Joe POV:

I was walking down an alley, looking at the bottle of booze in my hand, wondering whether it'll actually numb the pain, when an IMC Grunt walked past me. He stopped dead in his tracks, turning to look at me. I looked right at him, and held up the bottle. He looked frightened as he accepted the bottle.

"So." I said, startling him a bit. "What made you join the IMC?" I asked, the alcohol slurring my voice. He looked down at the bottle before taking a swig.

"My father wanted me to." He said, and I chuckled. We both sat down, backs to two adjacent walls.

"My father wanted me to be a bloody psychiatrist. Me! Out of the three of his children he picked me to be destined to be a doctor." I said, drawing a chuckle from the grunt. "Then the IMC killed him." I said, dragging the conversation's mood into darkness. He looked up from the bottle to look at me. "I'm going to be honest with you here and say that I don't want to kill you. But I will if you tell your superiors that I'm here." He paled quite a bit. He pushed a duffel bag he was carrying over to me with his foot.

"What's this?" I asked him. He looked at me with pity, and something akin to empathy. He stood up, offering me the bottle.

"Sheep's clothing." He said. I pushed his hand, still holding the bottle, towards him.

"You'll need this more than me son." I said, getting up and carrying the bag into the dark alleyway.

By the time I got back to Sunset's place, the sun was rising and I felt like shit. No, not the 'hungover' shit. The 'regretting being a total arse' shit.

I'm used to hangovers.

I knocked on the door, hoping I wouldn't be outside for too long. The door opened to reveal Sunset with a deadpan 'seriously?' look on her face.

"I'm sorry. I was totally off my arse last night but that doesn't excuse my actions towards you and the others. I got something you just might like to see." I said, confusing her enough to let me in. I set the duffel on a coffee table in the middle of her living room, unzipping it as I did so.

"I ran into an IMC doubter last night." I said to her, pulling out freshly washed IMC Pilot clothes and armor pieces. "He gave me this. Must've been doing a pilot's dry cleaning under threat of either pain or death. Hard to tell with most of those Arsehole Pilots these days." I held up a freshly polished helmet, and pulled the radio from it, I needed to establish a connection between this helmet and mine. I heard Sunset clear her throat. I looked over to her to see her holding up a bra that was sitting in the bag as well.

"Great. You look like you're about her size. Get suited up, I have to do something. Do you have any tools and paint?" I said. She nodded and pointed to a door. I opened it to reveal a stairway leading down to a basement. I went down into the basement, and turned the lights on to see a hobbyists dream. Paints of various kinds lined the walls, and tools were all set up on a table in the center of the room.

I took off my helmet and stared at it for what seemed like an eternity. It was my first helmet I ever got as a pilot. Was I really willing to go through with this plan? I glanced down at my SRS and 6-4 patches on my left and right shoulder. I looked back to the helmet, popped the top off a can of spray paint, and went to work.

Five hours later, I had successfully changed my Militia and 6-4 colored armor to look like custom IMC Pilot armor. I didn't want to do it, but I had to do it in order to avoid having to kill everything on sight. I applied one of many Apex Predator patches I had taken off my various kills over the course of my career as a Pilot.

I walked upstairs, opening the door, only to slam it shut again.

"For God's sake woman! Put the shirt on already!" I said through the door to the topless Sunset Shimmer.

"It feels like I stole these from someone!" She objected. I groaned at my horrible luck.

"You didn't. And if you want to help liberate your planet, you will put those clothes on. And you will help me get six more sets of IMC Pilot clothes." I said, determination clear in my voice. I could practically hear her confusion on the other side of the door.

"Why do you need six more..." She trails off as I assumed she just figured out what my plan was. I hear multiple sounds of cloth and armored plating shuffle around before she spoke again. "Alright, you can open the door again." She said. I opened it to see Sunset wearing the entire suit but had the helmet off for the time being. "How do I look?" She asked me. I smirked slightly.

"Like one of the bad guys." I said, gaining a chuckle from her. "There's only... one problem." I said to her. She looked at me quizzically.

"Your hair is too long." I said to her. She looked at me, slight panic in her expression.

"No it isn't!" She objected, grabbing at her hair that reached her shoulders. I shook my head.

