The Fate Of Equestria Book 1: Sombra's Reign

Jet stood at the foot of the ladder, looking up at the slightly rusted wheel of the hatch that led into the wasteland. Even through the sealed hatch, he could hear the wind whistling violently outside. The silence in the hallway was almost deafening as Jet stood there waiting to head out and get on with his self assigned mission. He turned to Sunblast waiting for him to say something, who was looking at him with concern written across his face.

“You sure you’re up to this? We can always postpone it for a couple days or so to give you time to get readjusted to everything.” Sunlast said, feigning a smile.

“No, the sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get a little bit of control over the situation.” Jet replied, steeling himself as he willed his faceplate up.

“Well, alright then. Just be careful out there. Oh, and don’t venture above the cloudline. We don’t know what’s up there, but every time somebody goes to try and get us some recon of it, they disappear entirely.” Sunblast said, giving a warning about one of their most frequent areas of troop loss.

“Right, got it. Don’t venture above the clouds.” Jet repeated to assure his friend that he had heard.

“Good, now, there’s just a couple things to go over before you head out.” Sunblast replied, his gaze shifting back down to his clipboard.

“Alright, what do we need to go over first?” Jet asked, giving his knuckles and neck a fairly loud crack.

“First, let’s run a quick diagnostic of your onboard AI. Just tell it to power on. It’s voice activated, and remember, her name is Friday.” Sunblast said as he waited.

“Alright then, uh… Friday, power on?” Jet said, his visor had a brief moment of static.

“AI system four point two zero powering on. Greetings sir, how may I be of assistance today?” A female computerized voice spoke inside his earpiece. As he stood there staring at the ladder, his visor suddenly started to display a variety of readouts in thin white letters and numbers.

“Ok, it’s powered on. Now what?” Jet asked, staring at the various readings that were tied to the suit.

“On your heads up display, you should be seeing a power indicator. What’s the readout on that?” Sunblast replied, checking something off on his notes.

“Uh… Oh, there it is. Looks like we’ve got full one hundred percent power.” Jet said, his eyes darting around the various readings he was seeing.

“Great. Now, you should also be seeing a vital readout.” Sunblast continued, marking off something else on his clipboard. Jet looked around on the screen he was seeing, spotting what Sunblast was talking about.

“Got it. There’s a heart monitor and a blood toxicity level display.” Jet replied, staring at the small readout in the lower corner of his visor.

“Good, good. One last thing, you should have a fuel gauge for the thruster system and a compass somewhere on screen.” Sunblast said, continuing to check off something on his notes.

“Yep, got it here. Fuel gauge is in the lower corner opposite my vitals. We got one hundred percent on that as well and the compass is at the very top here.” Jet replied again, noting the little fuel gauge readout and stretched out compass.

“Perfect. One final thing, I took the liberty of uploading the list of parts and components I need for Project Hades into your onboard AI. Should you stumble across any of them, your AI will highlight it in your heads up display to show you what I need.” Sunblast went on, checking off another spot on his notes and looking up at Jet.

“Seems pretty straight forward. Anything else I should know?” Jet asked, the various displays fading from his HUD to become opaque.

“No, I think that’s all for now. Just keep in touch while you’re out there, and remember, avoid the cloud line. Whenever you’re ready, you can head out.” Sunblast said with a small smile.

“Alright, guess it’s show time then.” Jet said, taking a shaky breath before mounting the ladder.

As he climbed up, his boots clinked lightly against the rungs of the ladder. He reached the top and easily turned the wheel, which squealed loudly in protest as it unlocked the hatch. With a forceful push outward, the hatch squeaked open. Jet climbed out into the dark void that made up the current land of Equestria. Once outside, he shoved the hatch closed and looked around, taking in his surroundings. He couldn’t believe his eyes, his home was rendered into essentially just a massive desert with scattered ruined buildings and barren trees. If not for the large silhouettes of the facilities in the distance, you could easily mistake this place for a lifeless wasteland. Despite the barren wasteland, he could still make out the outline of the Everfree Forest on the horizon far to the left of where he stood, giving him a sense of his current position. Based on that still standing singular landmark, he could deduce that their bunker was somewhere on the outskirts of what used to be Ponyville.

