Hell's body reasserted itself as the retrograde thrusters opened and fired. She blinked the pressure out of her eyes and looked down at the flickering display for the camera feed outside. The ground looked just as flat as anywhere else so she let the pod drift straight and tried to relax for the impact dampeners when the pod struck the ground. After she regained her senses, she steadied herself, the platform lifted to let her out.

The first thing of note was the coppery terrain and the hole she was in, the landing Tartarus Pods had sunk into the rock and collapsed a tunnel to leave a thin ravine that blocked out the light of Sol, that and the dust. Stale air greeted her, along with what was left of the surface as rubble. Hell turned to try and spy a way out when she heard the other diver land. Felt, more like, the walls shook and another patch of rubble fell into itself to reveal some subterranean cave that went down too far for Hell to see.

It also pushed down enough rock that Hell thought she might be able to make her way up the side. Luckily, her shoes were built for stuff like this. Hopping up a few rocks, lifting herself over a ledge, then it was only a hop skip and a jump until she was out. As her eyes caught the light and her surroundings, she gawked. There were... upright plates of rock, spires, that delicately held flattened time capsules of stone into the air like they were trying to reach into the sky.

It looked like the land she'd fallen under had only been here for so long. sedimentary lines indicated that the terrain used to be up much higher than it was; the tunnels had just collapsed down to something flat enough to mistake for ground level. The rock beneath her felt far less steady when she considered the stories of empty space beneath her hooves, she was lucky her Pod didn't end up totally underground. She checked her map, glancing to see the other diver doing the same. there was a circular field in the direction the base was supposed to be, apparently it was their job to find it.

Okay Hell. Deep breath, let's get this done. Hell took the first few steps in the direction they were headed, marking the direction with a pin. The other mare moved in tandem, coming up to her side with her far longer strides. "So what's the deal with you?" She asked, with no further explanation for her question, just a head tilt to follow the silence of their trot.

"I'm not sure what you mean." Hell responded honestly.

"Well you're a tiny little thing." The mare pointed out, and she wasn't wrong. Hell was easily a head shorter than she was, maybe more. "But I got a stern word about 'following your orders'." She chuckled, "Why'd they put you in charge, huh?"

Oh.

"Experience." Was her single answer.

The mare snrked, "Oh, so I take it you're the first thestral to figure out how to use those weird leathery flaps at your side then? You can fly?" Hell remained silent, and the mare snorted again, "Yeah, I thought so. I don't care what the officers say, stay out of my way when the bullets start flying and you might survive."

Hell, despite wearing a helmet, fought to keep her expression neutral. "I'm glad we understand each other." She ruffled her wings and quickened her pace. The mare hadn't even given Hell her name and there was already hatred passing through the air as easy as she wanted. Hell tried to ignore the visualizations of the mare dying. The whistling wind and her hoof steps kept her company as she passed through the shadow of one of the taller pillars. The terrain was covered in invisible hills that Hell made sure to avoid, keeping to the highest ground available as they traveled.

It was quiet.

Too Quiet.

Hell pulled up her scanner and switched her HUD over to the map view.

Red dots surrounded her.

Hell cut the screen from her visor and looked around for targets. The other mare noticed and tilted her head as Hell drew her short rifle on nothing. "What are yo-"

"SHHHHH" Hell whisper screeched over the comms channel, "Check your screens, we have contacts, right on top of us."

The mare's voice took on a deeper timber, her hackles rising just the same as she got a look at the swarm of angry red dots. "I don't see anything." She countered, though, she drew her short rifle as well. The doubt seemed less than honest as she took several steps closer to Hell, her ears on a swivel for anything. "Think they're underneath us?" She whispered back over comms.

Hell's eyes narrowed at the ground and the shadows. There was a flicker of movement, and her head snapped up towards what was casting the shadow. The rock pillar, from the surface, curving down the edge was a spongy substrate. Along the sides hung countless bugs, like the warriors, but missing all of the armor and half the meat, stringy winged monsters with bulbous heads covered in angry faceted lenses.

Hell took a slow breath as she made eye contact with one of them. It cocked its body like a caterpillar with a knife. A screech filled the air.

"Shriekers!" Hell shouted. The call was only the first of many; the sound setting into a cascade of screaming as the swarm of flying bugs launched themselves from the pillar. There were enough to solidly expand the shadow. The other mare lifted her rifle awkwardly, and Hell's hooves hit the stone. "Don't shoot! Run!"

