on each waiver.

Shizuka gave me a confused glance to where I only shrugged in response to the look on her face. She looked back at the papers then, with a shrug, continued to exit the trail, she quickly turned to gesture with one hand back to ‘B’ before he gave her a thumbs up.
“Alright, show starts in ten, see in a bit.”
Shi gave him a thumbs up in response before jogging on out of the parking lot, probably headed to turn the paperwork in.

At the same time, another SUV was pulling in, I heard a catcall whistle coming from the car as it pulled up besides Shizuka’s car. I had the trunk reopened, tossed my pocket things into the driver's seat to lighten the load. I could hear Rainbow dash already working the compact table out of the trunk.

“Oh my, what do you have in here?” Rarity observed as she saw the rest of the trunk’s contents as Dash folded the table up. Inside the trunk were two boxes, several ammo cans and a rifle case; the boxes being one solid wooden gun crate and a modern plastic trunk that was the first to be pulled out and placed on the ground next to the table once it was fully set.
“Everything we are going to need for today’s game.” I replied as I unclipped the lid. When I lifted the lid, I started to pull out the new weapons I bought for my new teammates.

The Cybergun EVO Famas F1, customized with the foregrip and a reflex sight; Rarity picked out for it’s unique look. I explained to her, when i was building the shopping list, that it was a good choice because of the magazine placement as well the built-in bipod. The extras were from my suggestion.
Next was Rainbow Dash’s pick, A G&P M4 dubbed the “Viper”, a decent if not expensive pick for someone who kinda did their own homework (well if you mean play a lot of COD and Battlefield research then go for it); It was outfitted with the trimmings seen on it’s page, with my suggested modifications too.

I did have a few extra guns set aside for if I wanted to play a different style for a match or not but I did ask the rest of the girls what they wanted but only pinkie, aside from the curious two, had interest, Fluttershy, but she didn’t really know what to even think of hurting another living being, even after explaining to her that Air soft isn’t really hurting anyone, just stinging them with tiny plastic BBs. She still didn’t buy it...

So, aside from that, for now I went into the trunk to lift out the khaki tan rifle case, set it on the table, unzipped it and out came the ICS M1 garand that i’ll be plugging brats with today, for a few matches at least.

I dug back into the main box, “start gearing up ladies,”

“Once you get my vest out of the box.” Rainbow chirped while waiting “patiently”.

“Already, SIR!” I hear pinkie joyfully exclaim while I glanced up at her, she skipped in place while tapping the grips of the dual CYMA CM thirties.

Me and the other girls could only look at her slightly confused or annoyed.

“How did you-”

“Oh I had them already ready to go before we left this morning!”

“Buut, you do know that the batteries would-”

“Don’t worry, I put them in while you were busy getting the rest of the stuff out.” She twirled the antique Electric pistols before holstering them both before Skipping to the nose of the car to wait for the rest of us. When she skipped, I could tell underneath the face covering, she had a smile on her face, when wasn’t she smiling I thought.

Remember to smile…

Turning back to the box, I pulled out everything from the box before turning my attention to the ammo cans in the trunk. As I was setting at least two of the six cans on the table while Rainbow Dash was already zipping her vest up while Rarity fiddled with the FAMAs to get the battery in.

“You got that?”

She sighed harshly, “No, here.” I quickly corrected her mistake and had the battery hooked up and stored in the buttstock of the rifle before handing it to her.

Dash had her rifle already powered up and was loading magazines from the ammo cans of containers filled with BBs. She requested the mid caps because it sounded cool when i explained to her the playstyle they reflected, little did she realize what mid cap means, thus why I ordered double of what she asked for, so there is a pile of fourteen mid cap AR/M4 mags that she has to load with the speed loader, at least she’ll be able to carried it all as she was able to put to use the collection of double mag brackets to make it easier to reload mid fight.

I just had to sling on the shoulder straps and buckle a belt before loading the deep pocket/pouches on my shirt and the pouches on my belt down with the unique mags for the M1, a speed loader, two containers of BBs, and the holster was filled with the Co2 Webley I decided to bring to today’s game.

Dash had finished loading her mags before doing a gun check at the shooting range, she kinda knew what was going on and where to go to at least get ready for the first match of the day. Could hear her firing her new rifle on semi-auto to make her adjustments to the red dot fixed on the rifle. All the guns present today I made all their hop-ups pre-adjusted to make sure they shot straight and balanced for most ranges of combat.

Rarity had clipped on the french vest, before loading the hi-caps into their pouches, I explained to her step-by-step in what she’ll need to at least survive the first match of the day.

Fluttershy watched on in wonder as the three of us had put gear on, loaded up and did a final weapons check.

As both me and Rarity had stepped up to the table, Rainbow had tested the configuration of the double mag brackets, trying to either decide on having one reversed or have both mags pointing in the same direction. Meanwhile I could hear the noise of the AEG plinking away at the metal targets down range.

“I must say darling, just shooting this now just makes this all the more exciting to play!” remarked the posh humanized unicorn as she flipped the fire select from semi-auto to tri-burst. When she tried it out she was caught by surprised by how the gun functioned. The motor, gearbox and air piston punched out three bbs in what sounded like three rapid pops.

“Just wait till we get out there,” I smiled at her as she let lose a couple more bursts, “but remember, before you step away from the-”

“What was that?” She stopped shooting as the gun was louder than my voice.

“I said, before you step away from the table, take the mag out and put the safety on.”

“Oh, of course!” she did just that actually before walked back over to the table, having already memorized how to load, she topped off her mag before taking her place at the nose of the car as well.

I clicked the first mag into the M1 before clicking the safety forward, raised up, then fired. Unlike my real steel counterpart, this AEG didn’t kick at all, just a whine-pop as the shot pinged against the distant metal target, a couple more found the metal targets.

“Step aside hot stuff,” I hear the cocky, humanized pegasus elbow her way to the table, which was kinda amusing for I was the only guy standing there at the moment. She clicked the first mag into the gun before flipping the safety off. She let off a controlled burst as BBs tattered off the metal targets.

I watched as she dumped the first mag doing this before quickly drop-swapping the attached spare magazine. She must of decided to go with the double magazines pointing the same direction. Wouldn’t blame her either, the other method would of ran the chance of the mag falling out of her hand while trying to flip the doubled mags around.

I watched her empty the second magazine before walking back to the table to reload. I shook my head at how fast she went through them, i think the motor upgrade was a bad idea in terms of playing with mid-caps.

I emptied the magazine from my rifle before slinging the M1 over my shoulder. I used my speed loader to top off the mag as I walked by the table towards the nose of the car.

“Remember to shut the boxes before joining us.”

“Got it,” Rainbow replied simply.

“Alright!” I hear Big B’s voice ring up from the admin booth, “If anyone who has yet to sign in, do so now, we are about to get this thing started!” as I met up with the girls, I watched as six players walked or jogged by us to do just that.

Some of them I noticed were looking or staring at my charges. Sure, each of these ladies are attractive, but I still have to keep an eye out for them for my world is not really a happy-go-lucky place in comparison to Equestria. Yet, watching teens and young men ogle at them was harmless in all aspects, but I knew what they were thinking and for some reason I couldn’t help but look right at them, which caused them to either avert their eyes or simply look away.

In a matter of a few minutes, we all hear his voice again, “Alright, Form up in the middle of the parking lot, we’re going to form the first teams!” he called out.

“Right this way ladies,” I turned to walk just a meager ten feet from the car before stopping. There was a small group that was growing with other players, but it’ll still be another few more minutes before anything can get going.

“Final check, anyone that has not signed in, do so now!” by now the admin had been walking towards the forming group with the sign-in sheet attached to a clipboard tucked under an arm.

“You’re gunna try to stick togeather today right?” he tapped that same clipboard against my arm to get my attention as he asked.

“Yes, sir, these girls are new to this, so try to keep us togeather.”

“Like before, It may not be like that for the opening skirmish, but I’ll see what I can do.”

As he made his way into the middle of the crowd, he took a final look around before calling out to the stragglers one last time

“FORM UP!”

Warm up Skirmish

Rainbow Dash

About damn time! When I heard the old man’s voice ring out across the parking lot, I slapped my last mag in then closed up the boxes like J told me to, mister bossy…

I hurried up beside him as all four of us stepped out into the middle of the parking lot, I watched in wonder as the other players started to appear out of the lineup of cars on both sides of us. By the time that Big B had started to walk towards what looked like the entrance of where the parking lot ends and some meadow like field starts; there was about sixteen or so geared up, armed players waiting for something (and that's including us three).

I glanced off to our left to notice the cool mute chick, shizuka, was jogging back into the parking lot.

“Good timing, I need to get this game going, take over signing these youngsters in.” she slowed her pace, giving him a smiling thumbs up before stepping onto the trailer. While the old man headed for our “formation”.

Once inside the group, he stood with his back to the meadow, facing us. “Alright, settle down and listen up, we are starting a little late, so I’m only going to say this once!”

The chatter from the humans started to die down to about maybe talking between two guys.

“Okay, now,” Big B began, “Since it looks like we got a few fresh faces I’ll quickly go over the rules of the field.” He glanced towards us mostly, I rolled my eyes back at him since I knew what he was referring to by calling us new.

“First off, Welcome to Gold hill Airsoft, I run a clean, fun field, so these rules should be easy to follow. First off, what is the number one rule about parking lot safety?” he asked to the group.

“Mags out.” a few of the players muttered out.

“That’s right, magazines must be out of your guns at all times when in the parking lot.”

“Huh?” I looked down at my rifle and quickly removed the magazine, trying not to look at anypony directly feeling my cheeks flush with faint heat. I felt a little better as I looked over to see Rarity doing the same. J.E. On the other hoof, didn’t seem to be taking his “magazine” out of his gun as it looked like there was no need for it i guess. Fucking egghead…

“Next up, when you are on the field, you must have your eye protection on at all times, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. If your goggles fog up, find cover, tuck yourself into a corner or do something to keep your eyes from getting shot out, eye balls are very soft and a BB can go right through them.” as he explained he kept looking at all of us as if scanning each of us for our wroth on the battlefield.
“Any player under the ages of eighteen are required to wear a face mask as well, other than that, you are brave to not wear one.”
“Just don’t smile!” one player remarked, a few players chuckled in response.
“What? We can’t?” Pinkie Pie whimpered.

“Exactly, don’t smile, don’t want your pearly whites knocked out.” Big B nodded.
“Ah, good point, but I didn’t know teeth were made out of pearls…” the players nearest to us looked at her confused.

“Next is the safety kill, if you are fighting with a weapon hitting hotter than three-eieghty or you are using a sniper rifle, you got a ten foot safety kill range.” The admin explained, “any weapon shooting less than what I already mentioned are considered CQB.”

“CQB?” Rarity looked at J.E.
“Close quarters battle,” He replied.
“My kind of fun!” I noted proudly with a smile.

“However, if you are close to someone and you don’t want to light them up like a christmas tree, then you can call SAFETY KILL which your victim must honor as much as a getting hit.” I noticed some of the other players starting to trickle into the group from the admin trailer.

“If they do not for some stupid reason, feel free to give it to them.”
“Ouch, even if you have a sniper rifle?” I asked aloud.
“Within reason!” Big B quickly added.
“Oh, cool.” I shrugged.

“Speaking of which, when you get shot, call your hits as loud as you can. You show your hands and raise your gun but most of all, show your dead rag. Everyone here got a dead rag?”

A few players, including J.E. Pulled out either a red rag or peice of red ribbon, only me, Rarity and four other new players didn’t show either. Talk about not really being prepared.
“I thought you said we had everything.” I gently elbowed J.E.
“Okay, I forgotten about those, thankfully I got rags for both of you to use.” He shrugged casually.

“Those of you who do not have one, I’ll be giving you a strip of this red marking ribbon to act as a dead rag.” He glanced over to the trailer, “Is that everyone?” Shizuka shook her head in response while a couple more players filed up to the booth.
“Okay.”

“Now, It seems some of you have grenades, ruling behind that is, everything with in ten feet around that grenade will be killed when it goes off.” his voice was loud and carried over the growing crowd of other players joining the game. I lost count after fifteen.
“Whoa, Grenades?”
“Just these…” J.E. Pulled out what looked like a toy pineapple Grenade shell with a metal core screwed into it. It was already armed with the pin set through the spoon. The difference with this core instead of the real steel variant; was there was a visible, spring loaded, metal hammer that the spoon held down when armed.

“That’s awesome,” I wish I had one, maybe J.E. Can loan me one when we get out there.

“Now, it’s still early and more players are still pouring in, we’ll start with something simple.” Big B turned to point into the meadow in the distance, there was a couple of structures in the distance, one looked partially mashed while there was a larger, house like, building in the middle of this meadow.

“Base one to Two, get a man inside the other team's base to capture it in order to win.” he looked back at all of us, “Now I need two team captains, anyone want to step up?” He looked at all of us. I gave J.E. A glance who only shook his head while one decently geared up player step forth.

“Theres one, we need one more.”

“Get up there!” I gave him a gently elbow to make him stumble forward.
“J.E. About time you stepped up.”
“Wait I- okay, fine…” He walked up over beside Big B. I chuckled at how, even though he had his eye protection on, I could tell his eyes were burning holes into me for that cheap trick. I just simply smiled back at him.

“Good, Now both of you, rock, paper, scissors over who gets green today.”

I watched the two “captains” step around infront of the admin before leveling a fist to each other. They both shook their fists three times before gesturing their hands into one of the three familiar symbols of the foals game.

J.E. Got rock while the other player got paper.

“Gatcha,”
“Balls…”

“Alright, J.E. Your green team today.” Big B pulled out a roll of green marking ribbon and handed it to him, while the Admin pulled out a red roll of ribbon.

“Alright, captains, pick your players then we’ll begin, make it quick.”

