Blindsided

This was normally the part where Cirrus would have told her this was a silly idea, and to take it slow and figure things out before trying to do everything herself. She wasn’t here now, though – a fact that Lazuli only focused on in the sense that she needed to right the wrongs she had inflicted on her beloved, despite having been able to do nothing to stop it in the first place. Some part of her mind tried to tell her that was the case, but every other part was saying this was the only way to make it right.

It wasn’t like Steel could hold her back, or block her from entering the base. His order to sleep hadn’t been an official one, and even if it was, he had no proof she hadn’t. He would have been right in his assumption that her idea of ‘sleep’ was closing her eyes for twenty minutes and then getting up, but she didn’t really care what he thought right now. The base was also twenty minutes away from the city, built into its own part of the mountain and connected by strong metal bridges, so it took her a bit to get there – most of that time was spent brooding.

She walked past the security checkpoint with no greeting to the guard who maintained it. She didn’t even know them – she almost never came in at night, despite most of her missions taking place in the evening or nighttime. She bypassed most of the stations she normally did, her tired eyes focused solely in front of her as she headed to the records room.

At some point her memory completely shorted out. One moment she was walking through the hall, the next she was sitting at a table in the middle of shelves of folders and boxes, the musty smell of mildew and probably rotting wood and paper filling her nostrils. She had pulled whatever files she could find from the shelves that had any relation to Ayize, or her organization – which it turned out, the military had more information about than she previously knew, and it was all within her clearance level. She was glad to have picked up a small cup of coffee on the way in, because it was the only thing keeping her focused, and she hated coffee.

Photos, articles, official reports, arrest warrants and even test scores. All of them littered the table, reminding any normal pony of something out of a deranged stalker’s wall of victims connected with hooftacks and red string, but to Lazuli it was nothing but information. Pure evidence, the likes of which was more than enough to have put Ayize behind bars over ten years ago, and it made Lazuli’s blood boil.

Stemming all the way from when Ayize was only sixteen there were arrest reports and documentation of her excessively anti-social behaviour. Charges ranged from as harmless as shoplifting a loaf of bread to aggravated assault, but most of the time she had gotten off easy; one report even mentioned her disability as a reason for it. Lazuli cared very little for whatever had set the zebra on her path. All she cared about right now was finding her.

But for all the information they had on her, nothing actually would have led anywhere. Any locations and affiliations were more than a year old, and given how Ayize seemingly used different locations every few days from what Lazuli had seen, this wouldn’t help her. After two hours of combing through every folder she could find, she had to seriously resist the temptation to tear everything to shreds whenever it didn’t give her something useful. She nearly did, twice. She once settled for spilling a few drops of coffee on one corner of the paper. “Take that, fucking paper…” Lazuli grumbled to herself, then sipped from her cup again.

Lazuli was uncertain of the time. She wasn’t even sure if it was the same day, anymore. She knew she wasn’t that hungry, so she must have eaten within the last…something hours, she thought to herself, so as long as she wasn’t going to pass out from malnutrition or dehydration she was fine. It got to the point that she had created a second layer of papers on the desk, some of them dropping to the floor, boxes piled at the side of her to replace the already viewed papers once she was done with them. She would have felt bad for whatever pony had to organize all of this when she was done, but she knew these reports were so old they would be disposed of soon anyway.

It unnerved her that there weren’t any recent ones. The latest report of any worth was from over a year ago, and the absolute newest one was in relation to a string of bank robberies that were suspected to be perpetrated by her organization, but with no proof. It was at this point that Lazuli reached the last box she could find, and her last gulp of coffee.

This box was the most recent one, dated just over four months ago. She opened it, not caring very much as papers fell to the floor beneath the weight of the new ones. She started to look through them, leaning on her fabric-covered hoof to keep herself from drifting.

These reports were more about her organization – the criminal one – than Ayize herself, but reading each line had Lazuli growing more and more awake. She was realizing, with this one set of folders, that Ayize had far more at her disposal than she realized.