He spread his wings and took the air, the thrusters that ran along the length of his armored wings whirred quietly as they fired up. With a readjustment of his midair stance, he flew off towards the ruins of Canterlot. He looked up at the thick layer of black clouds, wondering what could be up above them that was so dangerous, but he heeded Sunblast’s warning and stayed clear of them for now. As he flew overhead, he looked down at the ground below where he could make out the outlines of a couple other intact buildings and several dozen patrolling groups of armored soldiers. He hoped that none of them were able to spot his own black armor against the equally dark skyline.

It didn’t take long for him to reach his destination as he landed on a fairly tall building across the road from the rundown club, looking down at it through his visor to get a feel for the situation. The building itself was in a state of immense disrepair, but still managed to stay mostly intact. Positioned on top of the building was a very large satellite dish that was emitting a visible dark red signal. As he looked on, his HUD suddenly started displaying reading about the guards and their placements. According to the readouts, there were around six grunts and two brutes guarding this place along with three unidentified figures within the building itself. There was a single brute stationed at both entrances along with three grunts a piece posted as well.

“Friday?” Jet asked into his faceplate quietly.

“Yes sir?” She replied, her voice seemed to have some kind of accent in addition to the computerized tone.

“Any way you could find me a sneaky way inside here?” Jet asked, watching the guards patrol around the building.

“There doesn’t seem to be any entrances aside from the front and back doors, sir.” She replied, the HUD of his visor zooming in to show the front entrance.

“I see… And how about a stealthy way to take these pricks out?” Jet continued, starting to get a feel for their varying patrol routes.

“Unfortunately, no matter the order you attack them, I am calculating a ninety-eight percent chance that the entire patrol will be alerted.” She stated, a reading showing her calculations on Jet’s HUD.

“So, you’re saying that my only option is a full frontal assault then?” Jet asked, noticing one of the brutes was right next to a heavily shadowed section of an adjacent building.

“Unfortunately, yes. Though I’m only calculating a forty-seven percent chance of success in that regard.” She replied again, another set of calculations appearing on screen.

“Wow, forty-seven? That’s higher than Twilight used to give me for missions.” Jet responded, watching as the aforementioned brute seemed to be taking a break of some kind, he was leaned against the wall with his weapon laying on the ground in front of him.

“Keep in mind that that percentage could possibly increase, I have no data available on your fighting techniques and style.” She replied, an error message popping up as she tried to access info about Jet’s prior combat experience.

“Noted. Friday, tell me the known info on these brute soldiers.” Jet replied, keeping the soldier in his sights with a plan coming to mind.

“The only known info about these tank-like soldiers are that they have very dense armor plating, very damaging sledge hammers that have a form of rocket thruster on one end, and a portable power supply attached to their backs. The power supply is needed as the armor they wear takes a great deal of energy due to the fact that they appear to exert quite a lot of energy when attacking.” She responded, giving Jet exactly the info he was wanting.

“That gives me an idea. Friday, I hope you’re recording all this for your file on my fighting abilities.” Jet said, leaping into the air and silently landing just down the block from the ruined club.

He snuck his way down the street, sticking to the shadows created by the various overhanging awnings and chunks of rubble. As he neared the slacking off brute, he silently drew his sword from his sheath, moving to a position that gave him a clear view of the portable power supply on his back. Before the brute could become aware of his presence, he quickly drove his blade into that power supply and sending a massive volt of electricity coursing through him, causing the brute to cry out in pain from within his armor and fall to the ground with a loud thud, which alerted the guards standing by the front entrance just a few yards away.