J.E. Right away pointed to me, pinkie and Rarity so we walked up beside him, he handed me the roll of green ribbon. “Tear off a piece then tie it to your gear, pass it around as we get more people up here and make sure the green is visible from both front and back.” He then went back to waiting for the other captain to pick another player, five players were moved over to the other team, they must of wanted to stay in a group.

“Got it.” I tore a sizeable length before passing it to Rarity.
“Neon Green?” she examined the roll with a frown, “Not entirely a desirable tone to wear into battle…”
“At least you won't get shot by your own teammates,” I shrugged as she shook her head before tearing a small length from the roll. She passed it on to another player the J.E. Picked for our side.

I had tied the ribbon onto a loop on a shoulder and the remaining length tailed down the back, I looked over to see Rarity had carefully tied her green tag into a sickly perfect bow on a shoulder as well.
As she passed the roll to Pinkie, “Oooh Goodie Goodie, I can so work with this!” she excitedly beamed as she took two strips and passed the roll on to someone who watched her in confused amazement as she tied both strips into knots into the shoulders of her vest with the ends hanging freely like decorative tassels.

It wasn’t long before the player pool was dwindled to nothing. The head count now was about twelve green tags and about thirteen non-colored. One extra on their side but that won’t make up the difference with me here!

“Everyone has a dead rag?” Big B asked raising the Red ribbon roll up.
“No, some of us don’t” I raised a hand to him. He walked over, ripping small lengths of red ribbon and passing them out to the players that didn’t have them on our team, us three included.

He walked over and repeated the process with the other team.

“Alright, is that everyone?” J.E. Stepped out to look at his team.
“Yeah, here.” a player stepp forth to hand him the green ribbon roll.

“Okay, everyone set? Captains, Rock, paper, scissors over who gets what base.” the captains stepped up then shook their fists to each other again.

This time, J.E. Got scissors while the colorless team captain got paper.

“Two,” He pretended to snip the other captains hand.

“OKay, Green has base two, Neutral has base one, load up and deploy!” Big B directed as both teams proceeded to milout into the field. We loaded magazines and entered a step behind our “Captain” J.E.

I looked over to see Fluttershy walking up to Big B,
“Uhm, is it safe for me to walk out there?”
“You playing?”
“N-not really…”
“Hm, well, go get yourself a orange vest and get eye pro on and you can admin with me.”
“R-right, I hope we dont get shot.”
“Oh, keep hoping kid, you’re going to need it.” He chuckled as he two started walking behind all of us.

J.E. Clockwork

I still wasn’t too thrilled in taking lead of one of the teams today, but I guess if I was going to try to leave a pleasant impression on the girls, might as well do it in style! We walked around the large middle building, Harvey it was nicknamed. It was a basic style house-like building made mostly out of plywood walls complete with working doors and windows. The only front two windows had tattered dense, black plastic tarping that made up of defensive drapes. Tattered because they were decorated in BB holes.

Walking past a few obstacles and some trees we headed towards base two, an older plywood bunker with a big ‘2’ spray painted on one side. I was first to gently kick the outer wall, as a way to “tap spawn” in, before turning around to watch the rest of my team walking up.

My eyes looked at all the nonchalant regulars with a few new faces among them, then they traced over to the three Equestrians walking up to me.

Rarity had the FAMAS dangling on the her one point adjusting her goggles while giving her fancy beret a quick adjustment before gripping her gun again, like the other two, well, Rainbow at least; was winding the Hi-cap as I have shown them.

Rainbow Dash rolled her neck as she checked her dual connected Hi-caps then slapped one of them back in before absently tapping the side of the M4 as if she was manipulating the bolt release for real. She looked like she was getting progressively amped up with the onset of the fight.

Pinkie Pie was being way too cheerful for the first Skirmish, skipping across the leaf littered game field, she was still dual wielding the CYMAs. She must’ve been as crazy as she was joyful all the time. Then again, she is a very strange mare, or girl in my world.

“Someone’s happy to be here.” Commented one of my other teammates putting my thoughts to voice.

“I’m sooo happy to be here!” Pinkie Replied with a giggle, “This is going to be a blast!”

“Whatever Harley.” Chuckled another.

“Oh you know it Pudin’” she gestured to that player with a wink which caused a few players to laugh at the reference.

“And we get shit for being nerds…” Rainbow gently elbowed me with a nod to her.

“Right?” I cleared my throat, “Alright kids, keep an eye to our far right, they might try to get into our base from the right.” I pointed to trails the weaved through the blackberry vine infected brush that pretty much made up the “barriers” of the entire field.

“Right, what about Harvey?” asked one of the regulars. I shrugged, there was no rules over the building for this game so-

“If we can get some guys in there, we’ll mob right over them going out the front door, keep in mind they might try the same.”

“Right, so who’s going right?” the same regular looked to among us.

“I’ll go!” Rainbow raised a hand before walking over to them.

“Three more and that should be good.” I watched three more step up.

“Okay, you guys go right and the rest of us will try to hold them down to try to keep them off those trails.”

“Oooh, Tactical planning, this is getting good!” Pinkie clapped her gun filled hands together, so instead of hands she was clanging guns together.
“Uh, she okay?” Another regular pointed a thumb to her looking at me.
“Too much sugar this morning.” I simply explained while doing a reminder check of where everything was on my rig.

“Oh come on J.E.,” she planted her hands to her hips leaning towards me, “I was feeling for something cold today, so those two slices of ice cream cake was out-frosting delicious!”

The maskless player gawked as he looked at Pinkie in puzzlement before looking away slowly, “Riiight.”

“OKAY, REMEMBER-” All chatter ceased and heads turned towards to see Big B standing in the middle of the field, I could see the suddenly nervus Fluttershy standing next to him.
“-GET A MAN INSIDE THE BASE TO WIN, UNLIMITED RESPAWNS.”

He held up the horn, “THREE”

“Ready up, this is it!” I placed a heel against Two, Rarity stood beside me with a hand up against the wall while pinkie had her back up against it on my left. Most of the team were doing similar poses, ready to launch into the fight.

He gripped the plunger with his metal hand, “TWO”

I took a deep breath shouldering my rifle.

”ONE, GAME ON!”
He pressed the plunger in, the horn let off the familiar blaring blast

Rarity

I couldn’t help but notice Fluttershy quickly jump to the side onto one foot obviously frightened by the Horn.

Taking this fantastic gun and bringing up to my shoulder, I simply followed J.E. As he ran straight for the building in front of us as well several other players running forwards as well. I could hear the sound of some of those guns whining away as BBs flew towards distant targets.

Those three shooting with two others behind them branched a little towards the large trees next to the building while we came up to the wall of what must of been a enclosed back porch of the building. I saw the door swing open with one of the other team peaking through.

Startled with a gasp, I raised up my weapon to my shoulder and tried to fire. The trigger couldn’t nor wouldn’t move. “What in the-?” I stopped moving to look at my weapon.

“RARITY!” I hear J.E. While I looked back up to see the gun of the other player point towards me.
I closed my eyes, instinctively trying to cast a shield spell but I remembered late that I was human, no magic in this bland world. I braced to get hit when I could only hear three shots pop off before J.E. And another player unload single shots at the enemy before he dove back, slamming the door shut in front of him.

“Hey, over here.” He had his back up against the outer wall, I walked over to him.

“HIT!” I heard off behind us, I glanced over to see one of our team players walking back with his weapon raised with a red ribbon in one of his hands.

“What happen, did it break already?”

“I don’t think soo, uhh, I did exactly what you said, battery is in, magazine is in-” I jumped when I heard shots slam into the walls around the corner, their impacts echoing in the building.
“-it should shoot.” He looked at the FAMAS then up to me before facepalming.

“Did you check the safety?” He asked flatly, not looking up. I glanced over beside us as two greens started to huddle around the door cautiously. Looking back to my weapon I flipped it around, “Oh, I don’t think I-” I found the little flip on the side of the rifle before clicking it towards the ‘F’ printed on the plastic. Upon doing so the gun came to life in my hands.
Jumping slightly, I watched as BBs bounced into the ground beside me, “-checked for that…”
“Noticed, Now, looks like their busy, we’ll have to go around and face them head on.” J.E. Pointed past me towards the empty space that also meant going around that corner of death.

“I don’t think so,” I looked back to J.E. While he shrugged shaking his head at me.
“I think so, we gotta push up, and in this case, push against them, just-” He shouldered his long rifle, “-Follow me and watch.” he walked around me then leaned against the corner peeking around the corner.

Looking to my right again, I watched one player walking up with weapon raised up a trail that snaked past this structure. He barely got by were the wall ends there before ducking incoming fire before a white dot bounce off his gear. Pinkie, who was behind him dropped onto her stomach, her arms out in front with those pistols aimed towards where he was shot from.

“HIT!” He threw a hand up before standing back up to walk back to our base. I heard another weapon next to me, looking back to see J.E had cleared the corner, stood out in the open with his rifle leveled at the enemy. The noise it made was slightly deeper compared to the other guns.

“HIT!” I heard in the distance after he fired four shots, he then ducked low before maneuvering towards the oak that stood the closest to the building.

I slid to the corner to look to him, he was looking back, he was beckoning me to run to him. I suddenly felt unsafe in this, without my magic I’m afraid to run towards him. I’ve seen others getting shot, so It must not be that bad. Guess this is how soldiers do it! With a nod, I glanced around the corner one time.

At a glance I saw there were a few of the ribbonless players peaking and shooting from behind cover near and around that base one.

As they say, I broke cover to move towards J.E. I was halfway across when I watched him look towards his right before he quickly raised his weapon, “OH shit, look out!”

“For what?” I heard the sound of another weapon whinny close by before I felt something snap across my rump. It stung very badly as a very unladylike yelp escaped my mouth.

Remembering how they do it I raised my hands letting my rifle hang from it’s sling.

“Hit, I’m HIT!” I stood for a moment before reaching down with a hand to pull a red ribbon out from my vest. I then stood to watch J.E. Dispatch my “killer” as a shot thacked off the plastic of his helmet. The ruffian was peaking his weapon through the barricaded opening that must of been a doorway.

“HIT!” he yelled out in surprise.

“Head back to spawn Rare.” J.E. Pointed back to our base two.

“Right, I’ll try to get back here soon.”

“Alright, hurry up, I think we can get this.”

I started my quick jog back towards Base two.

Pinkie Pie

I was not happy that my teammate got hit, he looked like he knew his stuff before having to walk back to base one. No matter, I’ll just surprise them when they try to come this way. Crawling on my belly across the ground I glanced over to see Rarity walking back too. One hand holding the red ribbon of death up high with another rubbing her butt. I had a feeling somepony was going to shoot one of us in the butt sooner or later. I mean, who wouldn’t want to shoot attractive mares like us in the butt at least once?

I heard somepony up ahead. I stopped intime to see two of their team walking up the trail in front of me. YEAH, my turn to hit someone with a plastic pellet!

I waited for them to get closer before squeezing the triggers. The AEG pistols snapped off a shot each while.

Fooey, one missed as that player hunched low while another shot bounced off his arm.

“HIT!” he called out raising his hand before standing to walk back to his base.

“HA, HA!” I laughed before having to roll to my right as BBs rained overhead, the other player must not of been happy his friend was hit.

“Missed me!” I stood on a knee, shooting both pistols at the player. I hear the player call his hit as he stood up too. Keeping both pistols up until I stood before skipping again down the trail.

“Over there, side trail near Harvey!” I hear coming from one of the players behind a tree close to their base while seeing enemy players peak out from the side walled clearing of Harvey.

“Oh no!” I ducked down a cluster of angry BBs flew very close to me, I sent some of my own angry BBS with no hits before feeling bbs bouncing off my chest. It really didn’t hurt at all but I was hit nonetheless.

“Oh Fooey, I’m hit!” I stood up with both guns raised, the BB swarm stopped the instant I stood up with guns raised up high.

My turn to walk back.

J.E. Clockwork

I was not at all surprised that one of my girls got shot in the ass, in fact, I seriously doubt she was going to be the only one. Gotta give some of these guys credit, they didn’t wait. It wasn’t long before I saw Rarity come sprinting back. She placed herself again up against the single fence wall just inches off the corner of Harvey.

I still held my spot behind the oak, trying to figure out where to run towards next. I peeked around to observe. There was no real way for me to move forward, six or so of the neutrals were staying close to base one. Could map out the number of masks peaking around the barriers around it.

A shooter leaned around one of the smaller trees spraying BBs my way. I leaned back behind cover as I watch tiny white blurs sail by. I leaned back out, fired off a few shots then leaned back in as BBs bounced violently off the bark.

It was starting to stalemate when I heard commotion from with in the harvey base.

“Go, Go, door is wide open,”
“Got it, checking inside.” I leaned out to pop a few more shots while I could see movement in the base’s makeshift window that Rarity was shot from.

“SAFETY KILL!” a voice called out, then a few semi-auto shots later, “HIT!”
“One is still inside!” I called out, “Sweep in and clean him out!”
The remaining players nodded before they turned their attention back to attempting to clear the base. I stepped around again, as I raised to let lose more rounds I felt the painful impacts of BBs across my stomach, chest and some bbs bounced off my gear.

“Hit, hit, hit!” I raised my gun and yanked out the faded red rag out of pouch before walking back to base two.

“J.E.!” I hear Rarity call out to me as if I was actually shot in this firefight,
“I know, they got me, be back shortly.”
“What should I do?!” She heard shots slam into the wall around the corner and almost yelped in surprise.
“Dead man don’t talk, you’ll figure it out.” I smiled at her before walking the rest of the way back.

Rainbow Dash

As I could hear the bulk of the fighting go on near and around that base they call harvey or hervy or whatever. I decided to hang right of our spawn to take those side trails I’ve seen some of the other players take at the start. If hitting them head on wasn’t working for either side, then from the side will do the trick.

I hope.

“Watch it!” I hear next to me as I watch one of the neutral team peak out from around the brush up the trail in front of us. I hunched low quick letting off a controlled burst as he sprayed at us.