The first folder was all pictures. Each one made Lazuli more frantic. First, a picture of a weapons cache found in an old warehouse of theirs. Heavy weapons, the caliber of which was more than enough to shred through armour. The next one showed airships, an entire hangar of them, or at least an entire hangar’s worth, hidden in a secluded facility in the forest. The pictures went on to show more weapons, military-quality armour, equipment and even some odd contraption that Lazuli assumed had to be an invention of Ayize’s, some sort of exoskeleton that the notes mentioned would fit an equine form perfectly, while bolstering strength and speed.

The report when on to document how they couldn’t determine where Ayize was getting all of her resources, not to mention the raw materials needed to create and even mass-produce all of her inventions. There were photos of prisoners with their eyes blotted out, every one of them sporting some sort of cybernetic augmentation.

Then there were photos of Ayize herself. These were of a lower quality, as many were taken from further away or from hidden positions. One of them showed her on a security camera, a series of photos detailing her charging into a guard, then repeatedly bashing his head into the concrete until it was completely smashed open. The notes indicated the pictures were still images from camera footage taken at a motor parts manufacturer.

Lazuli blinked, then scrambled to pick up some of the other papers she had been sifting through. It took her a while to find, but she located the report about the bank robberies. No paper bills had been taken, and none of the money was ever seen again. Lazuli flipped back through the newer reports, realizing that Ayize had only ever stolen metal – specifically to build up her organization. Once she had Kiama and Green Motors under her belt, though, she didn’t need to steal anymore. Ponies donated, even provided grants so they could purchase the materials they needed. Higher quality, and less suspicion…

That much was cleared up. Now Lazuli knew why there weren’t any more recent reports…but she was still at a loss on where she could find Ayize, and moreso, she was confused as to why Steel or anyone else would keep this information from her. She deemed it fairly important that she would be told about what kinds of weapons and equipment she could be going up against, and if this was what they had abandoned in warehouses, she could only imagine what they had now.

The last folder in the recent pile detailed theories and possible steps moving forward to track them down. This was far more useful to Lazuli, and she read through it diligently. Unfortunately, most of it was just conjecture. The only solid evidence they had was that Ayize might house herself in a massive complex in the Badlands between Zebrica and Equestria, but satellite scans of the wasteland turned up nothing. She wasn’t surprised, in all honesty, and the Badlands were an enormous place – she was just horribly disappointed to not find anything.

The realization came to her, however, that Ayize couldn’t have gone far. Since she had shot Cirrus – the reminder of that made Lazuli shudder – the Guard had been on high alert the entire time. An airship would have never been allowed to enter leave the city without screening, and the Guard would be keeping an eye out. Murder, or even that of the attempted variety, was not taken lightly in the capital city of Equestria, and although Lazuli hated to admit it was a factor, it was especially heinous when committed by a zebra. Lazuli had no such prejudice, or she liked to think so, but it was an unfortunate side effect of international relations.

She stood up, nearly slipping on papers littering the floor. She had managed to keep most of them somewhat grouped together on the table, so she returned them – messily – to their folders and their respective boxes. She didn’t have the patience to pick up all the paper though, or to put the boxes back. She knew it made her a bit of a jerk, but she liked to think that tracking down a murderous criminal was perhaps a bit more important.

It was at this point, though, that the world decided it had enough of Lazuli trying to do things – or that was how Lazuli saw it, anyway, in her sleep-deprived and caffeine-fueled mind. The lights in the records room went red and began to flash, a loud siren sounding throughout the halls and the outer reaches of the base. A voice came over the loudspeaker that she was only somewhat familiar with during emergency drills – authoritative, female, and almost frantic this time.

“All available units, this facility is under attack.” The voice said. “This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. Report to your commanding officer and gear up for combat.”

