Predator 3

"Wow can you believe they skinned Flash like that? That must have been gross to watch!" Pinkie Pie said to Rarity as the mares tracked their way through the forest, following their way along side the lava flow.

"Darling!" Rarity protested the topic of conversation.

Up ahead Applejack walked along side Twilight Sparkle. "Do you mind telling me what in the hay Lieutenant Sentry is doing as a part of a so called friendship delegation? Something tells me this was no ordinary friendship problem." she demanded.

"You know friendship missions can get dangerous, Jack." Twilight Sparkle retorted curtly.

"If I'm going to be putting my mares in harm's way you gotta do me better than that, sugar cube!" Applejack growled.

"Flash and I were very close, Jack. Very close. Do you understand what I'm saying? I wish I could give you more but I can't. There's two ponies we need to rescue and they have loved ones too. So let's get it done." The two mares slowly tracked further away as they continued forward.

"Hey! I think I see the village!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed as she came swooping down and landed on point. Twilight Sparkle signaled for Rainbow Dash to be quiet and Rainbow Dash then cocked her head to one side and slowly crept forward toward a fallen log. All seven mares lined up and peered carefully over the log. Applejack signaled to Pinkie Pie who passed her another pair of balloon binoculars.

"This doesn't look like a village, Twilight." Applejack whispered. "Looks more like some kind of paramilitary camp." Applejack peered around the camp. It was down at the bottom of a shallow drop in the terrain from their position. It was swarming with crystal ponies and some yaks. She panned over just in time to see a stallion bound and being interrogated. Before she could say anything one of the crystal ponies interrogating him swung a blade at his neck and blood spurt forth as he slumped forward lifelessly. Applejack passed the balloon binoculars over to Twilight Sparkle. "They just executed one of those delegates." Applejack sighed.

"Then we need to do something fast before they execute the other one." Twilight Sparkle whispered as she surveyed the camp.

Applejack dished out orders to the rest of the team in the form of hoof signals. "I count about twenty of em'" Applejack whispered to Twilight Sparkle.

Rainbow Dash took flight and perched in a tall tree closer to the camp. Rarity pulled a spool of thick, metallic thread from her saddlebag. Starlight Glimmer quickly crunched down a falafel wrap and Pinkie Pie set up her party canon behind the fallen log.

Rarity, Fluttershy and Starlight Glimmer quietly crept down the hillside and assumed a concealed position at the base of a stockade at the edge of the camp that was manned by three crystal stallions.

"On my mark, Pinkie." Applejack whispered to Pinkie Pie as she crept down the hill toward a break in the crudely constructed wall surrounding the camp.

"What's your mark?" Pinkie Pie whispered as she popped up behind Applejack.

"You'll know it when you see it." Applejack whispered back with a wink. Pinkie Pie acknowledged with a salute and popped up back behind the party canon.

As one of the guards wandered further down the stockade Rarity popped up and pulled him down below; using her magic to hold the metallic thread against his throat as a garrote. She concentrated hard as the pony struggled until he fell limp and lifeless. Rarity then cocked her head to signal to Fluttershy that another guard was heading closer to her position. Fluttershy quickly popped up and clamped her teeth tight against his throat, pulling him down off the stockade. The guard struggled hard and Fluttershy whipped her head to the side, tearing a hole in his throat.

"Sorry." Fluttershy quietly whispered as the guard gurgled and agonized, unable to breathe as he bled out.

Starlight Glimmer jumped up onto the stockade beside the final guard. She quickly cast a glowing blue isolation bubble around him. He bucked against the isolation bubble and yelled but he was completely silent from the outside. Starlight Glimmer smirked devilishly as she slowly contracted the isolation bubble, crushing the stallion inside. His mangled corpse fell lifelessly to the ground as the isolation bubble disappeared.

"What the hay is she doing?" Twilight Sparkle whispered to herself; watching as Applejack crept up to a table where a crystal pony and a yak were sitting and playing checkers. Twilight Sparkle quietly started advancing toward the camp and Pinkie Pie kept watching eagerly for her signal.

Applejack bucked her hind legs at the table, flipping the checker board and all of the pieces onto the ground. Taking it as her signal Pinkie Pie set off the party canon and with a loud explosion its payload flew into a nearby hut which then exploded into a cloud of confetti, debris, and severed limbs. Applejack bucked the yak at the table with her hind hooves and the sound of cracking bone filled the air as she propelled herself from there toward the crystal pony, pinning her to the ground before snuffing her life out with a front hoof to the face.