“HIT!” Called out my teammate, “Fuck…”
“HIT!” called out the enemy player as well, he stood out from the brush with his gun raised, fumbling with his hoodie for his dead rag.

“Nice,” Said my teammate before starting to walk back holding his dead rag on his head.
“Thanks,” I nodded before advancing. I remembered what J.E. Showed me during his crash course on this game; Staying low with weapon against shoulder, I crept up closer towards what must of been the enemy base. Not sure, should’ve waited for someone who knows this field better than me.

The other two players fanned out onto other trails behind me.

Oh well, moving on anyway-I hear a distant motor as BBs tore through the brush near me. I dropped to my knees ducking the incoming fire.

“Buck…” I looked around the brush, some punk was standing out in the open next to a huge tree that stood right next to the base. What luck, I raised up and fired back.

“Ow, HIT!” He flinched before shooting a hand to the sky.

“Gotcha bitch.” I mutter quietly before bursting a few times at the base. I was mainly copying what the other players were doing guess the sound was enough to keep them down. Sure enough, I looked on as I saw glimpses of the enemy ducking and hiding out of sight of not only incoming fire from me, but from someone else too.

I cleared the brush and advanced again, this time I was keeping a steady stream of bbs flying at the base, one unlucky kid poked out to only get thwaped by someone else. He called his hit then walked away from the base headed onto a trail behind the base.

“Got the base covered, move up!” I hear J.E.’s voice rang up from behind.
“Got it, moving up!” I replied advancing with weapon raised, I glanced to my left and saw a few other teammates making their approach as well. Two of them checked the front windows of the Harvey base then stacked up next to the front door, getting ready to move in and clear it.

“Ah-ha, Hit!” that sounded like a Rarity wail from with in that base…

I drilled another burst into the plywood wall, a frightened yelp indicated that somepony was still inside.

Keeping my weapon trained on the building, I glanced to my right seeing nopony there. However, when I started to climb over the large, fallen log, I faintly heard some faint puffs then felt the sting of three bbs.

One into the side, one into the arm then one got my back.

“OW! Hit!” I called out yanking my dead rag from my vest. I looked over to see three neutral players moving in. Where the fuck they come from?!

As I started to walk back, I watch one of them run then jump over the log before laying down semi-auto fire at my fellow team players. One by one they called their hits before starting to walk back to base two with dead rags held high.

This guy was geared like the rest but he had a strange gun, it looked like mine but had a hose sticking out of the bottom of the grip. Could explain the puffing sound it makes instead of an electric whine.

“Contact moving around Harvey!” He called out as freshly spawned players started to come back into base one. One of them hurried up to catch up with the counter push.

“Oh shit, hold them back, we got this!” J.E. Called out before he leaned out to lay a couple of shots at them before ducking back behind his cover to reload.

I walked back with a huff knowing that it was I who almost had it!

J.E. Clockwork

I just barely changed magazines when I felt the impact of a fucking shot from a High Roller. They didn’t take their time getting onto the field today, even their HPAs were working better than last week.

“HIT!” I pulled my dead rag and raised it up before walking back, i was among the five dead men to be walking back, well five guys and two girls as I saw Dash in front of me and Rarity walking back further ahead.

“Saw that, tough luck.” Rainbow Dash looked back at me, she didn’t wear a mask so her frown was very apparent.

“I so had that!” she whined, gesturing to base one behind us, “That fuckin’ sucked!”

“Yeah, it happens, lets just hurry back and double down on them before they sweep over us.”
“What kind of gun was that?” she asked as we walked base the mini house. We both could hear close quarters combat going on with point blank shots slamming into various surfaces, twice into other players.

“Safety kill!” boomed one of the High Rollers.

“Oh, that is an HPA.” I replied with a shrug, “a very nasty weapon system.”
“HPA?” she asked legitimately curious.
“High Pressure Air, Pretty much the airsoft version of a nail gun, just with BBs instead of Nails.”
“That shit hurts..”
“Oh, it does, just be lucky you don’t get that point blank.”

“Surpriiiise!” I hear Pinkie’s voice from within that base before the electric pistols went off in semi-auto fire.
“Holy s-HIT!” A neutral player was very surprised.
“HIT, HIT!” That’s a shock, that was a High Roller.
“Ow, ow, Hit!” called another player.

“Boy I love surprises!” giggled the party mare/girl

“Of all the-” Rainbow grumbled with a facepalm.
“Not surprised at all.” I admitted with a nod, “Leave it up to her to take them on in her style.”

We continued on towards our base, I saw four of our teammates running back towards the contested house with Rarity waiting for us at two.

When we both touched the wall,
“Oh, J.E. This is so wonderful,” exclaimed the excited fashionesta after probably finally shaking off the fear of getting shot at; “I had no idea this was this much fun, a little much on the physical aspect and I wish I can hit something!”

“Well, slow your roll Rarity, the day just started and we still got plenty of time to shoot something.”

“You are so very right darling, but let’s try to stick together?” I glanced to Rainbow who rolled her eyes at the idea but nodded in agreement.

“Of course, no guarantees we’ll be able to stick together for long with all that fighting going on.” I unslung my M1 then started moving back towards Harvey.

“Both of you, keep up-” I heard a few BBs slam into the base as I snapped a look towards Neutral pushing very hard through and around Harvey. Walking towards us was Pinkie among three other teammates.

“Never mind, COVER!” we scrambled out of the incoming hail of automatic fire.

I darted towards the nearest tree with Rarity behind me While Rainbow sprinted for an obstacle close by.

I pressed my back against the tree before peeking out to return fire. I knew this was going to happen with High Rollers on the field! I tagged two players before needed to lean back into cover.

Rarity maybe a preppy girl but she wasn’t shy of shooting as she unleashed a hail towards a two man advance from the side trail near Harvey. One was hit while the other ducked down to shoot back. With an audible eep, she jumped back behind cover and bumped into me.

She absently braced a hand against my arm before we glanced at each other for a moment before I turned to shoot once more at the enemy that were fastly closing in. I’m too focused on fighting to be paying attention to whatever that moment was.

“Watch our side trail, they will try to sweep us!” I called out trying to organize what was left of our dwindling numbers.

Any dead player on our team that needed to respawned simply walked to the backside of the base before touching the wall, putting their rags away then rejoining the fight. Even though it was progressively becoming bleak for us.

Soon enough my team was huddled in and around the base, trying to hold onto what cover we could use while trying to break the push. I’ve helped send neutrals walking back but there was just to much intense fire pour down on us.

“Damn it! They’ve turned up the heat…”

“Ya think?!” I hear Rainbow shout before she stood to shoot but a BB ricocheted off her helmet. She called her hit before quickly walking around the base to spawn back in.

I didn’t need to move as I could see them moving around us. I watched four of my team advance along our sidetrail and meet them in a flurry of automatic fighting. I fired upon players trying to move from cover to cover, inching closer towards us; Two hits with-
I felt three hits on me with one bouncing off my helmet.

“HIT!” I raised a hand before simply stepping inside the base to bang on the wall once before stepping back out towards the tree. Misses whipped right by me as bb fire was rattling along the walls and around us.
Rarity stepped out to fire back before she recoiled getting hit for probably the third time this game.
“HIT!” she did the similar thing and walked back to the base, however, instead of walking back out she leaned against an inside wall.
“This is not going well…”
“No shit!” I shot at another Neutral but he dove for cover while a hail of return fire pattered at the tree and sailed by around me. Then another hit bounced off my helmet.

“Ffffff-HIT!” I walked around to the backside of two before tapping back in. As I was about to turn the corner, I saw a blur of a player run up beside the tree.

“Safety kill!” He called out, it was a neutral player, damn they move fast. I raised my hands up to confirm his kill.

Rarity peeked around to see him to only-
“Safety kill!” he called as he walked passed us to call safety on the other two inside the base.

Soon I heard the thud of someone running up to the base. Two more voices called out safety kill.

“CLEAR!!” He called out, outside Neutrals echoed the confirmation.

“GAME OVER!” Big B’s voice rang out, “Everyone head back to the parking lot, let’s get a real game going!”

Game 1, Round 1

Rainbow Dash

“That sucked!” I complained as we gathered around our table, I didn’t need to do much but to refill two of my mid caps which didn’t take long with a speed loader that J.E. had set up earlier when we got here.

“Don’t worry, the first game is either a lazy shootout or a nasty-but-quick warm up,” J.E. nodded as he placed the Triple ‘A’s inside what looked like a fat M4 Magazine with a large compartment door and nozzle on it’s top.

After he closed the cover to the batteries, he opened the door to load BBs into it. Once the compartment was full, he closed it then took one of his tiny mags to his rifle, connected the feed onto the nozzle and pressed down gently. The electric motor inside the speed loader wined to life as a steady stream of BBs were fed into the magazine. Once it was full the little loader stopped, he loaded the full magazine into his rig then proceeded to load the next empty mag he pulled out of his dump pouch.

I wished I had waited to load, oh well, later then now i guess...

Rarity took the chance to refill the high cap from one of the fifteen small bottles of BBs, She seemed to of not shot all the much. Probably because she was getting scared of being shot at, not so tough now without the magic are ya?

Pinkie Pie was gleefully topping her magazines off with a speed loader, “That was fun, what are we going to do next, What game are we going to play?”

“Not sure yet, there is a lot more players now so we are going to play something a little more in depth than simply clearing a base.” He finished filling the mags before putting the final full mag into his rifle.

When I placed my first full mag inside my dump pouch I looked up to see Flutter shy quietly walking up to us. J.E. looked over to her to, I can tell she was shaken by what she just watched.

“What did you think of that?” He asked as he slung his rifle.

“Uuuhhm,” She looked down, her eyes blinked with a glint of fear, “that, was, was very scary…” As she looked back up at J.E. I can see those puppy eyes of hers, “I-I’m glad I’m not playing.” J.E. chuckled with a smile.

“Poor thing, come here.” He took her into a comforting hug, “It’s all just a game, as long you keep that vest on, you’ll be fine.”

“B-but I could hear those bbs come really close.” she meeped, “I could’ve sworn they would of hit me, I-I mean if they hit me by accident.”

As he let her go, “Besides Shy, like J.E. said, it’s common sense to not shoot the Admins at all,” I joined in, “You’ll be safe, kind of, uhhh, kinda like a shield of sorts.”

“Oh sure, a shield that doesn’t work sometimes.” commented a player who was tinkering with his gear on a table next door to us. He looked like he has been here for at least a few minutes. Which probably was long enough to pay and sign in.

“It doesn’t what?” Flutter shy looked at him shocked.

“Ignore him.” I rolled my eyes.

“We all know to not to purposely shoot the admins.” J.E. gave the player a look to which the player simply replied with a shrug before returning to put his gear on.

Shizuka was busy as working through a growing line of new players, taking their money and signing their names down. She couldn’t talk but she was very vocal with gestures and finger snapping to get their attention. When a guy wasn’t getting what she was trying to convey or show, she would (as I seen once already) roll her eyes before quickly jotting down something on a mini whiteboard asking the question.

To which the player would awkwardly have an, “oooh.” moment before providing information or money or both.

“So, I really don’t have anything to worry about?”

“Unless you jump into the action head first then maybe you shouldn't sweat it.” Pinkie insisted cheerfully. Shy only looked more frightened.

“Uhm, I don’t think I'll be jumping into any action…” she murmured looking at J.E.

I looked over to the group that was already gathering around Big B. I think we’ll be starting the first game soon. I looked back at our little group before, hearing behind me.

“Okay, if you are loaded up, form up!” called out the admin to all the straggler players.

“Hey, let’s go,” I verbally nudged their attention back to the event, “I think the next game is starting.”

“Oh you’re right, you all ready?” He looked from Shy addressing each of us.

“Of course Darling.”

“I have been J.E, last game was bullshit and I want payback!” I declared before making my way to the group. Walking away, I looked back to see everypony else had finished loading up and following.

“Alright, listen up,” Big B began, everyone around us as we walked up went quiet to listen; well aside from the small group behind him talking to each other in a low tone while the admin spoke, “since we got our guns and legs warmed up we’ll turn up the heat with a capture and hold game.”

That stir a few excited murmurs from the now large group of players. I could visually count about maybe twenty or so players now.

“I need my team captain's up here to reorganize the teams, everyone else line up in front of us.”

J.E. and the other captain step forward to stand beside the admin while the rest of us line up in the middle of the parking lot to be picked. There was the murmur of idle conversation, I kept noticing a few glancing at me and the girls. I even caught one of these nerds staring at us as we walked up a little bit ago.

The longer they stare, the more I’ll remember them.

“Pick three at a time, go.”

The Neutral team Captain pointed to three players, a bunch of randoms, each looked like they were still in school. One wore a hoodie, a full mask and carried what J.E. calls a “store brand” brand gun, it looked like some M4 look-a-like by HK with orange markings decorating it; J.E. said that, sure, store brand guns work but only as something to hold you over till you can get your hooves on something better (like our more expensive guns).

Second and third kid looked a bit better off than their buddy, mesh goggles, mesh mask, some light green basic gear, helmets all while wearing full ACU camo clothing underneath it. One carried an obvious M16 and the other an AK model of sorts.

“J.E?” Big B glanced at him. There was really something about him that spun my head in confusion: what makes him so cool?

The metal arm and eye patch was one thing but there was really something about him that seemed familiar or maybe I was playing to many games and they copied a lot of characters off guys like him.

Yeah, probably that.

“You three.” Our wonderful guardian pointed at us. Naturally, it would be us, why would he let us be on the opposite team anyway? I mean, he really doesn’t want to snipe at us all day long...does he?

My mind was feeding off the warm up adrenalin rush as we walked (pinkie skipping) up beside our fearless “leader”. I looked up at him as he glanced at us with a smile and nod before looking at the rest of these noobs.

“You-” Neutral team leader picked a kid armed with a funky looking rifle, it was bulky, long, had a wooden butt stock and had wooden grips on the pistol grip. Wait, never mind, it was that fucking STG that J.E. CONSTANTLY kills me with on COD!