“Fuck.” Lazuli was at least shocked awake by that. The sleepiness in her eyes was whisked away by fresh adrenaline, and she threw open the records room door to a hallway of chaos. Ponies who had only ever had to engage in such defensive action in drills that were forewarned and practiced were panicking, forgetting where to go and bumping into each other. Eventually they fell in line, but the confusion was only made worse by the muffled sound of an explosion above and the rattling of the hallway around them. Lazuli took it upon herself to start pushing through the crowds, the drowsiness in her limbs mostly forgotten and her only objective being to get outside and see what was happening. Since she was an operative with no proper position during drills, she could only do what she thought was best to help.

With a fair deal of squeezing through the throngs of military ponies in various states of readiness – going from completely unclothed to fully geared up and armed as she got closer to the doors – she managed to reach the entrance and pushed through it, out into the courtyard. At the end of the courtyard was a burning crater filled with rubble, the main entrance having been collapsed to make it so vehicles couldn’t enter from the city. Right as Lazuli exited the building a pair of heavily armoured airships flew overhead, with a very familiar zebra leaning out of the side of one of them with a megaphone. She was protected by what looked like a magic shield, bullets skimming off of the dome around her body.

“Ponies, zebras, and whatever other gullible idiots joined this place when they were old enough.” Ayize’s voice yelled, projected through speakers on the airship’s underbelly as it circled around the courtyard. “It’s in your best interest to surrender, or I can and will send this entire base crashing down this mountain.” An explosive shell rocketed past the airship’s rotor, narrowly avoiding taking it out entirely. “And since I know none of you are gonna do that, I just felt like telling you that you had the option would soothe my aching heart.” Ayize shut the door to the airship as a magic blast was fired from a pair of unicorns on top of one of the buildings, hitting the door and leaving a black scorch mark but nothing else.

Lazuli’s eyes narrowed. She had to get to that airship – but there was no way she could do it now. Already, more of the flying vehicles were invading the base’s airspace, and only now were the crews manning the cannons getting to their positions. The false sense of security in Equestria had made everyone on the base lazy, so once they finally began to repel the ships entering the base, there were dozens already flying around. Their doors opened, and numerous ponies, zebras and even the occasional griffon dropped down, all of them sporting some sort of cybernetic augment that gave them an advantage over an individual Equestrian soldier.

Lazuli knew she couldn’t take to the air, or at least not above the buildings. She did jump up and start flying, though, to move as fast as possible towards the armory where she could at least get some weapon besides her sidearm. The pistol at her hip would be virtually useless in a firefight like this, and already she could hear the cracking of guns firing back at the invaders.

She skidded around a corner and launched off the wall to keep herself from flying past her target, jumping through the armory door and pulling it shut behind her. The clang of the metal door shutting made a few of the soldiers in the building look up, then go back to frantically putting on their armour and grabbing weapons. This is disorganized as hell, Lazuli thought.

It was then that Lazuli saw one of the only familiar ponies in the whole base, to her. Steel Resolve was in the corner, having a smaller unicorn stallion – Brittle Saddle, if she remembered his name right – help him put on his armour. Being a Pegasus with quite a bit of extra weight that his wings weren’t designed to carry, Steel had long forgone nimble and lightweight armour for what was likely the heaviest set on the base. Recruits had even made it a challenge to try and wear it, though usually it dragged on the ground when they tried. His whole body was covered from neck to hoof in gleaming metal armour, held tight with straps that Brittle was struggling to pull back all the way. Steel saw Lazuli out of the corner of his eye, and his expression went from simply serious and focused to stern and almost angry.

“Lazuli!” Steel’s voice barked, shifting from his more friendly commander tone to a much harsher battlefield call. “What in Celestia’s yellow sun are you doing here?!”

“Not the time to ask, Steel.” Lazuli dashed past him, throwing open the (almost tiny) cabinet where Dracony armaments were kept. Draconies in the Equestrian army were one in a hundred thousand – that ratio probably wasn’t too far off, actually. She was fairly sure that, in terms of active personnel, she was the only one at this base. Her tail quickly clipped into the strap of a sharp spaded blade, and she attached a specialized magic-powered weapon to the other side of her tail that fired quick bursts of energy. It wasn’t as effective as a ballistic weapon, but it was better than her pistol.