"What!?"

Hell had read the article on shriekers, on all bugs. They had hive intelligence, hunting instincts; a swarm of shriekers would act like wolves, surrounding their prey and attacking from whatever direction they weren't looking. The only option to deal with a swarm that size was to run to line them all up for shooting. She just didn't know how to say all of that in a few words. The mare wasn't going to do what she said, so Hell dug in her hooves and scraped her gallop to a halt and spun around.

She emptied her rifle into the swarm. The bullets clipped a few, and one head exploded into a tiny puff of antennae and green blood, but the swarm majoritively parted around her aim. Hell reloaded, "Move!"

"Like Tartarus I'm listening to you!" She yelled back over the crackling gun reports of her firing into the air. She was missing just as badly. The swarm was too big, and they were nearing the ground. Hell didn't have any more time. Visions of Sharp's head exploding, the sound of gunfire; Hell screamed.

"MOVE OR YOU WILL DIE!"

Whether it was her gun clicking dry, or the deafening command from Hell, the mare turned and ran towards Hell. A single shrieker dove down and scraped at her back as she ran under it, she cried out, Hell saw blood spray and an armor plate fly up into the air as the shrieker nose dove itself into the ground from the momentum of the hit. Hell's hooves vibrated the rock, the other diver shouted expletives as she rolled and the storm of shriekers dove in for what should have been an easy kill.

Should have, because Hell was standing over the fallen pony in less than a moment. She hadn't realized how she'd gotten there, but the gouges torn into the solid rock and her aching joints were a good indication. She used her open hoof to jab a stim down into the other mare while pointing her Liberator Rifle into the air as she reared up and pirouetted. Not trying to hit anything, only spinning to spray enough bullets in the air to keep the bugs off them. Plenty pulled from their swooping dives to dodge the bullets as Hell stepped back and ducked under another brave shrieker that tore up her mane as it went past. She trained her rifle on it as it tried to get away and used the rest of her magazine to turn it to parts.

The other mare stood and started running. Hell stowed her rifle and joined her. The shriekers repositioned, and chased them anew, gaining due to their superior aerodynamics.

"Reload!" Hell shouted, struggling to reload her own short rifle.

The other mare shoved her head down and pulled out a magazine, turning into the wind for a three legged gallop as she ditched her old magazine and worked in the new one.

"On three, slide and I'll take left and curve in, you take right!"

"Copy!" The mare yelled back.

Hell caught the sound of a screech and a whistle of parting air and dodged left. A shrieker swooped in between the two of them, and Hell got a look at the shining metallic claws slung under the black carapace.

"One, Two, Three!" Hell said in quick sequence, there was no time for theatrics. Hell's hoof caught a rock, she used the momentum to spin around on one hoof and lift her Liberator up with the other. The other mare did the same, Hell's eyes caught the left edge of the shrieker swarm and pointed her rifle down the length of her nose.

The speakers system deafened the reports to 'tap tap taps' as she carefully fired down the length of the swarm. Without moving and with them all coming at her from one direction, their keening battle cries started turning to death wails. Missed shots turned into accidentals as they passed deep into the swarm and dropped bugs behind the ones she was aiming for.

And then the swarm hit. Hell reached over and grabbed the other mare by the back of the neck and threw them both into the dust while spinning onto her back. She bit down and pushed up with her front hooves, pointing the flamethrower on her belly into the sky just as it ignited. Screeching followed the sound of air being cut through flame, Hell counted out three seconds before she spun back onto her hooves, "Up! Cmon!" She reached over to help the other mare up and nearly stumbled. The earth pony mare was heavy.

"Next wave incoming! Reload! Now!" Hell was already midway through the action as she barked the command, she didn't look to see if the other mare listened. Her eyes were drawn to the pile of burning corpses, strewn out in a line from where they had tried to gut her. The swooping monsters were close to the ground now, swirling around them both, neither of them would be running away now. "Left!" Hell called, as the first few broke from formation and dove towards them. The mare stepped to her side, together they picked each bug out of the sky. Hell spun around and locked her eyes with the claws of the shrieker that had snuck up on them.

Impact sent her onto her back, her ears rung, but the force from the bug still lodged in her face kept her from staggering. Her hooves came up, a beak poked through the armor and sank into the joint at her knee, her other hoof punched the thing across the face and squished it into the ground in one fluid motion. More reports of gunfire called out as Hell lifted her rifle and started taking potshots at the circling monsters while she fumbled with a stim in her other hoof.