I cringed quietly as the player walked up to his side. I was even more confused when I saw the more familiar M3 grease gun slung across his back. WHY DO YOU NEED TWO PRIMARIES?!

“And you two,” the enemy team leader pointed to an obviously a father-son duo, they were packing M4s, one with a M203 under barrel launcher, great a BB shower barrel! The son had only a foregrip on his, it was kind of cute because the gun was almost as big as him.

“Next.”

“You,” J.E. points to a kid that looks like he skipped school to be here, wielding only a noisy, co2 powered, Walther PP with a loose metal slide. His paintball mask did not look the part either. Total noobage here.

“You,” a teen with what looked like another M4 with what looked like a small toy from one of those quarter machines dangling from it’s rail as well yarn weaved through the foregrip rail. This sport brings the creative out of all of us I guess.

“Aaand, you.” The only other kid that didn’t look like one of those high rollers (but was armed like one), stepped up. At least one HPA will be fighting with us.

It took another hooful of minutes to bunch the teams up. Mostly kids and intermediates players were picked last.

“Now,” Big B pulled the roll of green to pass it to J.E. who quietly went around to help put green markings on the new teammates.

“In this next game, we will be using the full field, I’ll put a team in Hareverd and a team in seven. The objective, is to capture base three and hold it for ten minutes.”

There wasn’t much of a reaction from the crowd but a few absent questions from the newer players, mostly from the kids I noticed.

“If you are the first inside, yell clear to indicate that you have taken the base and I’ll start the timer, however, if another team takes the base, it is your job to either push them back or clear them out, whoever can take it.”

“So, How long do we have to hold it if we do take it?” Asked a scrub from Neutral,

“Ten Minutes, this game might last longer if you both put up a good fight.” Big B, replied before continuing, “Now, in this game, both teams will have three Medic revives, which means-since some of you who just showed up-you have to touch and hold a fallen teammate for thirty seconds.”

“Do we pick who the medics are?” asked a kid from green team, he looked like he was still in sixth grade and is wearing full woodland camo armed with a hulk of a rifle. It looked like a full sized M16 with an ACOG and foregrip. Jesus, what were his parents thinking? They’re awesome!

“No, You all can medic each other.” Big B nodded, “Now, remember, when closing in on building or defending it, toggle your weapons to semi-automatic only. I don’t want to see anyone getting raked across the face by full auto fire at point blank range.

One of the High Rollers gave a playful, “awww” as we all heard the semi-auto rule.

“Now, what else-” He paused, “-nope. Since Green lost last game, you pick the first base.”
“Harivered.” J.E. was quick on the draw with that choice. The way everypony here has been pronouncing Hareverd as hair-vered

“Hareverd? Okay, Neutral, you got base seven Then.” He looked between the teams before jabbing a thumb over his shoulder.

“Deploy!”

We all loaded magazines as we started to migrate towards our starting bases.

Rarity

As we walked back onto the field, I examined the base we just fought around earlier. Now, by order of the administrator, it’s our base. I do swear these human games are a little confusing to follow, thankfully we have J.E. to walk us through them; Well, in this case, to lead us into battle. As romantic it sounds, but the actual fighting hurts.

As I absently rubbed my rump, “This Hareverd base looks more, what would you say-?”

“A roofless house with crapily done walls and no floor?” Rainbow bluntly blurted out.

“A house with party potential?” Goddess bless you Pinkie.

“More like a base that was designed with tactical game play in mind.” J.E. answers looking from each of us as he did.

“A perfect kill house to exercise your CQB, Sadly we won’t be defending this base.”

As we walked up to the base, he turns to lean against the wall near the “Front” door of this house. When I stopped to turn, I watched with wondrous interest as the other players filed around us or marched on towards what must of been more of the field as they progressively vanished behind the wall of blackberry bushes.

Even here on Earth, the blackberry bushes look vicious as they do around the Everfree forest back home. Ah, speaking of home, I do believe I have a few brand new ideas on design suggestions for the Equestrian military. Not entirely for active duty but for formal wear.

Then again, I can only dare to picture Captain Shining Armor in any of this colorful cloth or camouflage uniforms J.E. labels them.

“Well, what's this J.E?” A player, a teenager I believe, “Who are these ladies?” He was blonde, clad in camo and wore what looked like a green, stylish cloth wrapped around his face with his eye protecting being the only visible marker.

“Friends of mine.” Our intelligent guardian was quick to reply, “They are from out of town,” He steps away from the wall and stood with us. As he introduced us, he pointed at each of us.
“This is pinkie.”
“Hello, ready to play?!” Pinkie waved with a Glock filled hand, smiling brightly.
“Rarity.”
“Charmed darling,” I bowed my head lightly to the young man stepping up to shake his hand.
“And this is Dash.”
“Sup scrub.” My eyes roll at her as she tilted her head up to him as she spoke.

“Well, ladies, names Travis and I wish each of you a good game today.” he turns away to step towards base one, shooting a few practice shots into the brush just as six or so did the same action.

“What a polite young man.” I noted aloud.

“Are one of you his girlfriend?” A child player not-so-nonchalantly asked looking at us. His mask obscured his obvious curiosity. How adorable, but even I was taken back by such a bold question.

Of course, There are six of us living with one human between ventures in Equestria but, none of us had really seen him any further than just a bodyguard that has been slowly showing us his world while keeping us safe. At times, I think Flutter shy tends to show the most attraction to J.E. but then again, so has Twilight.

I shook the brainstorm away.

“Well squirt, no,” Rainbow Dash’s bluntness saved us the awkward conversation topic.

“Oh, is she?” He points to Flutter shy as she follows the admin walk across the clearing and into the bush just as the Natural team did.

“Ehhh, not really kiddo,” Pinkie padded him on the helmet, “But I'm sure she wishes though.”

“Pinkie!” we both snapped at Her, who only stood and shrugged, she really appeared reckless the way she shrugged, her hands still filled with the pistols.

“What?”

I looked at J.E. who the whole time had his masked face in a palm while he stood there listening to the whole awkward conversation. Poor dear, I’m sure he gets this question a lot. As much as I do find it flattering every time this comes up, I think it’s annoying for him to hear it every time.

“It’s true!” she points towards our Element of Kindness as she vanished up the trails around the brush.

“What's the plan boss?” A veteran looking player had wondered close by.

“We bum rush like crazy to three and hold onto it like all of humanity depends on it.” J.E. Shrugged.

“Someone say rush?” If Rainbow still had her ears, they would of perked in the heartbeat of anything referring to speed was mentioned.

“Yup, we are to hold base three, Which is over there by the way.” he pointed pass the crowd of players towards the trails around base one, they seemed to lead to nowhere from where we stand currently.

“I think we can get lost in there darling,” I nervously look at J.E. who didn’t seemed phased by the possible track or run we are about to undertake.

“Don’t worry ladies,” He turned to look back at us, “Just keep up with me and the rest of the team and you’ll be fine.”

I watched him look towards where the admin and flutter shy had gone to. I wonder what's taking him so long to blow that horn to start the game? Could he be checking on the other team if they are ready? I looked around at the rest of our “team”, it was odd to be among this many humans in one spot to be honest. Even for me it can get a little overwhelming, however, As long as I-WE are near J.E. there isn’t really a whole lot to worry about I would wager.

Speaking of which, As I looked from the bunch back to our host, who had his back turned to us; I can’t help but admire the uniform he fits so well in. The design work of an apparent forgotten generation of uniforms was apparently more simpler than what either myself or Dashie wore. The gear that was attached to the belt and harness help maintain a simplistic set up but I can only imagine how cumbersome that must of been to be wearing that for more than just an eight hour day. How J.E. does it, is beyond me. He still looks handsome in it though, aside from the goggles (and mesh mask he had seemed to procure while back at the car) he wore at all times on this field.

I wonder if he’ll need any help with getting that of-my stray thoughts were interrupted with the distant blast of the horn.

“Game on!” J.E. called out as he turned to look at us, “Lets go!” He signaled with a hand before taking off into a run along with the pack of players that were already making a dash towards the obscured base.

“Rarity,” Rainbow Dash nudged me back to focus, “Quit staring and run for it!” she took off in a sprint to catch up after our host while I looked around in a moment of confusion before remembering what was going on.

“Wait for me!” I called after them breaking into a run. By Celestia’s mane it was difficult to run on two legs!

Big B

“Lets go, lets go!” Called out the Neutral team captain as he led his team into a run towards the base. Only a handful of players lingered or walked towards the objective. I noticed the girl that came with J.E. to this field had jumped (again) to the sound of the manual air horn that I borrowed from the real admin’s gear.

Putting it into my dump pouch, I started to walk towards base three, which is no more than a short walk down highway then veer off right onto a foot trail. I would of just out ran the team that was walking around both me and the girl and meet both teams at the base to observe and keep time for the occupying team.

To be honest, I didn’t care much for running this field however, when the favor you owed to a friend turns out to be forced retirement, what else can a guy do around in this quiet part of the US?

“So, uhm…” The girl or Shy as her name is, spoke, thankfully, I still had my hearing intact so I was able to pick up her soft voice.
“Where are we supposed to go?” she was standing next to me during the briefing but I think she was nervous from probably all the young men gawking at her and her friends during the same briefing.

True, she was cute, but probably far too young for me, she is probably no more than a year older of one of the others give or take. She, sure, was edgy and jumpy for every time someone would either run or walk by she would gasp in surprise. Where as every one of these youngsters where too damn obvious for me to not notice, even on a lazy day like today.

“We head over to base three find a corner to stand and watch,” I looked at the pink haired girl as she averted her eyes from me, “So, I would recommend putting this on-” I pulled the mesh mask that Quiet gave me earlier but I refuse to wear it. I don’t see any point in it. I seriously doubt getting shot by one of these toys would hurt as bad as non-lethal.

However, the jumpy, skinny little girl here would have a much greater need than me right now. Here gentle blue eyes widened with curiosity or fear, not sure at this point. I can only wonder why they would bring her along if she was going to be like this.

“Uhm, Y-You, want me to put this on?” she asked hesitantly. I had stopped near base five to give her the chance to take it and put it on.

“Is it, going to get that bad, I-in there?”

“It’s either put this on or get shot in that pretty little face of yours.” Her small hands took the mask, she looked at it for a moment before slipping the head strap over her head. Once on, we moved onward towards.

“Contact!” A distant voice rang out, “Greens in Three!”

“Tch, Sounds like the party has started,” I grumbled as my ears picked up the rattle of AEG motors. I looked at my watch, pressing a button to start the stopwatch. The Team that occupies the base has to hold it for ten Minutes. I can imagine that both teams had runners sprinting for the base. Green was apparently faster than these High Roller boys.

“Uhm, How are we going to get close enough to watch,” Shy inched closer to me, “W-Without getting shot?”

As she asked that, We stepped off a short trail and towards another base. This building was an oddball; It was a single square, roofless, building with a window on each side. Unlike the other bases, made out of plywood and pallets. This one, well, had wall built of pallets with metal and wood sheeting for the exterior walls.

What stood out about this base was the small, empty kennel with an old combination padlock locked to it. I saw it during my walk through of the field earlier this morning, pondered about it, I think the old man called this base the jail some time ago.

Passed our right of the base, hunkered behind trees and a fallen log. Neutral players exchanged fire with Greens. I stopped with arms folded near the base to watch them, the girl stopped beside me before yelping in surprise as she swiftly moved behind me. I looked at her right as I felt some weak impacts, three on the body and one on my prosthesis.

Looking down at my arm, there was barely a scuff mark on the russet color metal; looking back up at a player who instantly threw a hand up.

“SHIT, sorry admin!”

“Watch your fire, you almost hit her.” I nodded towards Shy as she leans out to look on.

“Uhhhhh, Sorry!” he then recoiled to impacts close by the log he had shot at us from. We were still some short yards away from the action and I can only guess he wasn’t paying attention enough to spot the bright-as-hell Orange vests. It is weird to be wearing it over my camo, felt like some redneck hunter.

A player peered around one of the trees to shoot at a distant target before shaking a flat hand towards a trail towards his front right.

“Go, I’ll cover, GO!” he sprayed out a few bursts of suppressive fire while two out of the five present broke cover to clear the gap towards that direction. One was hit as he stopped running while the other ducked into the trail.

Hearing electric auto fire from that very direction, he must be laying down the heat to return the favor and allow his buddies to break from cover to dash across towards the same direction. Two more Neutrals got tagged leaving only two of this squad left.

Seeing the opening they made, I looked at Shy as she stood in silent awe as the three “dead” players walked back towards their spawn.

“Follow me, don’t worry, unlike that kid, they won’t be able to mistake the orange.”

“Uhhhm, okay.” she meeped as she walks behind me as we ventured towards the thick of the fighting.

J.E. Clockwork

“Two moving left, watch the back trail behind us!” I called out as I chased after them with semi-auto fire. In silent compliance, one of the six players, The HPA shooter that made the initial sprint to this base with us; moved out the back opening to hunker behind a small plywood barricade that faced the very trail I pointed out.

“J.E., Got three coming down this trail,” I glanced over to see Rainbow pointing towards the trail head that splits either back the way we came or towards highway. Rarity had darted by her to find another window (or cover) in the base.

“Check’em, keep them from sweeping through!”

“Got it!” she replied before turning back to join the semi-fire with the other player who had slipped out from one of the entrances and made a break towards the oak tree close by. Which makes sense since he buzzed the neutrals with burst fire from his weapon.

Two hits called, I didn’t see if they left or crouched down to call for medic.

“Two down, one running back-oh shit!” she reported before ducking down as incoming BBs hammered against the metal sheet walls of the base. I was in a neighboring window when I saw that fire hit hard.

I tracked the stream of incoming fire then started firing back. A player, coming down the trails from base five, stopped to flag a dead rag. I watch his buddy lean back behind another tree yards away.