The three grunts almost immediately started to swarm Jet. With a soft grunt, Jet pulled his blade free from the brute’s back and flung it in the direction of the encroaching grunts, catching one in the chest and sending him flying backwards as he was stuck to a wall like a dart sticking into a dartboard. With the other two nearly upon him, Jet acted quickly and grabbed the discarded sledgehammer from the ground near his feet and swung at one of the grunts. It impacted against the side of one with an ear ringing slam that knocked it to the ground. Before it could recover and get to its feet, Jet let out a loud grunt as he swung the hammer again, this time bringing it straight down onto the grunts head with a sickening squish. The grunt’s helmet easily crushed under the attack like a soda can, the internals of the soldier’s head squishing out like a watermelon, sending chunks of skull and brain matter flying across the pavement in a paint streak of red and white. This scene did nothing to stop the other grunt from running up and slicing at Jet with his spear. One of the swipes caught Jet’s shoulder, slicing through his flesh and causing a small trickle of blood to seep out and stain his own armor. With gritted teeth Jet leapt up into the air, sledgehammer still in his grasp, and swatted the soldier to the ground like a fly. The impact left a small indention in the pavement around the soldier, but it was clear that the soldier wasn’t staying down long as it was already moving to get back up to its feet. Without a second thought, Jet brought the sledgehammer down directly onto its chest, caving the armor in as easily as tearing paper. The grunt desperately twitched for a moment before going still under the weight of the hammer.

Jet panted lightly from the exertion of the short fight as he suddenly heard the loud thudding footsteps of the other four guards quickly approaching, no doubt having heard the sounds of the fight happening out front. He tried to stand, but his legs felt like jelly and his body just wasn’t cooperating, the vital reading popped up on his HUD, showing that the fight had taken a bigger toll than her though. His heart rate was very quickly approaching the point of cardiac arrest, but he pushed that aside and forced himself to stand.

His legs were shaky and his heart thumped loudly in his ears as he picked up the hammer once again and took up a defensive stance just as the other guards made it out front and quickly surrounded him. He gritted his teeth against the pain in his chest and looked around at each of them. Without any more warning, the group descended upon him, he raised the hammer to block their attacks to no avail. The spears and hammer of the attacking guards were quickly shredding his own armor to pieces and sending him to his knees, the nanobots unable to react fast enough to the oncoming assault. He knelt in the small crater, accepting that this is where he would die. As the guards continued to assault him, he could only think of one thing, Rainbow Dash’s smiling face. The thought of never seeing her again enraged him to no end. Without warning, an alert notification suddenly blared in his ears and across his HUD. The nanobot armor suddenly fully retracted back into its housing unit as Jet’s body began to feel hot, incredibly hot, as if he were on fire. He pushed back against the attacking guard as hard as he could manage, letting out a very loud guttural scream of anger. As he did this, his body burned even hotter, a sudden white hot blast emanating from the very core of his body. The blast not only knocked the guards away but also completely incinerated them, burning them to dust that immediately got blown away by the harsh wind that blew across the landscape.

Breathing incredibly hard, Jet stood, his lungs somehow immune to the harsh acrid air that permeated the land. He slowly made his way over where his sword was still stuck in the wall, yanking it free and causing the impaled guard to flop to the ground in a heap. He noticed that there was a streak of not red, but green blood running along its length. With a deep groan of pain, he willed his armor to return to his body. His HUD showed that his vitals had returned to normal, but also showed indicators of the various cuts and injuries he had endured just now.

“F-Friday, you still there?” Jet asked breathlessly, taking in deep breaths of the clean oxygen that his faceplate provided.

“Of course, sir. I was able to capture the entirety of the battle for use in further calculations as well.” She replied, her voice glitching ever so slightly.

“Good. Can you please explain to me what the hell that was?” Jet asked, making his way towards the front door of the broken down club.

“Hm, as best as I can tell, you emitted a psionic blast of superheated magical energy. Though I do not know how you, a pegasus, were able to pull off such a thing. Magical capabilities such as that can only be performed by unicorns according to all the information I have on the subject. I will mark it for further study in Sunblast’s electronic notes. Also, I am detecting one of the parts that he requested we search for.” She explained, a piece of the brutes armor lighting up a bright orange against Jet’s HUD. He walked over and picked up the highlighted piece and slipped it into his pocket as his armor pulled back to give him access to his pants.

“Maybe he can shed some light on that, because I definitely couldn’t do that before.” Jet said as he headed inside the door.