“Lazuli, if you think- gah, fucking hell, Brittle, that’s tight enough- if you think you’re going out there, you’re even more sleep deprived than I thought.”

“You’re not stopping me, Steel.”

“I swear on Celestia’s bright orange flames, if you get yourself killed…”

“When have I gotten killed on the battlefield, Steel?” Lazuli continued to tightly strap the weapons to her tail.

“Wh- Lazuli, you’re not thinking straight. You better not do something stupid.” Steel lifted his helmet over his head, pulling down the bulletproof visor and making his body almost entirely covered in plating that made him look like a walking tank. His wings were covered in plated metal that bent with his movements, allowing him to essentially act like a massive shield.

“Same to you, or something.” Lazuli mumbled, the sounds of explosions and gunfire significantly muffled by the strong walls of the armory. Steel reared up on his hind legs, bringing his fores crashing down on the ground before galloping out the door, throwing it open and bursting out into the courtyard. The thundering of his hooves made the ground shake slightly, until he was out of the area.

Lazuli flicked the switch on the firearm, hissing in slight pain as a sharp, sterile needle jabbed itself into her tail to connect with her nerves. It allowed her to fire it on thought alone, which was how a good deal of weaponry worked for Equestrians – primarily non-unicorns.

She decided to leave through the same door as Steel, but the sight alone was enough to nearly make her freeze on the spot. It was all familiar to her. The gunfire, the screams of both foolhardy readiness to fight and of pain inflicted within the first minutes of fighting, the sight of ponies, both enemies and allies, falling with various horrific injuries – she had seen it all before, and it still struck her to the core.

But she shook it off. It had been years since she had been in a full-on battle like this. In open space, it was never a good idea to stand still, and most of her experience as an operative had all been closed-quarters fighting where none of her opponents had time to pull a gun. Now everyone had guns, most of them just firing at whatever moved, and Lazuli had an inclination that Ayize’s forces weren’t going to take prisoners.

The first pony that she had to deal with was a Pegasus swooping in from above. His wings were both made of metal, and as he dove down towards Lazuli he flared them out. Near the point where they connected to his body, they folded open, revealing two sets of mini-explosives that he fired at Lazuli with impunity. Or he would have, anyway, if she hadn’t raised her tail over her head and fired a bolt of blue energy at his wing, the electricity from the strike sending a pulse through to the explosives and detonating them in his wings. The look of horror on his face was only momentary before the explosion engulfed him.

Lazuli winced, holding up one of her wings to shield herself before she ran forward. She needed to figure out where Ayize was – she knew the focus shouldn’t be just on her, but taking out the leader meant…well…no leadership. Right now her mind was just working on a logic basis. She wasn’t a soldier, she wasn’t meant for open combat. Her job was to get in, take out someone important, and get out. The final part would wait until the battle was truly over, but she knew what her orders would have been if this was an enemy’s base she was in.

The fighting wasn’t contained to the courtyard, but it was the biggest area, and likely the most dangerous. She had to duck behind a concrete divider to hide while she searched for a place to get away – but as she did, she was overwhelmed by another thought.

What she was doing…it was deserting, just like she had in the war with the griffons. She was running away, avoiding the fighting to save herself.

But…no, she reminded herself. That wasn’t what she was doing. Back then, she had hid and done nothing. Now, she was running away so she could find the one responsible and put an end to it. She wasn’t abandoning.

The thought lingered in the back of her mind, but for now, she needed to act. Once the heat on her side of the courtyard had waned slightly, she dashed out from behind the divider and ducked into a space between two of the buildings. Once she rounded a corner, she was no longer in sight of the courtyard, and could hopefully single out a fighter from Ayize’s crew to find out where she was.