“Contact, spawn trail!” The spotter, that moved to the barricade, opened fire as he called out the other squad of two. I had a feeling they would try to move in from that way. It was one of the few trails with the most cover. Yet if you get someone to cover it, a kill zone if anyone tried to advance.

“HIT!” one of my team players, that had ran out the front door to the tree, yelled out, “Medic!”

“I’ll go get him!” Rainbow volunteered, “Rare, cover me.”
“Do what?” she snapped a look to Rainbow before dropping down to the deck to hide from incoming fire.

“Fuck, I’ll cover!” I displaced from my window and around towards the front entrances. I planted myself outside one of the entrances while she braced herself near the other front entrance.
“I got ya, go!” I shot into the brush right over head of the two “dead” neutrals as I catch sight of Rainbow Dash run out of the base and up to the tree. As she stopped beside the tree she hunched behind the fallen Green player.
“Drag him in here!”
“Got it!” she grabbed him by his vest before stepping back with the sudden “shield” in front of her. He kept up with her while keeping a hand on his head with a dead rag clutched in it.

“HIT!” I hear the last neutral yell out. Seconds later, all three neutrals got up to walk back to their spawn. Rainbow Dash finishes her short walk back inside to start the count right as I turned my attention to the-A few shots struck my left arm and my vest.

“HIT!” I raised my hand before quickly reaching into a pocket to draw out my dead rag, “MEDIC!” I crouched down to look back to my left, Walking out in the open was Big B and Flutter shy. Close by, more Neutrals, stacking up behind trees coming from Base five.

Where the hell is the rest of our team? I look over at where the trails leading towards the first clearing. Sure enough, as if I had asked out loud, I saw the rest of my team jogging up the trail.

“J.E., I got you.” I felt hands on the back of my vest, I glanced back to see Rarity had risked getting hit to get me. She started to pull as I got up to move with her as we walked back the meager few feet back inside the base.

As we stopped, I could hear more BB fire being exchanged with the late comers and the Neutrals.
“So what do I do now darling?” Rarity had to ask,
“Count to thirty while keeping a hand on me.” I replied as I hear a green call hit close by.
“Right-” she then started to count, I quietly counted with her while resting my Garand up against the wall in front of me. I pulled my sidearm, I thumbed the hammer as the count reached twenty.

“Back in!” called out the green player behind me as both he and Rainbow got up, they dashed for a window to throw more rounds down range.

“Thirty!” Rarity, patted my shoulder.
“Back in!” I shoved my dead rag back into the pocket it came from before I stood up, leveling the Webley towards the Neutrals. Pulling the trigger, the Co2 powered revolver sounded off with an authoritative thud. A player flinched from the .40 gram bb as he raised a hand.
“Hiiit...” a dead rag filled the raised hand.

Holstering the revolver, I brought my rifle up to follow up with a few more shots at another Neutral that peeked out to keep them suppressed. Another Neutral raised his hand weakly calling hit.

“Keep’em busy!” I called out ducking down to reload, “Admin, time check!”
“Three Minutes.” Big B replies as he walks pass the base. Flutter shy eeped as bbs slam into the metal walls again.
“Got it.” I slapped a full mag in before popping up to lay some heat down range.

Neutrals hunkered down behind cover and stayed there while we held them back.

By now, more teammates had maneuvered around the base to either expand the perimeter or bolster the numbers inside. I hear a hit called out and the HPA player was down. Instead of risking another player’s life to be medic back in, he got up with dead rag held high to make the walk back to our spawn.

“Rarity, take my place, going to plug the back trail!” getting up, defying incoming fire slamming up against the walls, I turned to weave through the reinforcements to get out to the barricade with hope to catch the sneaky neutrals.

I didn’t look back to see if Rarity was doing anything but I could hear the distinctive motor of her FAMAS as she squeezed off semiautomatic shots. Could of sworn I heard a hit called too. Not sure, there is a lot of activity now that the rest of the team was here.

Crossing the small gap that was mainly the trail, I half way across when I caught the glimpse of death it self.

Four of The High Rollers some meters away.

“SPAWN TRAIL!” I called out as I spun on heel to hip fire the Garand in response to the incoming HPA fire, point man of the squad was hit. Ducking low to move left towards the protection of that barrier, I continue to hip fire at the Rollers as they crouched down behind the blackberry. Shots wildly trimming brambles, effectively stopping shots from reaching them.

The second man was chasing after me with burst fire from what sounded like a hollow tube burping plastic BBs at me. Now that I had a chunk of plywood in front of me, I brought the rifle to shoulder as I fired back. I didn’t hear anymore hits called, but I know I was at least keeping heads down. We only needed to hold them back long enough to win.

I dropped back to reload when I glanced off to my right towards the trails coming from five when a shot from those trees snapped across my neck. The hit was so sudden that I collapsed to the ground briefly before sitting up into a crouch.

“HIT!” I yelled pulling my dead rag back out, “aww fuck…” I held the rag to my head while my other hand felt the growing welt on my neck, “MEDIC!”

Rarity

I was changing magazines when I heard Clockwork shout first hit then shouted for medic. No pony was going to move to help him, even Rainbow Dash had retaken that spot just outside the base to keep those bad guys away on one of those trails.

I couldn’t tell which way was which unless J.E. was pointing them out. Speaking of which. Winding the new magazine, I walked around teammates that were either, shooting at the other team from the window, reviving each other, only three players walked out “Dead”. I fear that we might lose this place if we keep losing this many players.

Unless there is something I’m forgetting here.

I watched two other players face the same direction I was headed, Oh my, there was two of the other team appearing from that same trail, aiming their weapons at me! With a gasp of surprise, I whipped up the rifle to my shoulder, pointed it at them and started squeezing the trigger as fast as I could.

“HIT!” two voices spoke, I stopped shooting as there was no more shooting.

I slowly opened my eyes to see that they both were walking away a hand raised high over their heads.

“Holy shit chick…” blurted out one of the players close by having apparently witnessed my fast reaction.

“Wh-what?” I looked at them both slightly confused, “Did I-”

“You got them, good shot.” He nodded before flinching at incoming fire hitting the wall of the base again as he turned to shoot out of a window. The impacts startled me as well, bringing me back to my previous task.

“Good shooting, now get over here!” J.E. Called out as he waved to me.

“Right, be right there darling.” I remembered what he taught me; keeping the rifle against my shoulder, I aimed at the trail, checking for more ruffians that would try to startle me while moving towards the hansom human.

Thankfully, I managed to walk over to him without any further encounter.

J.E. smiled as I knelt down beside him to, again, place a hand on him to start the revive. We counted to thrity without any interruption. I looked over towards the collection of trails and trees that faced the base. It has thinned out of those other players.

“Thirty,” J.E. finished counting as he pocketed the dead rag, “Back in! Say, that was pretty good being quick on the draw like that.”

“You think so?” I looked at him as he peeked over the plywood cover.

“Yeah, lets just, leave the eyes shut part out when we talk to Dash about it.”

“Oh, I wasn’t supposed to shut my eyes?”

“Nnnot really.” He stood up, I stood up with him as we walked back inside the base.

“It’s kinda natural to keep them open so you can see what you are shooting at.”

“Right…” I felt a little sheepish now thinking about how amateurish it must of looked. It couldn’t be helped to be honest, as I had no choice but to react.

“Sounds like we sent most of them back.” J.E. noted as he stop to peer over fellow players through the windows to see most of the area around us has been quieted down since the opening run.

“Yes, It seems that way, I doubt they would try to do that again if they could help it.”

“Actually, they will.”

“What?!” I snapped a shocked look at him, “You mean, they will try another advance?”

“They want this base as much as we do,” He shrugs casually with apparent confidence, “Thankfully we got guys coming back to back us up, so we got this.” He paused to think, “ADMIN, TIME!”

“Five minutes.” was the reply from somewhere.

“Oh yeah, we got this guys, just sit tight.” he spoke mostly to the surrounding players.

“Main trails are clear boss,” Rainbow Dash walked inside winding her magazine.

“Looks like we have kicked their asses for now.”

“Yeah, for now.”

“Say, has anyone seen Pinkie?” She seemed to scan around at the other players, trying to spot our pink haired friend. That has indeed brought something to mind, during the whole fighting, she was nowhere to be seen. She had joined us on the run here, but she seemed to disappear into the brush as we drew closer to this base.

A single shot from somewhere slammed into the base. Which caused all us to either flinch or duck down.

“The fuck that come from?!” A player asked aloud.

“I don’t know but-” As J.E. was about to speak, another shot found its way through one of the windows in front of us. Smacking me across the face. The pain was enough for me to drop to my knees.

“HIT!” I called out through my hands, my right cheek throbbed as if it was stung by a bee. First my rump, now my face, what is with these ruffians?! It felt like a bee sting for sure, however, It felt a lot worse in this form. Human skin was not a resilient as pony skin even to impacts like so.

“Sniper!” He called out. Before ducking down beside me.

“Are you okay?”

“I-” I blinked out tears that formed, the pain wasn’t enough to make me cry but it was enough to spark the odd human reaction to experiencing pain this close to the eyes,”-I think, but my word, this hurts.”

“You’ll be fine Rare, It’ll pass, that looks like a welt will stay there for sure.”

“Oh please, don’t you dare scare me like that, The last thing I need is my face marked up like this!”

“Rarity, BB welts are not permanent.” he then patted my shoulder, “Thirty, back in.”

“Right…” I had my dead rag halfway out when he revived me, tucking back in, I stayed crouched as another player took a hit from this sniper.

Pinkie Pie

This game field was a real place to explore, the trails weaved through walls and barriers of blackberries that, like here, led to an open portion of this field. Sure, I can hear the party going just far off to my left, but, I want to sneak around! You know, give them a classic Pinkie Pie surprise!!

Take that how you want to reader!

I wasn’t too worried about being shot at as I walked around a large fallen log that was being enveloped by the same bramble branches and vine that was growing everywhere. I stopped to check down a trail to my left as I made the bend towards another meadow. The trail looked like it was a hallway of brush that led towards where the party was going on.

Oh yeah, I can see Rainbow.

“Dashie, HI!” I called out waving to her, Who simply responded by throwing a hand towards me in a way in asking.

“What the hay Pinkie?”

I simply smiled and shrug in response before skipping along.

Nearing a madrone tree, I stopped in step. I scanned around bringing my pistols up. Narrowing my eyes, I could tell one thing:

My Pinkie senses were tingling…

I crouched down and advanced up to another large log. Once there, I held still to listen to the world around me. I couldn’t hear anything but there was something there, well, someone. Yet, could not tell you right away. However…

Taking a breath, I shifted my legs underneath me then I sprang up with pistols leveled, ready to unleash the BBs that were ready to spread the welts! Wait, is this-

Standing the same way as me, pointing the same pistols at me, wearing the same camo, Barret and even the same face cover and- The neutral player cocked his head in surprise while I gasped loudly in surprise.

“Ohmygosh,ohmygosh,ohmygosh Its YOU!” I jumped in excitement for a moment but I quickly recovered and snapped my aim back on him.

“What in the-Pinkie?” even with those mesh goggles on, his eyes were wide in surprise, he apparently didn’t expect to see me here. I Didn’t think he played this sport anymore.

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh you know, exploring a new dimension with your Friend who also so happens to be our Human guardian while staying here.”

“Oh?” He lowered his guns while listening with interest, “A royal guardian of sorts?”

“Eh, yeah” with a shrug I glance over to the noise, it sounded like Neutral was making another attempt at joining the party at base three. Shaking my head I look back at this “stranger”.

“Huh, I wouldn’t be sure how he would be able to-wait, you aren’t the only one here?”

“Yeah, all of us are here, well, today, it's just me, Rainbow, and Rarity playing here, Flutter shy is walking around with the admin Big Boss, she isn’t playing but I think she’ll be wanting to after she gets used to watching it for a time.”

“Flutter shy? Seriously doubt it but I can see things taking an ironic turn when she finally decides to join the game, I mean, didn’t J.E. secretly pay for her as well?”

“I wish I can tell you, but that would ruin it for them.” We both take a look at the reader.

“Good point…” Looking back at each other, “As for the rest of you girls?”

“Oh, Twilight was kept up all night because J.E. and Rainbow where playing some video game while Applejack just wanted to stay because there wasn’t enough room in the car and she felt more incline to work around the property instead of “playing some silly human game”.” I did my best country accent when I recited what AJ said to us this morning.

“So you are all here, I would like to meet you all since you are here in human form, even though I didn’t care much for...well you get the idea.”

“Eh, I think having the original six being humanized is a WAAAY better concept than making blank-slate-copies of us is just lazy writing I think.”

“Shhh, they may hear you.” The stranger playfully hushed me bringing one of the pistols to his mask covered lips sparking a giggle from me while waving him off.

“Anyways, we should probably get back to the game,” I look towards base three again, there was another rattle of “gun” fire blended with shouting. Looking back at the stranger,

“I’ll be seeing out over there?”

“Ehhh, maaaybe.” He shrugs, slowly crouching down, “I may or may not be there at all.” the sound of distant impacts on metal drew my attention again. I believe it was time for the life of the party to rejoin the fun!

“Okie-dokie, I’ll-” I looked back to see that he wasn’t there, I made a double take to still see nopony there; “B-Backlash?” I leaned over the log to look down. He wasn’t there anymore! As if he quickly ran away or something to hide elsewhere, “W-Where did’ya go?”

Or was he there at all? I look at the reader again puzzled by his sudden disappearance.

“Oh well,” I shrugged, “Time to bounce!”
I hopped up onto the log and leapt off it, landing into a run towards base five. Once there, I slowed down to a walk, hugging the wall as I walked towards a corner. Peering out to the left, I can see four of them huddled among some trees and a log fallen in between them. Sneaking around the corner, I closed in on these kiddos, if only they- I heard a noise behind me.

Looking back, I noticed two more of them had emerged from respawning and were in the middle of rejoining their party near our base. Fooey!