Inside, the club was somehow nearly pristine, with only a few spots of broken glass behind the bar and a few overturned tables. The purple curtains of the stage had some small burn holes in it, giving only fleeting glimpses of the area behind it. Jet proceeded through the main area cautiously, sword at the ready as walked. His boots lightly crunched against some shard of glass that had managed to make their way to the main floor. Before Jet could get even halfway across the room to the stage, the speakers lining the ceiling suddenly gave off a loud screech followed by a soft but not at all friendly female voice.

“Well, well, well. What do we have here? A rogue agent of Sombra? No, even they’re not smart enough to make it this far on their own. Who are you little one? And why are you intruding one our turf?” The voice asked in a sultry tone.

“I’m here to put a stop to your mind controlling frequency. You’re forcing good ponies to do sick things against their will. And that stops today.” Jet retorted, not even slightly amused by this act.

“Oh, is that so? You are welcome to try. You are the first to make it this far after all.” The voice continued on as the curtains were pulled back, revealing a trio of armored figures standing in front of the broken and splintered backdrop that was once meant to be used for the shows held here.

Each one wore basically the same style of sleek and body hugging armor, the only variations between them being their colors. There was one adorned in a golden yellow, one that was a metallic purple, and the other was a flat sky blue color. At the center of each ones chest was a glowing red gemstone that seemed to throb like a heartbeat and each of the mouthplates of their helmets had what appeared to be a speaker embedded into it. Jet approached with increased caution, watching the figures closely as nothing came up on his HUD about these mystery figures. He lowered his faceplate as it seemed useless at this point, his body clearly somehow immune to the toxicity that permeated the air. This elicited a loud gasp from the blue one.

“Adagio, isn’t that the one Sombra told us to look out for? Y’know, Celestia’s s…” She began, getting a hard elbow from the purple one.

“Sonata, shut up. He’s not supposed to know that, you idiot.” Purple said coldly.

“Both of you shut the hell up. But yes, Sonata. This is the one we were told about. The alleged great and powerful Jet. Pfft, don’t know why Lord Sombra is afraid of such an insignificant little pegasus.” The one called Adagio said with a villainous laugh.

“Sombra’s afraid of me? Good, because I’m coming for him soon. He’ll pray for death with what I have in store for his cowardly ass.” Jet spoke steadily, keeping his rage in check this time.

“You? Defeat Lord Sombra? You’d best keep on dreaming boy.” Adagio said, earning a laugh from all three of them.

“Do you really think you stand a chance against him? You didn’t exactly fare too well the first time you two met, what makes you think this time will be any different?” Purple said, leaning forward with her hands on her hips to emphasize her point.

“I… I don’t know, Aria. If Lord Sombra is afraid of him, maybe we should be careful?” The one identified as Sonata said slowly, a bit of fear creeping into her voice.

“Oh, you’re such a pussy, Sonata. Stop acting like a coward and just imagine how much praise we’ll get from Lord Sombra when we squash this bug and turn his corpse over to him.” The newly identified Aria said casually, even through her helmet Jet could feel the glare she was giving her cohort.

“Enough, you two! Now, let’s show this little rebel what we can really do with our power.” Adagio said, the other two complying and joining her at the front of the stage.

Jet braced for whatever attack they were about to launch, but nothing could prepare him for what followed. As he watched, the trio all took deep breaths before starting to sing, a massive and intense wave of pure sound energy launched directly at him. The soundwave was powerful enough to not only briefly deafen but also launch Jet into the wall beside the door he had come through. He groaned loudly as he pulled himself free from the wall, the plaster chipped away and fell down around him in a dusty mist. His ears were ringing painfully, but he shook it off and glared up at the trio on the stage. With his sword gripped tightly in his hands, he ran full speed at the stage. The trio launched another auditory attack, this time Jet dug his heels into the carpet and tanked the hit as he powered through the waves of blaring noise. This seemed to only anger the trio as they put more force into their singing, making him skid a bit on his feet, but he still managed to stand his ground against the force. As he continued to tank the blast, one of the trio broke free from the attack and moved to the back behind the stage. She shortly returned carrying a box that held a variety of miscellaneous props and instruments, tossing them into the blast force that was made of her cohort's voices. The various projectiles flew all around missing Jet, eventually though, a large set of spare curtains hit him dead on and threw him off balance. The force of the soundwaves knocked him back into the same wall as before, this time sending him blasting through the wall entirely and back out into the street onto his back. He got up, tossing the curtain to the side and shaking some plaster from his hair. That’s when he saw a well kept guitar still with a cord attached to it flying towards him from within the newly made hole in the wall, without even a second of hesitation, he grabbed it from the air and looked it over. He was surprised to see that it was nearly brand new, everything intact and still usable. He smiled to himself as he hatched an idea.

