Chapter 19:
Enemies

"Adjust by two clicks." Rainbow and I were sitting in the snowed-over treeline, me watching through a set of binoculars on a tripod and Dash behind my rifle. We both had a ghillie suit on adjusted to fit into the snowy landscape, having made it with mostly white pieces of cloth as opposed to the more green one I still had laying about.

“Adjusted by two clicks,” Rainbow confirmed after having adjusted the scope, her eyes never having left where she'd been aiming. Her breathing was controlled and calm as she kept the rifle lined up for another shot.

BANG!

The round was sent flying off to the target nearly a kilometre away, the two of us watching its path as it went to one of the targets I'd set up a while before starting the exercise with Rainbow. I was very thankful for the specially enchanted earplugs that would only stop loud noises, they were immensely useful and it was another innovation I would never have thought of with my lack of magic knowledge.

“Hit,” I simply said as the bullet struck true. “Second target, fifteen hundred metres. Calculate your shot.” I waited as Rainbow had to do the mental math to calculate the adjustment. It hadn't been easy to get Dash to a point where she could actually make the calculation but she'd gotten it down well enough by sheer repetition and creative teaching techniques that we could now actually fire some of my precious ammo, not the blanks that I'd had the development team make. The pegasus turned the dial on top of the scope and once again took aim, relaxing her breath before firing.

BANG

Once again the bullet flew true, hitting the second, further, target almost exactly dead centre. “Hit. Well done, we're packing up shop and returning back to basecamp.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, taking my rifle and pushing it into a custom made bag and pulling the straps tight as she secured it around her barrel.

I was the one that took point on the way back, having set up another surprise for us before we'd pack up and fly back to Baltimare. Rainbow had one of the first prototype rifles hanging around her neck on a sling, a pony made bolt action. The production of the rifle had gone into full swing, the process totally being taken out of my claws which gave me some time off to spend with Rainbow.

Honestly, the things weren't finished a moment too soon. The griffins, not seeing any negotiation coming from the Equestrians as they'd probably hoped, had pushed forward. Rainbow Fall's garrison had been badly overwhelmed, if the few guards there were captured or killed wasn't known. Manehattan had followed soon after but there the guard had dug in deep. From the reports we were getting... Well, it wasn't good. If the city fell the foal mountains and the thestral settlement of Hollow Shades would be the the only thing standing in the way of the open plain leading all the way to Canterlot.

The civilian population had been being evacuated from the city as the fighting got heavier and heavier by the hour. How the griffins were capable of supplying themselves with both manpower and matirials was a question that had been irking me for a while now as I hadn't seen any really major industries in Griffonstone, they had to get ammo, powder, and replacement rifles from somewhere.

Things aren't adding up and I'm sure the Princesses are onto that too. I'll have to discuss it with them when I next see them.

"CONTACT! Two o'clock, forty metres, two targets!" I roared as I arrived at the pre-prepared site. Rainbow immediately whirled around and let off a shot, dropping low before firing another two shots at the targets. I too fired the first few shots at them with a pony rifle, I of course had my own but was still saving ammo as we simply couldn't replicate the high powered explosives we needed to replicate the five-five-six that needed. I though quickly applied fake blood to my arm while Dash finished off the 'targets'.

"Contacts eliminated!" Rainbow called out, having hit both the dummy targets.

"AAAHHHH!" I cried out, clutching the arm as I rolled over the ground through the snow, spreading some more red around the snow to give a hint of what she had to do. Dash cursed as she sprinted over and quickly analyzed the wound, pulling the pony-made tourniquet out of my med pouch and applying it. Not too tightly, of course, she didn't want to accidentally have me lose my arm due to cutting off its blood flow.

"Calm down, do you have pain anywhere else?" She asked as calm as she possibly could, going over a few of my vital functions like breathing and pulse.

"My arm! My arm!" I simply called out, simulating a panic in the hope it'd rub off on Dash. It didn't.