“Oh shit!” was the only thing one of them said before I popped them both. The sound of my pistols caused the other four to look behind them. As they turned completely around, I turned to level my pistols at them.

“Contact behind us!” snapped as B Bees started to fly at me. I can see the incoming trails of white plastic meaning to take me out.

“Awww, at least it isn’t too late to yell-” I dropped down to the ground into a low crouch with in a blink of an eye, their crappy shots hailed over head; Letting both sideways pistols staring down at two bad guys, “-SURPRISE!” as I had let out my party cry, I unleashed my horde of white plastic back at them.

J.E. Clockwork

“Was that pinkie?” Rarity, asked as some of the incoming fire had ceased. The Equines and I had all picked up the distinctive outcry of a particular party girl followed by Neutral being pulled away to obviously address the sneaky Green player.

“No pony else scares the crap out of a crowd than Pinkie…” Rainbow Dash grumbled as she winded up the second High cap she reloaded with. She had managed to go through a three hundred round-plus, high cap magazine before I can even drop my second mag.

I was only trying to hit what I can see while she would semi or auto fire at anything that resembled a player in Neutral’s general direction. Of course, Rainbow hasn’t really been shooting that long and running off pure game knowledge still made her a bit of a noob in this seasoned players eyes.

Still gotta give the girls credit though, so far they have been playing pretty well so far despite it only be nearly an hour into today’s games.

“I think that might of won it for us.” A fellow player mentioned as he stood laxed from shooting out of his window a bit ago.

“Would think so, unless the High Rollers get-” a solid thunk against the metal made us all duck and/or hide.

“-here, thought they all went for the new girl?”

“All but one it seems.” I slowly stood to peer out my window with Rarity standing up with me, “Anyone got an idea where that is coming from?” Of course, just as I asked, I saw a blink of a white dot fly towards the base.

I instantly leaned out of the window, hugging the wall near the window as the shot flew by. A solid impact on fabric of a vest brought my attention to another player that ducked as he was hit. The “victim” was one of the more novice players, he knew his stuff but still had a lot to learn. The vest he wore looked like it was new, his M4 replica still had it’s factory orange tip.

“Hit! I’m out.” He brought his dead rag out before standing to casually walk out of the base, “Dead man coming out!”

“Hurry back man.” I called after him before another shot hit the metal.

“I may not know much about shooting,” Rarity spoke as she ducked back down to move herself away from the windows, “But I think that sniper isn’t being careful with his shots.”

“I see him!” called out one of the regulars stood to point out the barricaded entry way.

Sure, the base had two entry points on it’s front and side but it was also completely open out the back of the half wall construct. The far entry point had been previously barricaded to prevent easy access from that approach. Leaving only the back trails and side entry to get in.

“Which why is he headed?” I asked hurrying over, the player pointed out the shooter.

We both watch a Neutral player break cover on the far left, moving towards the trails that led towards our back door. One guy against a base, I’m sure he has something planned. With a nod, I mentally concluded that I’m not going to let the guy get close.

“Alright, let’s go greet him.” I looked back to nod towards to my fellow teammates, “Rare, Dash, fallow me.” Rarity and Rainbow Dash walked over towards me, “The rest, sit tight, we may not have a lot of time left, but they may push hard soon.” Looking back at my charges.

“Ladies.” I nodded to them before turning to walk with weapon up towards the back trail behind our base. Thankfully, We all knew how to keep quiet when advancing as we made our way onto and further up the trail.

This part of the field was a quaint collection of nature made corridors, the trail we are advancing up on had a wall of different bushes with skinny trees acting as pillars holding up a canopy of leaves. On our left was the actual boundary fence of the field, a simple three string barbed wire fence that was also marked with ribbon to signify the bounds of the “map”.

Madrones grew here along the fence line. One of them in fact had a branch with marking ribbon on it that was used as the spawn point for base three during different games. For now, it was just a collection of colorful ribbons. A few feet in front of us, towards our right, the brush wall curved outward to give clearance for us to side step off the trail to cover the choke point ahead of us. As well give us a chance to group up since Rarity lagged behind, she has yet to learn how to move like us, which was fine, today is more about fun than learning anything.

Glancing back, I noticed both girls were behind me,
“Lets go.” I stood with weapon leveled before advancing again. The small clearing beyond the choke point was another part of where the brush curved, only the wall split with a foot path leading into the cluster of trees. This is where it gets a bit sketchy because if one sniper was trying to push against a base, who knows where he is hiding.

I brought a hand up to signal hold, I advanced in first to check the footpath, crouching down, I kept the entrance covered while giving Rainbow the signal to move. I glanced back to see her nod before saying something hushed to Rarity before they both advanced further up the trail. I looked back to keep watch of my sector. I couldn’t help but look through the brush towards base five. It was quiet now, I can only think that-
“Oh shi-” I watched two players pop around a tree coming from five, firing away at me.
“Contact, coming from five!” I called out to the girls who hurried pass the choke point.

However, as Rainbow crossed first, my ears picked up the disheartening popping of a gas pistol.

“HIT!” she called out before dropping down into a crouch, “Medic!”

“Rarity, drag her back and-shit!” I ducked my head as BBs smashed into the bushes around and in front of me. Leveling my rifle, I fired back; shots bounced off the tree and only one bounced off a vest.

Looking back I watched Rarity hit the deck as more pistol rounds came crashing through the thick bushes in front of her. Bad idea to move on a sniper at this point. I kept the tree the second shooter hid behind in my sights while waiting with anxious patience, as my mind kept track of the shooter just on the other side of the choke point, Rarity had fired off a few bursts into the bush as if she could actually hit the guy, sadly, as thin the branches of the bushes are, they have enough density to stop a speeding BB. Waiting payed off Sure enough, the kid leaned out to take more shots at me as a shot from me bounced off his arm.

Hearing the distant hit called, I stood up to help Rarity.

“Get Dash, I got you.” I assured Rarity as she looked back at me with wide eyes but nodded before moving towards rainbow. She had been shot down right in the pathway of the choke point that lead into the trail heads towards other parts of the field.

She couldn’t help but stay crouched with a dead rag on her helmet watching our struggle from the dead man’s perspective.

“Come on, get me out of here!” she whined as she glanced at what I would assume be the shooter that took her out.

Rarity noticed Rainbow looking and paused to wait. Normally, It would be to wait for movement before continuing but I think she was freezing from the fear of being shot again. I think getting hit in the face would do that to anyone or anypony for that matter.

Standing up, I walked up to Rarity, “cover, I’ll get her.” I told her quietly as she stepped aside.
“Be careful,” I hear behind me as I crouched to stalk closer to Rainbow. My rifle suddenly felt heavy having keeping it hugged against my shoulder while inching closer to at least drag Rainbow back. I’m about two arm lengths away now, Setting my rifle down, I drew my revolver, aiming towards where the shooter could be, I inched closer again to reach out.

Rainbow couldn’t help but reach out too as I grabbed her by the cuff of her shirt before proceeding to drag her towards me. Shots rang out but my Webley barked in response as I yanked her back. I didn’t expect her body to crash into me, knocking us both down.

For a moment, she laid on top of me while we both blinked in awkward surprise.

She was light, despite the gear, and It was blatantly obvious that she had borrowed my body spray before we left this morning, however, it was the fact she was laying on me that caused a very unprofessional-

“Uhhh...” As my brain blanked. our masks were touching which meant our faces were inches apart. This was so not a moment to experience out here! Even with goggles on, I can see her maroon eyes looking back at me.

“Nice catch camp.” she padded my arm as she rolled off me, Rarity grabbed her shoulder helping her up to get deeper into cover.
“What?”
I looked down at where my hands ended up when she landed on me.

Lets see, chest level, open hands facing outward which means-”oh shhhi-I’m sorry!” that drew a laugh from the humanized mare as she waited to be revived as Rarity counted. A chuckle from the other side reminded me where I am, which is a fire fight with a stupid sniper.

Grabbing my dropped revolver I sat up thumbing the hammer. I inched back to the choke point to at least grab my rifle before all three of us bailed back to our base.

However, As I peered down the trail, a neutral player, with a rifle slung over his shoulder, stood out with his pistol aimed right at me.

Without another thought, I shot at him while he shot back. We both reacted as he stepped back while my foot slid out from underneath me, knocking me prone again. However, the neutral came back, rushed up to me, aiming his pistol one handed at me while I gripped my revolver aimed at him with both of us screaming-

“SAFETY KILL!”

Before we could process what had happened, we all paused to hear the distant blare of the air horn.

“GAAAAME OVER!!” rung out from the distance.

Game 1, Round 2

J.E. Clockwork

I laugh at the sniper as I try to get up. The player, without missing a beat, holsters his sidearm then reaches an open hand out to me. Taking it, the “enemy” player helps me back onto my feet.

“I think that was too close to call who got it first.” I dust myself off.

“I’m pretty sure I got the kill.” The player walks ahead of me as I holster my revolver before walking over to the girls who stood casually watching us.

“Nah, I’m sure I said it first.”

“Alright then, let’s call it a draw.” I nod to the player who chuckles in response.

“Fair enough.”

As the player walks away, I step over to see the looks on Rarity and Dash’s faces.

“That was awesome,” Rainbow Dash nods letting her rifle hang from the one point slung across her body.

“Be even cooler if you had managed to shoot the guy.”

“Even then, I have never seen you move like that before.” Rarity looking on with awe towards where the other player had walked off towards.

“It gets rather intense when everyone is this close to each other.”

“Head back to the parking lot to reload!” calls out Big B.

“That is true, how’s the face, Rare?” I ask looking at the growing BB-sized welt on her cheek. She glances away touching it with a free hand.

“It, still hurts.” she could only manage as she winces from the touch.

“You’ll be fine though, like a bee sting, it’ll go away shortly.” I gesture to my right with an open hand, “Come on, let’s get back.”

“Lead the way boss.” Smirks Dash as I start to walk with the two following behind me. I read the double meaning in that smirk too, she didn’t need to say any more about what happened when I pulled her back just a minute or so ago. My hands still feel weird from the incident.

As we venture through the battered base and towards the trails leading back to the first field and parking lot beyond; I look over to see Big B standing in a cubby space in the brush, that overlooked the base, with a nervous Fluttershy walking away from him towards us.

“A-are you guys okay?” she asks worriedly as she joins up with us, “We managed to see what was going on and, and…”

“Well, we all got shot a few times each,” gods bless you and your bluntness Dash, “Rarity took one to the face during the few times she was hit.”

“Oh no,” Shy gasps as she slowes to walk along Rarity, “Are you okay?”

“Not going to lie to you darling, it did hurt, however, as our dashing hero has told us, it only hurts like a bee sting before it goes away.”

“Sometimes,”

“What?” Fluttershy looks at Rainbow Dash.

“Sometimes you feel it for a while longer after getting hit” I cover our verbal tracks quickly, “depends on where you get hit.”

As the girls talked, we all had walked up a span of the trail leading back onto the first field with the parking lot just ahead. Other players milled towards the parking lot as well. Of course, I couldn’t shake the fact that there were eyes upon me and the girls as we all casually entered the parking lot.

As I already know what they are thinking I just chalked it up as one of the many quirks that come with this kind of territory. The earth world Guardianship thing I mean. I just wished the only way to honestly confirm the speculation those stares existed; BUT, until such a thing comes into existence, I’m stuck with simply shrugging off whatever theories around me and my charges are being made.

AND, no, the harem theory is simply out the window here folks, unless you put the word “friendship” in front of that then we are golden!

Anyways…

there were a couple of new vehicles parked throughout this dirt, slightly muddy parking lot, a few familiar by sight some others were new. Word must be getting out about this field, always like seeing more new players joining up. It means the sport is gaining popularity here in the valley.

It also helps that we are one of two operating game fields on the bottom of the state, a lot of folks don’t like the idea of traveling some hours north to just to play for a day. Like McDonald's, the convenience of location is key.

We surround the table as we started to double-check gear and top off ammo.

“So, what do you think is going to be next?” I hear from Rainbow dash as she simply touches up the high cap she took out of her gun.

“I think we are going to switch bases and run that again.”

“And allow us to win again?” She laughs, “If that's what floats their boat then by all means, let’s play!” she slaps the high cap back into her gun before stepping away from the table. Silly girl, she should know better by now.

“Uhm, Dash, mags out in the parking lot.”

“Huh? Oh, bleh.” she glances at me before removing the magazine from the gun.

“While we are here, you sure you don’t want to join us Shy?” I glance to Fluttershy who only was absently looking down at the table.

“It's very nice of you to ask but, Uhm, no thanks.” she blushes as those eyes look up at me.

“Oh shy dear, you should at least try it once,” Rarity urges with a smile, “It may look scary but it’s actually quite a thrill of fun to play.”

“We got extra gear if ya do.” Dash pipes up as she leans against the car, “Not that we are pressuring you or anything.”

“Uhhh,” Shy looks from the other three then back at me, I can assume she is looking at me for help.

“Let it be girls,” I sling my rifle before looking at the two, “If she wants to play or not, it's up to her, am I right?”

As I look at Fluttershy, she looks away absently grabbing her arm nervously, “Uhm, yeah,” she meeps smiling a thank you at me.

“Right, it’s no real push for it-”

“Alright, we don’t have much time left, form up on me!” calls out Big B rallying all the active players towards the center of the parking lot.

“That’s our cue, we good girls?” I ask giving a quick look at each of them.

“Yes, Darling.” Rarity nods closing a magazine flap on her gear.

“Yup, let’s do this boss.” Rainbow was already walking towards the center.

“LET’S PARTY!” Pinkie Pie jumps before raising one of her pistols to the air.

As the three walk towards the center, I pause to look back at Fluttershy who stops noticing me.

“Uhm, Shy?”

“Yeah?”

“If you, uhh, change your mind just let me know.” I smile stupidly as she grins back.

“Uhm, sure, but, I would like to watch (for now).”