“Hey, Friday. Can you augment the thrusters in my wings to act as sound amplifiers?” He asked, putting his faceplate back up.

“I can, sir. Though, I have some reservations about doing this as it will likely result in a high consumption of fuel. Also, I do not think that a guitar is the best solution to this problem.” She said in his ear, but doing what he asked anyway.

“Don’t worry, Friday. I used to play one of these back in high school, even won a couple talent shows with it. Like riding a bike, it’s not something you easily forget.” Jet reassured her, wrapping the strap of the guitar around his back.

The nanobots that made up the thrusters on his wings shifted with the soft sound of metallic clinking. The nanobots shifted and clinked, changing from thrusters to that of a series of speakers that ran the length of his wings. Jet willed a plug to form at the base of his wings, which he quickly plugged the end of the cord attached to the guitar into. With a couple strums on the instrument, he quickly managed to tune it. Back inside the club, the trio was gloating amongst themselves and didn’t see Jet step back through the hole in the wall as he gave the guitar a hard strum. The ensuing blast of sound that came from his newly formed speaker laden wings sent the trio skidding backwards on their feet, nearly impaling them on the splintered slivers of wood from the backdrop they stood in front of. They quickly regained their balance and looked up at Jet as he made his way towards the stage again.

“So, you ladies want a music showdown huh? Alright then, let’s rock.” Jet said, giving another hard strum, but this time they were ready.

They were able to quickly counter the soundwave with one of their own, the force of the sound colliding shattering the remaining glass bottle behind the bar and sending shards of glass flying across the room.

“This isn’t some game, boy. We’re playing for all the chips here.” Adagio said just before they launched another attack.

Jet reacted by strumming again, but at a higher frequency than their voices, this launched their attack back at them with doubled force as it combined with Jet’s. The sudden and unforeseen force of the blast knocked Aria off her feet and sent her reeling backwards. There was a soft splat followed by a loud gasp as she hit the backdrop, a large splintered chunk of wood protruded from her midsection as it dripped crimson liquid onto the stage in front of her.

“You… You fucking suck… Adagio…” She choked out before going limp sharp against the wooden two by four she was impaled on, the red gemstone on her chest shattering into pieces and falling to the stage floor. This caused an outburst of anger from the yellow armored mare.

She didn’t say a word, but simply screamed at Jet with Sonata following suit, the force had increased, but Jet was still able to stand his ground. Strumming yet again against the assault of noise ringing against his ears. His own blast of sound was easily pushed away by the force of theirs, sending him skidding back away from the stage, but he managed to keep his footing. He shook his head to stop the ringing in his ears before cranking the little knob on his guitar and strumming several times, sending multiple waves of sound at the pair. They crossed their arms in an ‘x’ shape in front of them to help dissipate the blows a little. What they failed to notice while they defended against his attack, was the big heavy sandbag being held up by just a string. The sandbag was swaying loosely above Sonata’s head, Jet took notice of this as he picked up a rusted piece of cutlery from the floor. Before they could take notice, he shot the cutlery like a bullet directly at the thin string holding up the sandbag. The cutlery sliced right through it, sending the sandbag rapidly crashing down and hitting Sonata in the head with a loud thud. She fell back, also getting impaled on a splintered chunk of the backdrop. Her gemstone cracked and shattered into pieces as well.