There was blood leaking out of her helmet from the impact, into her face, under her eyes, she breathed in but choked on more of it. Then the stim found its place under her fur.

The edges of her vision went white and suddenly she was standing. Suddenly she'd reloaded her weapon, muscle memory took over; she fired. She may have also screamed, the sounds around her were drowned out by the blood pumping in her ears. Her gun clicked dry, but was immediately replaced by the Verdict as she simply stepped around bugs that swooped down at her, when that clicked dry, she began swinging. The first two that got close enough went into the dirt with caved in chests from the butt of her pistol, the third managed to tear the weapon out of her hoof, but had forgotten that Hell also had teeth, teeth which were dangerously close to its body.

Hell didn't think, she bit down on the carapace. A combination of Hell pulling and it trying to escape led to the separation of its wing and the spilling of organs and green ichor onto the stone. It screamed as it died, a gurgling cry as the parts that let it make the noise were sucked out of its torso by the force of its spine being removed.

Hell breathed heavily as the clearing went quiet.

The other mare picked herself off the ground and Hell could practically see the wide eyes under the visor staring back at her.

Hell spat a wad of green blood mixed with carapace out of her mouth and rolled her shoulders. "Let's get moving, we're already low on time." Hell worked her back into a trotting position, ignoring the lingering phantom pains her body was warning her of. Her hoof wasn't gutted open anymore, but her body was still screaming through the painkillers that it was.

The other mare silently fell into step behind her. Hell slowed her pace, as she came across the pistol that had been thrown to the ground in the combat. She scooped it up and clicked it back into its holster after she reloaded it. Reloading a weapon while walking was a bit of an exercise in patience, but Hell had spent the better part of three months practicing. She checked her tac map. There was a red outline up ahead, markings of a bug nest.

Hell held up one of her wings and sat back to reload her flamer. "Hey, you okay?"

The other mare came up to her and took a second to respond. "Yeah... Yeah, I'm straight."

"What kind of ordinance do you have? Grenades? Explosives?"

"The standard."

Hell only now noticed the mare staring at the green blood dripping from the nose of her helmet.

"What's your name?"

"Huh?"

Hell rolled her eyes behind her mask, "Your name. You got one?" Hell's ear tried to flick against the helmet interior, in response, she curved her muzzle to the side and looked out towards the nest, being careful to also check up as her flamer fuel stopped being difficult and satisfyingly clicked into place.

"Emerald." Was her single word response. The mare was stiff, shell shocked from having the bones in her spine viciously realigned.

Hell looked away and sighed, "We're gonna make it out of here Emerald. Super Equestria will sleep soundly when we both make it out alive." She clenched her eyes shut and folded the flamer back under the rail. "The last pony who I fought with-"

"Ohkay." Emerald whistled. "I do not want to hear whatever sob story you have prepared, I'm here to kill bugs, not make friends." She stomped a hoof twice, pawing at the dust. "But... thanks for saving me." And a little more confidently, "I've got your back."

"That's all I needed to hear." Hell stood, pressing herself into a gallop. She could hear the thumping steps behind her as they approached the bug nest.

Hell's com flicked open, "Wait-" Came Emeralds voice. "The terrain just changed." Hell slowed and Emerald started pointing it out. "Look at those pillars, the solid rock from the bottom, and the lack of dust."

Hell stomped a hoof, "Solid ground."

"Ordinance?" Emerald asked.

Hell smiled and let a stratagem ball roll down into her hoof. "I'll need an angle, watch my right flank."

Emerald nodded and broke right. Hell approached the rising groove on the hill, where the sound of chittering and hissing was coming from. First, the pink smoke, then the rim itself, then she had a clear view of the pit. Five holes, two on her side, three on the other. A charger, and a smattering of grubs and warriors of all shapes and sizes; every bug she'd seen had been identical outside of species, these were variants, some had bigger heads, an extra leg, some of their eyes were blue rather than black and instead of standing around, the pit was a bustle of activity. Like the bee farms back home, bugs passed each other while carrying rocks, chittering, some were eating.