“No problem, you are more than welcome to do whatever you wish today,” I assure her with a smile. I had a feeling she wouldn’t really want to play such a scary looking game, however, they say the quiet ones are the ones to truly fear. Also, points for me to at least convince her to watch.

“Th-thanks.”

“FORM UP!” I glance over to Big B before looking back at her.

“Well, see ya out there.” we both head for the crowd of people.

There is the chatter of all kinds, the few topics I pick up by ear were some about the last round and only a few were about me and the girls. I pretend to put no mind towards their talk, it is just talk after all.

However, I can’t help but wonder how odd it looked from an outsider’s perspective. Seeing a bunch of good looking girls hanging around some dude that seems to be loaded with money. Sure, the quick and the oblivious would think that I’m some rich punk that has a lot of friends in truth, well, we all know that these girls are not of this world nor am I really rich.

Just some intelligent guy who knows his stuff and is getting the backing of some off-world Royalty to provide escort and protection of their world’s guardians since there isn’t really anything left for them to do there.

So, just like my realm Jumper friends, they explore other dimensions or realms to spread friendship to other planes of existence.

Of course, they are slowly learning that it’s a challenging task to master.

“Alright, we got some more players,” Big B, begins, “I’ll level them out as we go, as for the next game, we are replaying the same game only difference is switching bases.” he fishes into a shirt pocket to pull out the roll of green ribbon to mark the newcomers to my team.

“New players, you will be filled in on what’s going on as we deploy, remember, green is now In base seven while neutral is in Harvard, DEPLOY!” he orders before the group disperses into the field. Green has to make the march towards base seven while Neutral gets to kick it in the house like base while waiting for us.

“Clockwork!” calls out a familiar voice, I look over to notice a half gillied player toting a sniper rifle with an HPA hose tapped into it. He was taller than me by nearly an inch or so and was good at being a casual bushfighter. I mean, seriously, he would disappear into the bushes which allowed him to score kill after kill followed by casually getting the drop on other players in a match.

“Bushman!” we exchange fist bumps as he walks along with me, the girls glance back but kept walking as they saw me starting to converse with this kid.

“It’s been forever since we have seen you, then you show up today with-” he gestures towards the three ahead of us, “-them, whaaat gives?” even with his headgear on, I can tell there was disbelief on his face.

“Long story to be honest, but they are friends from out of town and I have picked up the important job of taking care of them while they visit.” I look over behind us to see admin was walking towards three with Fluttershy following behind.

“Riiight, ‘important job’” I look back to notice his air quote marks with his free hand. Rolling my eyes I already knew where this is going.

“It’s true, I’m getting paid big to watch them while they are here for a few months, I mean, how the hell else did I manage to get them and myself good gear for today?”

“True, buuut, you are living with four of them.”

“Actually only the other two stayed at the compound today because they had other things to do while-”

“Bro, wait, wait…” he quickly padded my gear to stop me while he gawks at me in surprise, “wait, you are telling me that you are sharing a house with-”

“Six.” we both said simultaneously, I was nonchalant while he said it like a question.

After a stunned pause, he pulled his thoughts back together to speak again, I’m miles ahead of him as I always prepare for the general guy questions, so here we go.

“Have you ever-”

“No.”

“But what about the-”

“Nope.”

“You sure there are-”

“No.”

“Yet, there’s six of them, in your house, you sure-”

“Nooo.”

My quick answers left him stunned again, more than likely couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He then places a hesitant hand on my shoulder with a nod to match the concealed sadden expression.

“I, I weep for your loss, good sir.” I couldn’t help but laugh with him before we hurried to catch up with the rest of the team. To be honest, I’m still wrestling with the reality that they are real and from a different realm.

After falling in step behind the girls, the three look back at me, “what was that about?” Rainbow Dash asks as she starts to catch on the contagious habit of shooting a few shots into the brush for either the heck of it or to check if the mag was feeding. Most likely, for the heck of it.

“Guy stuff…” I simply put, trying to avoid bringing the whole spiel up with the girls, I’m sure they too had run into that conversation many times whenever I wasn’t present. Then again, this has only been their second visit into my world so it’s been sort of a learning curve for them.

Though, many things have caught on in a flash. Of course, my brain randomly takes a knee in giving thanks that even though these mares are in human form they do not pick up the natural habits of the month-

“Right, how many more times some punk gonna ask those questions?” Rainbow Dash bluntly asks aloud, giving a glance to a few players that, to be honest, there are a few other small clusters of other players all caught up in their own conversations to not really pay attention to us.

As we talk, we weave through a trail that exits out into a clearing with a few skinny trees dotting the grassy, foliage-covered landscape. Ahead of us is the huge fallen tree that has been converted into a natural barrier. A set of steps, made out of thick branches and carved earth, led up and over the top of the log while, the trail that wraps around the left side of the log and the remaining trunk of the tree.

There was a corner of the log hollowed out with a small window cut out the side facing what used to be base four. However, it isn’t very useful as there is vegetation growing up high in front of that opening. Walking around the large tree trunk, we ventured through the empty clearing that had the old base from long ago.

“Is that the base?” Rarity points towards base five off to our left as the walls of the base came into view.

“No, that’s base five, Our base is right over there,” I point ahead and slightly to the right. Where partially visible over the top of the thicket of brush, is the base.

“Ooh, that means we can just sprint there and take it,” Dash comments observing the clearings around the base. We have rushed three earlier, however, I don’t think she managed to come out this far. Only Pinkie managed to run out this far on her own. Thus the surprise ambush before the last game ended.

As we made the bend up the path, base seven came into view.

The base indeed is the only base fortress looking base on the field. The base is a multi-room, roofless construction of plywood, metal, and pallets; The two towers that make up the entrance and two other corners of the base were made out of old wooden shipping bins flipped upside down.

The only accessible tower inside the base is walled with a chunk of walling from a hot tub. However, right now, we won’t be needing it. Not yet at the least.

“A bit of a walk, but sure is a scenic one.” Rarity comments as she and the other two stay close to me.

“So, how are we going to do this?” Rainbow Dash asks aloud looking towards the general direction of the base. These are some smart ladies, learning the field will be easier than it was for me years ago. Taking a moment to look over the three that waited for the game to begin.

It kinda confuses me that, well, one, the gear they are using and the guns they carry are all out of my pocket. Rainbow Dash’s kit was the most expensive out of the bunch, mostly because she wanted to replicate what her favorite class looked like from BattleField four. Aside from the fact that I refused to get the AT-4 she wanted, even after showing her that it was sold out.

Rarity’s gear set was comprised of most of the same gear but had to mostly match the french military, however, instead of a helmet it was the barret; it was odd, but in a sense fitting for the fashionista.

Of course, she should have taken upon the face mask when I offered it but she insisted that she would be fine with just the goggles. Pretty much sure she wishes for one now.

Pinkie’s pistols were the tricky part of the ensemble, tracking down the individual CYMA CM.030 pistols was the hard part. The harder part was ordering both guns and the complete setup Pinkie asked for:

Both CM. 030 pistols.

Finding spare batteries, one spare for each gun.

Spare standard magazines.

Getting a high cap magazine for both each was easier out of all of this setup.

The rest of the rig, she just “knew” what to find when we went out to buy camo the other day.

Honestly, I still feel the “hole” left behind when ordering their individual setups, though I’m technically right, any player of this hobby will never be completely rid of the pain of dropping hundreds of dollars on a “toy”. Again, money is no issue here but come on folks. Who in the right mind would just-oh you get it...

I still think the CYMAs were the most painful.

Then again, the reproduction gear I'm wearing dwarfs the price tag of our groups set up, so begs the question, Why am I even bitching?

As my mind argues with itself, I glance over to see mentioned, pink-haired gun girl, looking at me with hands-on-hips. Like Rarity, she didn’t wear face protection (just mesh goggles), so the smirk on her face caught my full attention.

“What?”

“You are very conflicted aren’t you?” she asks gesturing at me, “I can hear your gears grinding from here.”

“Get out of my head.” I point at her accusingly, “I’m still getting used to this.”

“Eh, true, there are somethings you’ll get used too.” she winks at me drawing the CYMAs, did I mention the pains of getting those slides customized? Metallic pink with glitter spatter and ironically her cutie mark printed on the slides of both pistols; even complete with the word “Party” on one gun, and “time” printed on the other. I mean, she has good taste in guns for a baker.

“Wait, the fuck that means-” before I could say anything else, we hear the air horn in the distance.

“LET’S GET 'EM BOYS!” cries out one of the regular players in a fake southern accent as half the herd of airsoft players breaks ranks into a sprint towards the base in question. Among this wave of runners is one of the two HPA players on our team. At least, there will be some heavy-hitting firepower reaching the base before the rest of us could get there.

As the rest of us scattered, forming multiple squads making pushes into different directions: one squad pushed back down the main trail to flank from a side trail leading towards the base, one pushing far-right to flank from the trails along the boundary fence towards the base while one pushed along with me and the girls.

Of course, I can only correct myself that, after a quick glance as we ran towards five, Pinkie had, once again, Houdinied into the brush, I would be worried that she would stumble through some poison oak trying to get to the base, then again, nothing really seems to affect her at all here.

The only one of the six that has some sort of persistent level of Ambient Magic Field to maintain a level of her connection to her mysterious Chaos abilities.

or in short, what makes me, me still in this magicless world as Twilight and I had agreed with, well, whatever that means-

Ahem…

After getting lost in thought, once again, I was brought back to the game when I hear some shots being fired.

“Contact, trail to One!” called out a team player as he and a buddy plant themselves behind some trees facing the trails leading towards Three. Their shots caught my attention as some return fire came flying towards our general direction.

The girls scattered as we moved towards the two trees and the log, that made up some short cover between the trees; I and Rarity took up behind the trees as well (the tree I'm facing is a giant-ass-oak tree and its short leafy neighbor is dense madrone).

Passing on our left I see a squad of five cutting off to the right towards some trails leading towards base six, Knowing that pathway, I know they will be flanking from that directly onto the back fence towards the spawn trail leading into Base Three; AND of course, I see Rainbow Dash tailing after them.

“I’ll help these guys out,”

“Sure, Good luck, we’ll do what we can from here.”

“Got it!”

“What are we going to do-”

“Hit!” the player next to Rarity flinched before lowering his weapon and start walking back to spawn with a dead rag out. She inched closer to the tree, trying to obscure herself more.

“What are we going to do?” She asks over the incoming fire. I lean around the oak to acquire sight on our attackers. Two of them, down the large trail in front of us, peeking up from the cover of the blackberry bushes to let off wild burst fire in hoping to hit the rest of us.

Aiming, I send shots back.

“HIT!” calls out one of them, leaning back behind the oak.

“We gotta push forward, got get them rearing off balance, if Dash and her bunch can push hard along the fence line, we can knock’em out of the base in no time at all.”

“So, that means-”

“Hit!” calls out the player next to me. As he pulls his dead rag out, I place a hand on a shoulder, “Hold up, I’ll get ya.” I gentle help him back behind cover to begin the count for a medic revive. It randomly dawns on me that I should have reminded all of us about the medic rule in play.

Oh well, it’s unlimited lives at least.

After counting to thirty, our teammate was back in the fight.

“Yes Rare, we have to push too.”

“Oh, dear...”

*******

Rainbow Dash

I bring up the rear as I catch up with the squad that is already seeing the contact.

“What do we got?” I ask

“Got-” A hail of BB fire comes crashing through the brush, we all crouch low, the front two of the squad were already creeping forward low with guns raised around the bend in the trail that zig-zagged around a tree and some dense bushes. The rest of us inched forward while a third player followed the first two. A few moments of silence then the sound of small, loud motors rattles out followed by multiple voices calling hit.

“Move up!” called one of the three. Standing up with guns up we moved forward around the bend to be met with the sight of one player reviving another while another waited for us. Scanning around I can see through the thicket the patchy visuals of Jay, Rarity and some other nerd following them as they pushed down the trail in front of him. J.E.’s rifle sounding off as he led the push. In front of him are three other players hiding behind some makeshift barriers peeking out to fire back.

“We got friendlies pushing on the left,” I call out gesturing towards them.

“Let’s keep moving!” Order’s the point man

“Keep going, we’ll catch up.”

We indeed push on. Further up our trail, I can see the gray wooden walls through the brush. Spotting some movement in the windows I turn to fire upon them. Heads dropped down as I unleash a short stream of BBs that smack against the walls.

“Push hard!” calls out the point man before opening up on targets inside. We bonded through the thicket then towards the back of the open base. Incoming shots came from inside but only found the brush all around us.

This base was wide open out the back so closing in from the side was easy as I moved in behind the two of my fellow teammates in. Spotting movement from inside the collection of fallen logs close by, I eyed a human inside, leveling their weapon at us-no-me! Ha! Thankfully, I’m faster than any of these apes!

Panning my weapon, I let loose a short burst into the logs.

“HIT!” called out the log dweller.

As I looked over, I saw the other two clear the base, only two other defenders were sent walking back to spawn.

“CLEAR!” I called out with one other voice speaking up along with me.

“Well played,” Big B spoke from his spot along the wall of bushes, “timer reset for Green! See how long you can hold it this time.”

“So uhh, G-G guys?” one of my teammates said taking a spot in front of the large windows facing the trails leading towards the first field.

“Good play,” J.E. with Rarity and a few other Greens came up to the base. One other Green player kept going forward, probably sweeping forward to flush any opposition away or at least call them out.

“Too easy,” I brag as Rarity and Jay step in. Shortly as they did shots slam hard against the metal walls.

“Contact, side trail!” called out one of the Greens while autofire indeed rains down upon the walls.

“Dig in, we got this!” Jay encourages while we scatter about the base, trying to pinpoint those pesky Neutrals.

“Wouldn’t doubt it at this point, though, you all might not be so lucky twice.” Big B speaks with confidence similar to an old officer observing a rookie’s sparring in a mock battle. Seriously, where did they find this guy? Kicking pirate ass up-n-down the high seas? Raiding bases for loot and booty?