Adagio screamed in rage even louder, the ensuing soundwave sent Jet reeling backwards, ripping the guitar strap from his shoulder and smashing against the wall behind him. Without a word, she hopped off of the stage and made her way towards Jet. Releasing large waves of sound as she cried out in pure anger. The blasts of noise hit Jet directly each time, as he was assaulted with the shockwaves, he could feel a small trickle of blood trailing down his ear. Adagio was now right on top of Jet, screaming directly into his face in a nonstop wave of hate filled sound. He unsheathed his sword and pushed back against the forceful blasts, making it to his feet once again and pushing through the torrent of noise. Seeing him get up made Adagio back up towards the stage again. Slowly but steadily he made his way forward while she kept backing up. She jolted a little as her back hit the edge of the stage, upon realizing she had nowhere left to go without turning away, she screeched even louder at Jet, but to her shock he kept pushing forward. After what felt like an eternity to Jet, he finally managed to push all the way to her, he drew back and in one fell swoop, he drove his sword right through the gemstone on her chest. The onslaught of noise immediately stopped as her chest was pierced by the silver blade. She sputtered a bit as she fell back against the stage, sliding down it and leaving a trail of crimson in her wake. She gave one final scream as her gemstone cracked and exploded in a flurry of red shards that somehow managed to miss Jet entirely. He pulled his sword free, wiping the blade clean on a nearby tablecloth and sheathing it before climbing up onto the stage and heading into the back to look for any kind of device he could use to reverse the hypnosis broadcast. He saw none.

“Friday, connect me to Sunblast please.” Jet said with a frown.

“Right away, sir.” She replied, a moment of static coming across the earpiece before a video display of Sunblast appeared in his HUD.

“Jet? What’s the sitch?” Sunblast asked with a hopeful tone.

“Well, good news and bad news.” Jet replied with sigh as he looked around the barren backstage area.

“Oh great… Bad news first, I guess.” Sunblast said, a groan escaping his mouth..

“Suit yourself. Bad news is that we’re not gonna be able to reverse the hypnosis broadcast.” Jet said with a light grunt as he decided to take a seat on the edge of the stage.

“What? Why the hell not? Don’t tell me you broke it.” Sunblast said, raising an eyebrow.

“No, I didn’t break anything, smartass.” Jet replied with a glare.

“Just tell me the good news…” Sunblast said while rubbing his temples.

“The good news is that I stopped the broadcast and dealt with the ones who were causing it.” Jet responded.

“That is good news. Who was causing it?” Sunblast asked curiously, taking a sip from a cup of water.

“I’m not sure to be honest, didn’t recognize them. They used their voices to attack me and had these weird red gemstones on their chests.” Jet replied with a shrug, causing Sunblast to spit his sip of water all over the screen.

“What?! Jet, those were the fabled sirens that Starswirl himself banished from Equestria millennium ago! Do you realize what this means?!” Sunblast asked in a frenzy.

“Uh… It means that they’re not a concern anymore?” Jet asked in a joking tone with another shrug.

“No! It means that Sombra has some kind of interdimensional technology at his disposal!” Sunblast replied, still in a frenzy.

“Oh, well we’ll worry about that later on. For now though, I think we’ve made gre…” Jet started to say as the speaker on Adagio’s helmet suddenly gave off some static before a voice came through.

“Ah, the little guard who thinks he’s more than that. I had hoped you were dead, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised honestly. A pest like you is not easily disposed of.” Sombra’s voice came through the speaker, addressing Jet.

“Sunblast, I’ll have to call you back. Something’s going on.” Jet said as he hung up the video call and slipped off the stage.

“Ah yes, Sunblast, the little worm who is stealing my tech to boost your pathetic ranks, not an issue though, it’s amusing that you fools think you have a chance against me and my forces. Though, I must say, congratulations on defeating my sirens. As fruitless of an effort as it was considering that this wasn’t even the main source of my hypnosis frequency. Do you really think that this little victory of yours has hurt me in the slightest? I still have thousands of mind controlled troops at my disposal.” Sombra’s voice continued to mock Jet.