Noticing the commotion, five crystal ponies charged rapidly towards Applejack's position. Rainbow Dash came swooping past and in a streak of rainbow and blood her wing blades decapitated two of them and she spun to the ground entangled in a third as one of her wing blades became stuck in his abdomen.

"Yak smash!" A large burly yak charged at Rainbow Dash from the sidelines but Twilight Sparkle quickly soared in and struck him with a blast of magic from her horn before landing and facing off against the remaining two ponies. One of the remaining crystal ponies jumped on top of Twilight Sparkle and held her down as Rarity charged in and pulled him off with her garrote thread and Fluttershy jumped in and clamped her teeth around the throat of the other.

Three unicorns popped out from a hut at the back of the camp and started firing magical blasts at the team as they all scrambled behind an overturned cart for cover.

"Those aren't crystal ponies!" Applejack shouted to Twilight Sparkle who offered no reply.

Pinkie Pie lobbed another payload from the party canon at the unicorns, causing them to explode into a shower of blood and confetti.

The remaining inhabitants of the camp began fleeing toward the woods. Starlight Glimmer began sending a rapid volley of magical bolts from her horn, striking and killing two of them but the rest escaped.

"Good work girls." Twilight Sparkle said with a smug smile as the team started surveying the camp.

"Uh, Twilight!" Applejack called out and Twilight Sparkle joined her in what appeared to be the command tent of the camp. Another stallion in Canterlot Guard armor lay lifeless and bloodied on the floor. "This wasn't a friendship delegation was it?"

"We've completed the mission. Spike, send a letter to Princess Celestia requesting immediate evac at this location." Twilight Sparkle ordered.

"I'm glad somepony finally noticed that I was here this whole time!" Spike huffed as he sauntered out of the tent.

Applejack aggressively pounced at Twilight Sparkle, knocking her to her back and pinning her down. "There was no friendship mission here was there!?" She shouted angrily.

"These ponies were part of The Sleepless Dusk, a radical Crystal Empire separatist group." Twilight explained, short on breath as she struggled to get out from under Applejack. Applejack got off of Twilight Sparkle and turned around.

"I can't believe you, Twilight. You used us to carry out your dirty work."

"Wake up and see the truth, Jack. We're assets. We're expendable assets." Twilight Sparkle lectured. "These terrorists were trying to start a war between the Crystal Empire and Yakyakistan and we just took out their forward operating base."

"Not one of my mares is expendable!" Applejack shouted as she headed toward the exit of the tent.

Both mares were stopped by the sound of a cough coming from underneath a pile of debris and after a frantic dig they found Sunburst laying battered beneath.

"Sunburst, what in tar nation are you doing with a bunch of terrorists?" Applejack quizzed.

"It's not what it looks like!" He pleaded.

"I'm taking you back to Princess Celestia for a full interrogation." Twilight Sparkle said.

"Um, Twilight?" Spike popped into the tent.

"What is it, Spike?"

"Princess Celestia says recon has picked up Sleepless Dusk forces closing on our position. She won't risk landing a balloon here and we're to proceed to the extraction point as originally planned." Spike explained.

"Well then he's just going to slow us down!" Applejack pulled a blade from her saddlebag and moved toward Sunburst.

"We need to know what he was doing here!" Twilight Sparkle stepped in the way.

"Fine. He's your responsibility then." Applejack huffed as she put the blade away.

The entire scene was not without a spectator; the same one that watched as they entered the volcanic chasm. It watched carefully from a distance as eight heat signatures crept away from the camp, Twilight Sparkle's remained. The unseen observer slowly crept closer but paused and cocked its head in confusion as she began to sing in a melancholy tone and music began to play seemingly from nowhere.

"This used to be my team
and I never did them wrong

They used to stand by me
and they used to sing along.

I left them for my crown
and used them for its sake.

I've really let them down
and put their lives at stake.

What kind of Princess of Friendship can I truly be?
When no pony remains that puts their trust in me."

A dark, teardrop shape streaked down the infrared vision of the silent, unseen observer as Twilight Sparkle broke off into a melancholy chorus.