The more I think about it, the more awesome he sounds. To me at least.

“Watch us!” I gloat peeking out one of the front doorways at the admin. I catch a smirk appearing on the weathered, scarred face of the old man who removed the unlit cigar from his lips.

“I have been, and by the way,”

“What?”

“Take cover.” As soon as I heard that, I catch the sound of another pissed off sewing machine followed by incoming BBs slamming against metal. I look to see a wall of BBs flying at me.

“Buck!” I feel several hits my body, “Auugh, HIT!” I crouch yanking out my dead rag. The old man laughs.

*******

Fluttershy

“Grab’er and get to cover.” I hear J.E. order as I see a hand reach out and grab Rainbow Dash on the arm, dragging her out of harm’s way. The sound of those angry toys still frightening to me. Another one rattles close by.

“EEP!” I crouch down with hands on my head, hoping that those flying BBs don’t sting me!

I look over at Big B, who was just standing there, nonchalant and comfortable with death flying all around us. How can anypony be so calm with this craziness going on?! HOW?! Keeping myself low as possible, I watch as Jay leans out the doorway, shooting that wooden gun at some poor soul.

“HIT!” they call out before casually standing up with a hand raised, vanishing onto the trails towards their base or spawn, was it? This whole system of (violent) gameplay isn’t really settling with me, however, I feel as I've been looking at this wrong. I mean, even though it is intense, I can still hear someone laugh from inside while everypony still spoke to each other as if this was a gentle game of shot-put.

It became quiet after that one left.

“What do you think of it?” Big B asks glancing over to me, his voice startles me as I was watching Jay and the girls.

“Back in!” calls out Rainbow dash.

“Uhm, It looks very, uhm-”

“Nerve Wrecking?”

“In a sense, yes…”

“You oughta look more closely,” he points towards the base with an unlit cigar wedged in the metal fingers,

“What else can you see.”

Since the shooting had stopped, it was easier to examine the scene, however, there wasn’t really anything I can see. Aside from talking and commotion, off to our right, I watch several other members of Jay’s team hurry down the trails from their base.

“I don’t-” As I look back at Big B, who nods towards the base.

“-you have a vest on, you can walk in there and check it all out, You won’t be shot at with the vest on.”

“Uhhm, you sure?”

“I’m sure,” he calmly naws on the cigar.

“Okay…” I take the chance, looking both ways double checking that no one else is there.

Cautiously moving forward, I step up to the base. Closing towards one of the entrances, I can see the heavily dented metal outer walls; the wood frames and pallet inner walls are all worn and suffering from the slow decay of the abuse of the natural elements.

Peeking inside, I can see many of the present players, holding the base. Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Jay were among the four closest to me as I walk in.

“Hey, welcome in Shy,” Jay greets, “checking things out?’

“Uhm, Yeah, Big B kinda suggested I walk in here to-” a motor spun followed by the pop of a gun, ending with a loud metal bang on the wall right next to me.

“-eek!” I flinch back into the nearest corner.

I hear a familiar somepony laughing at me, “Ha, made ya jump!”

“Dash!” Rarity scorns

A second later there was a distinct muffled pop of a pistol followed by Rainbow Dash flinching suddenly, clutching her rump, her rifle clatters to the ground, “AAHOW!” she slowly crumbles to the ground holding one of her cheeks, “Buuuck…” she whimpers in between pain-stricken groans.

“Made ya flinch.” I lower my arms to lean to look out at Big B working the slide to his pistol. It has what looks like a long pipe attached to the front of it, “warned you about standing in the opening like that, now get up and head to spawn.” he casually orders, returning the long pistol into a hip holster.

“But she has two more medics,” Rarity peeks out trying to reason to keep her here.

“I think the big guy suggests,” Jay says interjecting, “She should walk it off.”

“I agree…” I glare at Rainbow Dash as she slowly stands up, picks up her rifle before pulling up a dead rag and walks out of the base. Grumbling and quietly cursing at the admin as she slowly limps away.

“Sorry about that darling,” Rarity glances outside then steps over to me, “She was caught up in the flow of things.”

“More like being like some of these jerks,” Jay comments stepping over to another window, watching the trails leading towards the first field.

“It’s, It’s okay, she got what she deserved.”

“Indeed, so, what do you think?”

What a question to ask after that incident.

“Well, uhm-”

“Contact, two on side trails!” Within seconds of hearing him, some distant noises followed with loud impacts against the metal walls.

“Oh no!” I frantically look before watching Jay shooting back before ducking down. I can see BBs fly right through the window right over his head.

“Shy,” Rarity said putting a hand on a shoulder, “Get down.”

Another barrage of impacts added exclamation to her words. Not wanting to leave amidst all this, I simply ducked down beside a wall, praying to Celestia that I don’t get hit through these scarily thin walls! Never could guess that those tiny little BBs would create such a loud sound when fired!

I don’t think I can sink any lower, but I still manage to watch Jay peek up quickly to fire his weapon towards those bad guys. Rarity, steps behind him, bobbed out from behind him doing the same. She is really catching on to this scary sport. After every so shot, while ducking out of the way, she would be reaching towards the back of her Rifle (FAMAS, what a weird name) and wind the clip (or magazine was it?), Jay did explain what that did, but I’m a bit too frightened to remember!

Among these two, I lost track of the three others that were also taking shots back at our-i mean-their attackers. I did hear someone call hit far away over the small, angry machines. Someone just outside the base called hit, then the second attacker took a hit. It went quiet shortly after that.

“Admin, time check!”

“Six minutes, keep it up.”

As fast as the danger came, it went. I still didn’t want to move-

“Shy,” I look up to see Jay walk over to me, “It’s okay now,” He smiles with a hand reaching out to me, “here.”

“Uhm, i-if you say so.” As he helps me back onto my feet, I look around to notice a few other players were watching. Oh goddess, this isn’t embarrassing at all. I turn my head to listen but didn’t hear anything new coming from outside. I should probably get back out and-

“She does know that Admins don’t normally get shot right?” A younger player, about half of J.E’s height, looked over from his perch along the farthest side of the base, one of the side windows overlooking the trails leading towards wherever their team originated from.

“Yeah, we have been telling her that all morning so far.”

“Well-” Rarity says placing a finger to her own lips in thought, “-Not exactly all morning.” she gestures towards me, which she is right, it wasn’t until during the warm-up that someone told me about as long I'm wearing the bright orange i would be safe.

“I understand that,” I spoke up looking from Rarity to everyone else, “It still is pretty crazy.”

“Shouldn’t worry to much,” Jay Says while he steps away from us to crouch beside the large window facing the base one trails; he removes the strange magazine from the bottom of his rifle then produces a speed loader from his gear to reload it.

“We are almost out of time anyway,”

As he spoke, there was some distant racket that catches both of our attention.

“Sounds like our guys caught another push,” J.E. says keeping his eyes towards the direction of the sound, “Betcha anything that they tried to go around to flank us.”

“They tried to what?” The sound of ‘flank us’ really didn’t sound appropriate at all, “you mean-”

“Oh, no, I mean, they tried to go around us to attack from the side, not, yeah.”

“FIVE MINUTES!” calls out Big B.

*******

Rainbow Dash

“Fucking admin, why the hell would he do that?” I grumble as I gently kick the wall of base seven to respawn.

“I was just having fun.” Honestly, they should’ve seen shy the last time I spooked her like that. I mean, when we in our normal forms, it's hilarious to see her jump. Probably the only time in her life that she achieves a higher wing powered is when she gets scared out of her mind.

Well, settled to seeing a human shy squeak like that was just as entertaining. Then, ow, the admin’s handgun. I don’t know why, but I feel honored to be the first out of all of us to get shot by the admin today.

I wonder who is next?

Deciding I would leave Romeo to protect his Juliet, I take the main road (or the main trail was it?) to see what kind of damage I can do before this round ends.

I hear shots fired up ahead, I hurry down the road some more before seeing the exchange going down between my teammates and some neutrals.

However,

As shots came flying by, I hunker down on a side route towards base 5 while looking down the main road towards the obstacles that littered the ground before the large fallen log.

Just ahead, some of my fellow teammates were ducked down behind some brush with two of them pushing up into the cluster of barriers. On the other side, five of the neutrals were pushing hard trying to get around us.

It didn’t take me long to join in on the action. I stood up with rifle leveled and fired several shots towards the wimp trying to walk the steps over the log. One of them made their mark as he stands up with hand raised before walking away. That's a hit!

Stepping out, I push up the road, firing on semi-auto to not only control the fire but make each possible hit more accurate. As the last of the enemies hides behind cover, I lowered my weapon to jog towards the first bit of cover I laid eyes on. A tiny, three wall hut that was facing the log. Getting inside it, there was a single window looking out.

Once there, I kept my eyes on the log.

“Push up!” I hear behind me, the two teammates that were hiding in the brush emerged with weapons up and pushed towards us. I looked around to assess who was around me.

One player in nothing more than just a windbreaker jacket, jeans, and a bulky paintball mask hugs his back against the oak to my front right.

Two players embed themselves among the barriers on the left side to provide a cover of the log and the bend in the main road around it.

A final player, with the fancy rig with the hose sticking out of his gun, pushed ahead with weapon up. Clearing ahead, he checks his left towards some other trails.

“Friendlies on our left, highway!” he calls out before advancing up the steps over the log, reaching the top, he scans ahead of him with his weapon before snapping it towards his right, his weapon quietly popped as he shot at something.

“Contact, three on the right, in the clear-HIT!” he was mid-sentence when he stopped to raise his hand to turn and walk casually towards our spawn.

“Hey, Soldier babe,” The kid in the windbreaker speaks up, “What do you see down there.” he points around the tree towards the log.

“Excuse me, what did you call me?”

“Soldier babe, now whats-”

“I outta shoot ya for that!” I aim my rifle at him, in which he squeaks in fright

“Please don't-”

“It’s clear so far, nothing yet.” I answer his question, “Little shit…”

As I’m about to lower my rifle, contemplating how much time has left a barrage of BBs smacks into outer walls of the hut. I flinch to impacts before sighting in on a pipsqueak peeking around the turn. Three misses later, the kid ducks back.

“Got one around that turn.”

“I thought you said it was clear?!”

“I did, now they came back!”

I waited for the neutral to lean out again, but for some reason I see shots coming out of the bush that makes part of that corner-

“Shit!” I duck down as shots clatter around my little hut.

I stand up, about to shoot out the window when I hear two guns sound off to my left. Looking over I see my teammates drilling the corner. It wasn’t long when I hear the sound of a hit being called.

“Now is it clear?”

“Yes, now it is.” I think it was time to step away from this wooden death trap. As soon as I did though- Something slams into the side of my helmet with a loud audible crack on the hardened plastic. Stumbling from the surprise, I take a knee while looking around to see where that came from. Obviously the little bucker vanished!

“HIT!” I call out reaching for the sky before standing up to walk back to spawn.

AGAIN!

*******

Pinkie Pie

I already have placed myself over on the other side of this field after the game started. It was easy, no one really noticed me yet! Speaking of which, I keep hearing this flat, dried up creek bed being called highway; huh, it’s kinda confusing because this isn’t or doesn’t look like a highway that I know of. Oh well, if these humans know it as such, I can describe it the same way.

Right as I hear Dashy call her hit, I look forward, noticing movement just ahead of me on the other side of the large fallen log. It looks very overgrown with blackberry vines growing more wildly than the mane on yours truly.

Just after that, I see someone move around in the brush, I do believe the other team is trying to move around fellow the party squad to my right to, what was that? Flank, right; to flank around to get the drop on them.

I and the two others behind me have something to say about that!

“Looks like they are moving left onto Highway,” One of my teammates have just said, “Lets-”

“GET 'EM!” I didn’t like the idea of waiting for them to come around the wall of brush just to let them shoot at us. I’ll go ahead and surprise them by meeting them! I run up the trail in front of me following the weaving footpath up and around some old tree debris. Just as I’m about to reach the other side of the log, I hear the rattle of those BB spitting machines.

Perceiving what didn’t get stopped by the bushes between us. I duck low with both pistols popping like mini poppers.

“Contact, highway!” calls out one of those pesky players. Soon, It seemed instantaneously actually, more of those machines started spitting more BBs my way.

“I don’t think so!” I say before breaking into a run further up the trail till I found an outlet trail that gets me the heck out of here and more towards those guys. All the while white specks of plastic fly close by me. They can’t seem to hit anything-

“Aww, HIT!” a neutral player took a hit from friendly fire as the others shoot at me. As I bound for them, I can count three backing away from me and attempt to go around the half tree. One of these silly players scrambles up the steps over the log before getting hit as he reaches the top.

I level the CYMAs at the remaining two, sending free bbs at them. Both of them call hit just as more of them, blazing away at me. Oh boy, this isn’t going to help me win this if I don't’ do something fancy to get the advantage!

THAT'S RIGHT, I notice the hole in the ground close to this main path. Sending more free plastic at them, I dash for the hole in the ground. It looks like some big shovel had punched the earth to make this.

Either way, enough scenery explanation! Closing in on the hole, I leap off the ground into a sideways dive with handguns popping at them as I land inside the hole. The ground in this world is harder in comparison to the ground back home.

During my dive, I managed to knock one of them on the helmet before vanishing into the mentioned hole. Two more, that I noticed before hoof, close in, one of them shooting at the dirt around my little foxhole. You know, it kinda does act like one…

I stand up to pop shots at them.

They both call their hit right as the horn blares in the distance near our captured base.

“WOOWHOO!” I cheer climbing back out of the hole.

Author's Note

Most games on this field are sometimes repeats of some games but depending on how long some of them are, we just switch bases. Pretty basic.

The CYMA 030 handguns are a very rare model of pistol, not to mention one of the few battery-powered handguns replicas to get your hands on. they are still in stock and sold on few websites but for very steep prices. So the jab about the pain of finding those guns is really based on the harsh task to locate one, let alone have the money to get two!