“Stop hiding behind that corpse and show yourself, you coward!” Jet yelled into the empty club.

“All in due time, pest. For now though, you’ll have to settle for the company of one of my many assassins. Hope you’re up to the task, I’d hate for you to die before I get the chance to crush you myself.” Sombra replied with a long villainous laugh before static sounded through the speaker again and his voice disappeared, leaving Jet in the eerie silence of the club.

Jet quickly left the club and leapt back up onto the building across the street from the club. He didn’t know which assassin Sombra was sending, but he wasn’t about to stick around to find out. He willed the nanobots to reform the thrusters so he could get out of there while he still had the opportunity. After the short period of the nanobots shifting back into their original state, he took to the sky and headed back towards the bunker. As he flew, he was so caught up in his thoughts as he tried to process everything that happened back at the club, that he almost didn’t see the series of small bombs coming towards him above. He barrel rolled out of the way just as the bombs whizzed past him. Flipping upside down allowed him to keep moving, but also gave him a clear view of the armored assailant flying directly above him.

The figure was dressed in a clearly modified version of the armor used by Sombra’s basic grunts. It was black in color with red panel lining at each joint and blood red visor that was staring directly at him, mounted on its wings was a series of devices that Jet didn’t recognize. As he watched, another set of bombs materialized along the wings and dropped down onto Jet. He barrel rolled again, but one of the bombs clipped his wing and exploded in a hail fire of shrapnel. The force of the blast forced him out of the air, hitting the ground with a very loud thud that created a decently sized crater around him and sending up a large dust cloud. Jet slowly got to his feet with a loud groan of pain. He unsheathed his sword and looked around for the assassin as the dust cloud slowly dissipated. A soft impact from behind him alerted him to the fact that the assassin had just landed and was also trying to locate Jet through the thick cloud of dust.

“Y-You’re Death Storm, right? Gotta admit, kind of a badass name.” Jet called through the dust.

“Correct, I am Death Storm. It does not matter what you think of my name since I will be bringing you back to Lord Sombra in a bag of bloody bits very shortly.” A heavily modified female voice spoke back through the cloud.

“A bag of bloody bits? Sorry, not my style. I prefer being in one piece, thanks.” Jet retorted, quietly moving towards the voice.

“Being in one piece is not an option. I do not take prisoners and I do not accept surrender.” She continued talking as Jet closed in.

“Who said anything about surrendering? Also not my style.” Jet replied as the assassin tried to locate him through the dust cloud.

“Surrender or not, it does not matter. You are not walking away from this fight, rebel.” She spoke coldly, her own HUD being useless through the cloud.

“Oh, I think I will though.” Jet said, coming from the cloud behind her and slashing at one of the devices on her wing. This caused a bomb to materialize from the device and instead of launching outward like normal, it stayed where it was and exploded, blowing off her wing and clearing the dust away from the explosive force. The assassin cried out in pain as her wing stub spurted out small squirts of blood onto the dusty covered landscape behind her.

“You sonofabitch, you will pay for that!” She yelled out as she charged at Jet, a set of bombs forming at her still intact wing.

“Hey, don’t throw factual statements at me as if they’re insults.” Jet said in reference to his mother who had abused him.

Side stepping her charge attack, a bomb lightly thumping at his feet. He dodge rolled to safety just as the bomb went off, sending up another cloud of dust. The assassin growled in anger and flung more bombs every which way, only serving to add to the immense cloud of dust that was obscuring her vision. Without any warning, Jet dashed through the cloud of dust again, slashing at her other wing’s devices. This caused yet another malfunction in the device and blew off her other wing, as well as damaging the back of her helmet. Through her damaged helmet, a streak of flame colored hair could be seen blowing in the wind.

“There, now that we’re on equal terms, let’s settle this like…” Jet started to say as he appeared out of the dust, stopping when he noticed the flamey hair sticking out. Only knowing of one pony who had that kind of hair style.

“Yes, let us settle this here and now.” She said, narrowing her eyes at Jet through her visor.