"Your arm has been tied off to stop the bleeding. I'm getting you to medical services as fast as possible, stay with me here Jack." She quickly finished off the adjusted protocol I'd device from the standard one I had been taught myself, most of the adjustments and techniques simply being changed to work with pony physiology.

"Endex," I then said with a smirk as she finished scribbling down the vital numbers and time down on a bit of paper, seeing the tension that had built up in Dash's shoulders drop as I did so. "Very well done there, Rainbow, I'd probably have lost that arm but would have survived."

"That was really stressful," Dash replied, sighing deeply but smiling widely. "So awesome."

"Heh, don't forget we still have the trek back to Baltimare to complete," I chuckled, taking off the tourniquet and stashing it away before wiping away as much of the fake blood off the ghillie suit as I could, leaving a bit of a faint red spot that could be washed out with some water.

"Of course not, but we also walked here, didn't we?" Dash asked as we got back on the way to our little encampment. I just smiled.

We spend a good hour walking back to the encampment, but as we arrived in sight of the concealed location I quickly motioned Dash to take cover and be silent.

"What do you see?" she whispered, probably thinking there was another exercise going on that I'd set up.

"Nonex." The single word changed the atmosphere completely as the implication was that this was serious. "Dash, load sharp in the MK1 and get out the AWM."

Dash immediately complied, removing the blanks from the MK1 and putting in real bullets as I observed the four royal guards looking around our encampment. Rainbow set up the sniper rifle and took position behind it as I loaded my C7, the two of us still being very well concealed with our ghillie suit. "Jack, you know those are Royal Guards, right?"

"Look closer, they're carrying griffin made muskets," I pointed out to her, "Think about it, why would a royal guard unit that must have had contact with the research unit to find out where I was not be carrying the MK1's? Or at the very least pony made muskets?"

Rainbow scowled, starting to see there was something wrong here.

"Stay here, I'm getting in close to find out who they are, cover me if things get out of claw... Lethally so if necessary." I ordered, staying low and starting to crawl further towards our basecamp which we'd stayed at for the last few days. I took my sweet time to get close but once I got into earshot my suspicions weren't relieved at all in the slightest as I could hear the four guards chittering to each other in some strange language.

Shit, these are the changelings Dash encountered at that royal wedding they told me about, aren't they? Twilight had told me about them in Ponyville as she and Dash told about what they'd encountered before, from Nightmare moon to Discord. That explains how they could look like Royal Guards... Are they allied with the griffins?

The implications of that was something Equestrian high command would certainly need to be made aware of.

As I approached even closer to the nearest of the presumed disguised changelings turned his head in my direction. Guessing that I was probably discovered I shot up from the ground and aimed my rifle. “GET ON THE GROUND!” I roared at the four of them as the other three jumped to face me, they were startled but the one that had already picked me up immediately got and raised his musket to point at me.

A greenish cloud of mist exploded from the side of his barrel, green flames engulfing him as his disguise dropped and a bang could be heard from the distance.

Shit, good shot Rainbow.

“Don't be fucking stupid, surrender!” I shouted at the remaining three changelings.

They didn't.

As they raised their own muskets I opened up on them, taking down the first two before another shot from Rainbow got the third. Damnit, if we could have gotten one alive we could have maybe gotten information out of them.

I quickly signalled Dash to join me as I checked if they really all were gone, concluding that they were. As Dash arrived I'd already gathered the important items from the camp, the changelings' disguises had all dropped revealing what they all were clearly.

“What are the changelings doing here?” Dash asked with a slightly wavering voice, high off of the adrenaline hit she'd just gotten.

“Don't know, maybe they're just taking the opportunity or maybe they're allied with the griffins. Regardless, we need to get back to friendly forces as fast as possible. They need to know changelings are now involved,” I reasoned, strapping my bags on, making sure their camouflage was good too.

“Yeah, right,” Dash strapped on her own bags and made sure the sniper rifle was secure, reloading the Equestrian MK1 with a new magazine.