"All pilots have short hair for a reason, try to put the helmet on." I told her. I watched as she tried to get the helmet to seal off to the rest of the suit but her hair wasn't letting the seal finalize. Eventually she took off the helmet, put her hair up in a bun, and tried again. After several more minutes of her trying (And failing) to put the helmet on, I was standing by with a comb and a pair of scissors.

"It's impossible." She said in a frustrated tone, setting the helmet down on a table next to her. She looked to me, and what I was holding, and seemed to have an internal struggle.

"You're not going bald, I can leave enough hair on your head to style and look good" I told her, gesturing to an empty chair in front of a mirror. "Now, I've done this for more than a few wide-eyed recruits, so what kind of haircut do you want?" I asked.

Thirty minutes later, I had finished the hair cut. Sunset looked at the mirror, staring at her reflection. She had a standard Militia haircut, as in she looked like a Tomboy with red and yellow highlights.

"What do you think?" I asked her. She glanced over to the helmet and put it on, I heard the suit seal off and watched as the helmet activated its HUD as her visor turned red. She turned her head to the mirror once more.

"I think I'm ready to fight for my people." She said. I nodded, muttering under my breath one sentence that I had no idea she'd hear.

"Welcome to the Militia."

Time Skip: One Week

After a week of undercover work, and persuading five girls to get their hair cut, (Mostly Rarity) we had finally procured weapons and planned out our infiltration of the Titan Manufacturing Complex or TMC for short.

The seven girls and I were walking through the hangar doors of the complex, only for me to pause in front of a MRVN with an empty cargo trolley next to him. I looked at the girls, who at the time were struggling with the weight of the batteries. I looked back to the MRVN.

"Yo Marvin!" I shouted to the robot. He looked over at us and saluted, signifying that he was ready to receive orders. "Put these batteries on the trolley and follow us." He did as I asked and we were then moving at a much faster pace. We bypassed several standard issue titans and headed to a large bulkhead door with the Apex Predator symbol on it. I looked over to another MRVN and nodded. He saluted and pulled a large switch.

The massive bulkhead door slowly ground open, revealing several unlinked Titans. They were Titans that belonged to mercenaries, not the IMC, so they should only have protocol's one and three. We walked over to an IMC Grunt holding a shipping manifest, he turned to us and sighed tiredly.

"Finally!" He exclaimed. "I was wondering when you eight would show up! We got seven Titans ready to go once you put your batteries in them, but the eighth one over there's got no data core." He said, pointing to my favorite kind of Titan. I pulled out a data core I had on me since before I landed on this planet.

"You let me worry about that son, get these seven green girls the basic package. Mercenary protocols." I said, walking over to the massive Titan, climbing up it's massive frame, before inserting the data core in the empty socket before placing the cover over it, making several smaller lights turn on.

"Power on, adjusting lens... Hello Joseph." Said the deep voice of the Scorch Titan. I patted the Titan on the chassis.

"It's been awhile buddy. Been a long while." I said, entering the colossal mech. "Marking seven as friendlies. You know this, I left your audio and video receptors in your AI Core on since before we started this mission." I said, adjusting the straps in the cockpit. "Try not to let the IMC know we're not Apex Predators, okay?" I say to the Titan as I open his hatch, revealing me to the outside world.

"Woah! We look awesome!" Yelled Rainbow Dash as she posed in a Northstar Titan, hands rested on her hips. Fluttershy managed to make her Brute Titan look as uncomfortable as she was, shuffling and looking at the floor. Applejack managed to get the hang of her Legion, it's massive gun now in her hands. Twilight took on a Titan I hadn't expected. I looked over to her to see a Ronin examining its' sword, and the hatch opened to reveal Ms. Sparkle herself. Sunset had an Ion that looked like it could take some major damage. Rarity was complaining about how her Tone looked, with a 'Garish' and 'Abhorrent' paint scheme. Pinkie Pie was dancing around in a Ronin, phasing in and out of reality on a dime.

To this day, I could never figure out whether she'd taken a modified Ronin, or if it was just Pinkie being Pinkie.

Then we heard a voice over the Apex radio frequency.

"Oi! You eight! Get over 'ere now! I got a job for you!" Said a familiar Aussie...

Blisk.

Author's Note

I'm not dead! Just doing college stuff! Also, B-Day stuff... yay... and stuff.

Hope you like this new addition to the story! Lemme know down in the comments.