She charged him again, this time able to hook her arms around his waist while he was shocked by the realization of who this assassin truly was. She took him to the ground, squatting over top of him and repeatedly punching him. Jet held up his arms in defense, blocking the onslaught of blows that this mare was dishing out. Having realized who she was, he was reluctant to fight back now. She continued her relentless assault on him, determined to win and make her king happy with her work.

“S-Spitfire, snap out of it! I don’t want to hurt you!” Jet yelled out, pushing her off of him and getting to his feet.

“Spitfire? Whoever you think I am, you are mistaken! I am Death Storm, servant to Lord Sombra and member of his elite assassin troupe!” She screamed, clearly having no control of herself whatsoever.

“You’re not an assassin! You’re the leader of the Wonderbolts and my fiance’s idol!” Jet yelled back, trying in vain to get through to her.

She simply growled again and charged him a third time. This time he was ready though, side stepping her and bringing the hilt of his sword down onto the broken back of her helmet, slamming her to the ground and shattering her helmet entirely. Jet knelt down and flipped her over onto her back, her flamey hair now fully exposed along with her yellow coated face. Her golden orange eyes blinked a few times as the hypnosis spell faded and she came to. She looked up at Jet with an expression of confusion.

“W-What happened…? Hey, you’re that royal guard dating my rookie, aren’t you?” She asked slowly, her mind still foggy from the hypnosis.

“You’ve been under Sombra’s mind control for quite some time, and yes, that would be me.” Jet replied, happy that he hadn’t had to kill her.

“I was? Last thing I remember, I was on a scouting mission with Soarin and Fleetfoot… We must’ve been captured…” She said, rubbing her head as she struggled to remember.

“Well, don’t worry. You’re safe now and we’re getting you back to base to get fixed up.” Jet said with a small smile of relief.

“Good… I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. How’s the rookie doing anyw…” She started to say, being cut off as her body suddenly gave a violent jolt and fell limp in Jet’s arms.

“Friday, what the hell just happened?!” Jet screamed into the void of the wasteland.

“I am not entirely sure, sir. Though my analysis shows it to be some kind of protocol within her suit set in place by Sombra to eliminate the possibility of anything about his operations getting out.” Friday said cooly in her automated voice.

“So, do you mean she’s…” Jet asked, already knowing the answer but not really wanting to hear it.

“Unfortunately, she is, sir.” Friday said, giving Jet the exact answer he had hoped not to hear.

“Fuuuuuuuuck! Sombra… I swear… You’re going to pay for this. I will make you beg me for death once I get through with you…” Jet vowed to himself as he stood slowly, gently laying Spitfire’s body onto the hard ground in front of him.

With a heavy heart, Jet made his way back to the bunker. Kicking open the hatch and mounting the ladder to see both Sunblast and Rainbow waiting for him at the bottom. Shutting the hatch behind him as he descended. He hopped down off the ladder and onto the floor below, his armor receding back into its housing unit. Rainbow gave a gasp as she saw his rough state. Cuts and bruises littered his body and he was slightly limping from where he had been clipped by the brutes hammer earlier on.

“Jet, what happened to you?! Are you ok?!” She cried out, a bit of panic entering her voice as she spoke.

“Yeah… I’m fine, physically at least.” Jet replied with a light smile.

“I tried to tell you that you weren’t ready for action, but you never want to listen to me.” Rainbow chastised him as she looped his arm around her shoulders to help with his limp.

“I will be needing a full mission report before we debrief you though, Jet. And cut him some slack Rainbow, you know he’s stubborn as a mule.” Sunblast said with a chuckle.

“Yeah, yeah. Just get me down to the med ward for some stitches and I’ll be fine. I’ll fill you guys in on what happened when we get there.” Jet replied, rolling his eyes at Rainbow’s chastisement.

She gave him a nod and held onto his side as they walked, Sunblast trailing behind them as they headed for the medical ward. She was looking over Jet’s new wounds with worry as they walked. Nobody said a word as they entered the cafeteria and walked down the dark blue tiled med ward hallway to get Jet patched up before the next step in trying to cripple Sombra’s war efforts.