“Rainbow, take a breath and keep it together. You're doing good. Very good.” I said, placing a claw on her shoulder. “We're flying back, leaving as little trails in the snow as possible.”

“You sure? Your flight isn't the best and if you crash in these trees it will break your wings,” Dash said concerned.

“It's a risk we'll take. We need to warn everyone in Baltimare as soon as possible.” neither of us really liked it but we didn't have the time. Unslinging my assault rifle, I pressed it into Dash's hooves. “That one will be more useful to you, I'll probably have to focus on flying instead.”

Dash secured the thing to herself, passing her MK1 to me so I'd carry that weight while I gave her two more magazines so she had more reloads. “We're burning time, if there's more of them they'll have heard the shooting.”

“Agreed.” I opened my wings and took to the air. Behind me, Dash looked back at the half-broken up camp and the four bodies in it with a scowl before falling in behind me. By hoof, the journey to the city was fairly significant, but by wing you could arrive at the city in a mere half an hour.

As we soared closely over the tips of the trees Rainbow noticed something in our rear. “We have company!”

“They gaining?” I asked without looking back as to not screw up my flight and make a bad crash.

“Definitely!” Rainbow called back.

“Then light them up! Weapons free!”

A trio of shots immediately rang out, Dash coming in to fly beside me... Backwards.

fully packed and still capable of keeping up while flying backwards... I'm way out of my league in the air.

Another trio of shots rang out from my rifle in Dash's hooves. “Scratch one!.. and the other one's breaking off!”

“Nice work but keep your eyes peeled!” I ordered as we were getting close to the southern edge of the city, the forest already thinning. What I didn't like was the faint echo of gunfire coming from the direction of the research compound. They probably could really use the help. ”Dash! We're going to land right outside the gate of the compound and clear it from there!”

“Understood!”

Coming down to the ground, I slammed down, hurting my legs a little but other than that I wasn't much worse for wear. Rainbow's landing was much more graceful as she came to ground next to me. At the entrance, two startled guards with griffin muskets stood. The two of them made the unfortunate mistake of raising their muskets, catching two bullets for their efforts.

“Check your fire, it's very possible the changelings have our weapons too in here, look for discrepancies like groups with both or ones that are seemingly firing at friendlies.” We pushed through the gate into the compound, bodies of guards and changelings were scattered over the place, about an equal number of both. I made a beeline for the office buildings, nailing three more changelings out of the sky beside the office building.

Dash close on my flank as a very heavy firefight seemed to be ongoing in the hangar and office space. “We're clearing room by room, if we encounter any changelings we're eliminating them with extreme prejudice, clear?”

“Crystal,” Dash growled, glancing at the various slain ponies scattered over the compound.

Being on the same page as each other I went in, the two of us clearing the building room by room as we went up towards the gunfire, eventually running into the changelings' rear guard. I didn't even give it the chance to raise its rifle before downing it. Charging up the stairs we found a group of eight changelings sieging out the ponies that were working in the offices. They had set up the steel tables that had been placed here as cover in the same way the ponies had on the other end of the hallway. I'd specifically requested them exactly for the chance of us being attacked so the office building could at the very least be defended.

The eight changelings didn't stand a chance as Rainbow and I kept close together so that they couldn't confuse us in case they got ideas and started mimicking the two of us. Not that they had the chance to even get that far.

“You ponies okay over there?!” I called out as they too had stopped firing after hearing the ruckus.

“Aye, though I'd like you to confirm your identity, laddie!” Ignis called out from the other end.

“My claws are all still attached to my body, no accidents with explosives,” I called back to him, referencing what I'd told me after the first rifle test.

“Aye, good to hear!” he called back with a laugh. “Yer clear, come on over!”

Rainbow and I jumped over the barricade, our white ghillie suits stained with red and greens in places. The section in which the staff had holed up had been properly barricaded with multiple tables, giving a covered section where most of the researchers that I'd been working with were hidden behind.

“What's the headcount?” I immediately demanded as I noticed a few of them were heavily bandaged with red-stained bandages and...

I swung my rifle up as a changeling sat among the workers and researchers.

“Whoa! Hold up there, laddie, that one is on our side.” Ignis quickly said, the changeling whimpering as it was looking down the barrel of both me and Rainbow Dash's rifles. “Would've had much more casualties if it weren't for his warning.”

Ignis had his hoof on the barrel of my rifle, applying downwards pressure. I let him push away my aim. “I'll take your word for it.” Looking over to Rainbow Dash I unslung the MK1 and passed it back over to her and retrieved my Colt. “We need to clear the hangar to-”

KABOOM!!

The few intact windows exploded as the shockwave hit them, a massive fireball engulfing the hangar the heat of which was something we could easily feel in the office building.

“Fuck!” I cursed as through the dust I saw the section around the gunpowder storage collapse and take well over half the hangar with it.

“Steel Hoof was in there!” Tinkerer called out as she rushed over to a window looking out over the collapsing hangar, Ignis immediately rushed over and pulled her back.

"Don't expose yourself ya crazy mare!" He shouted as he held her in place.

I scowled as I kept my gaze on the collapsed building, if anypony would be crazy enough to light up the gunpowder storage just to spite the changelings it'd be Steel Hoof. "Who were all in there?"

"From the research team just Steel Hoof as far as I know. Lots of guards were there though," Ignis answered my question, still keeping Tinkerer from running off to the window. I looked over to Rainbow who was checking some of the wounds on the wounded ponies to see if the bandages were properly applied.

"Dash, on me. We're checking out that collapsed building for survivors."

Rainbow looked over to me and nodded, tying off the bandage she was improving. "Got it."

"Ya know, I was wondering what the two of ya were doing whenever ya went off to the forest all them times," Ignis said looking fairly haunted by everything he'd seen that day. "Guess I have my answer."

Rainbow and I walked back down the stairs of the office building, walking across the yard and checking the pulses of every fallen pony and trying to do the same with the changelings. They were all dead. As I did that Dash took the time to empty her stomach, throwing up next to a pile of rubble. "You good?" I asked, knowing we would probably have to discuss this later. As far as I knew she had never killed anypony before and today she'd taken out all those changelings, the fact she only now threw up was very remarkable.

Rainbow weakly nodded after spitting out the last of her stomach contents and then taking the lead in climbing onto the wrecked hangar. An eerie silence had fallen over the destroyed compound, the crackle of fires from the gunpowder really the only thing that was still providing ambient noise.

“If you're alive, shout!” Dash called into the collapsed section but didn't get a response.

The sound of flapping wings then got our attention as a group of four pegasi police officers landed in the middle of the compound, looking around in horror at the sight of all the dead ponies and changelings. Once their eyes finally met mine they fanned out a bit, pulling their batons.

“In the name of the Equestrian Crown, surrender yourself!” the lead officer demanded.

“Stand down. I'm specialist Grey, Lunar Guard. We need backup on-site to look for possible survivors under this mess and medical staff for the researchers up in the office building. As much of the material we stored here need to be retrieved,” I ordered as I walked down towards them, we needed more ponies to look through the collapsed remains of the hangar anyhow. The police officers hesitated, not knowing if I was playing them or not. Rainbow quickly dispelled their hesitation.

“Hey! Didn't you hear him?!” She growled as she took to the air and slammed down in front of the police squad's leader. "There are ponies under there, go get the fire ponies to come look for them!"

The four ponies finally sprung into action, two of them being told to go get emergency services by their leader while he and the last police pony started preparations to cordon off the compound. I finally dropped onto my butt next to the uncollapsed section of hangar, Dash sitting down beside me and leaning her head against my side. The two of us watching as ponies started to arrive at the site, pegasi first and then earthponies and unicorns.

"So what do we do now?" Dash croaked, sounding very tired.

"We find that changeling Ignis said helped them and ask him a few questions."

Author's Note

Are the Changelings just taking advantage or is there more to this?

Remember that comments are like authors' food, we gain energy from them. Constructive criticism is welcome.