Hell punched in the coordinates and let the weather data filter in from her suit sensors and then pulled her nose back down the other side of the lip, wound up her hoof, then chucked it in an arch she hoped would land right on the charger. Before the beacon went up, Hell rolled down another stratagem ball, sent out a wide sweep for the terrain data and then set it down on the ridge as the beacon went up and the bugs started to screech. She turned around and bucked the ball right on the trigger as hard as she could. It went soaring onto the other side of the pit, not that Hell could see exactly where it landed. She backed up as the first group of bugs poked their disgusting faces over the ridge.

Their alert was masked by the cracking of air and the wail of a charger taking a supersonic tungsten rod to the back.

Hell flipped out her pistol and started loosely firing at the ridge while she regained her balance. Her comms clicked again, this time filled with static and the sound of Cross Fire's voice. "Coordinates confirmed, wave run, six-two." Hell's Verdict clicked dry, the wave of bugs had doubled coming over the edge, she bit down and hefted her flamer, there was the signature click of the lead, followed by the trigger blowing wafts of orange out from just beneath her muzzle.

She kept backing up from the charging, flaming bugs; counting down the six seconds. Her speakers caught the supersonic craft cutting through the air first, dimming her senses but not removing the hum from the air as Cross Fire dove to less than one hundred feet from ground level. The two second run started, explosive canisters dropped from the craft faster than Hell could see.

She couldn't miss the explosions though, a carpet of fire and exploded rock rose over the rim of the pit, obscuring the horizon right in front of her as the plane simply vanished with a flash of acceleration that left another boom reverberating in its wake. Hell turned right, running towards the cracking reports of a Liberator rifle.

Emerald was down the slope, near the crevice opening at ground level, firing into a line of bugs spreading out around her. Hell was watching a kill box from around the other mare but felt no exertion, no panic. She saw a line, little spots in the rock to place her hooves to move down the hill the fastest without tripping, so she did just that.

Hell moved.

Like a blur, she zipped down the hill and broke through the side line on Emerald's left flank by smashing her hooves down on the back of a confused warrior and pressing down. She stamped and rolled her shoulder, pushing her Liberator down into her hoof and spinning to the side. Little tics sounded off in bursts as two warriors fell to lost limbs, and two grubs simply stopped moving or looking like grubs at all, reduced to puddles of green goo and black shards of broken chitin. The warrior she was half standing on hefted itself up and tried to throw Hell off.

Hell responded by pointing her rifle down at the back of its head. Two shots and it fell forward, the laws of physics responding by spraying Hell's visor with the ichor from the holes now present in its brain. Hell leapt off the side, landing on the only moving grub on her right, it squealed and futilely scraped at her boot until she moved again, bursting into another gallop with a flare of her wings, Hell came sliding next to Emerald as the mare's weapon clicked empty. "Duck!"

Hell's short rifle barrel came over Emerald's head in a wide sweep, blasting away chunks of chitin and staggering the swarm on the opposite side then taking a few carefully aimed headshots as she counted down the remainder of her magazine. There was a click from beneath her and Emerald rose up, still walking backwards, now accompanied by the 'tic tic' of her Liberator being silenced by the audio sensors in Hell's helmet. Hell lowered her own head down and reloaded, her ears twitched as her comms came on, she heard the staticky voice of Beach on the other end but the quality was ruined by the active gunfire next to her head.

"Command to-" Hell slammed her hoof down on a grub, "N-One to command, currently engaged, repeat broadcast, over!" She reached up and ticked the audio settings on the side of her helmet while gunning down the last warrior. "Move those hooves Emerald! We've gotta close those holes!"

Beach's voice was still wreathed in static, but clear enough to understand. "Command to N-One, SEA forces indicate a shift in the bug behavior, you are out of time. The swarm is coming sooner than expected."

Hell huffed, matching her run with a breath for talking. "Copy command." She switched com channels, "Hear that Emerald?"

"Yes." She grunted while splitting off towards the far hole Cross's airstrike missed.

Hell turned to focus on her own side. The two holes nearest to where she started, as her eyes scanned the terrain, she caught sight of exactly where; marked clearly by the viscera and mangled and burned bodies of bugs that had tried to do the same to her once they figured out where she was.

Hell ignored the scene, pulling a grenade from her bandolier and removing the pin in one fluid motion, tossing the ordinance into the hole as she ran past it, then the next one. Unhook, unpin, look, toss, run. She reached the other end of the pit at the same time Emerald did.

"Clean." Emerald said out loud, over than comms. She seemed prideful, at least that was something.

"We need to find that base." Hell shot out, "Right now."

Emerald pointed, "You mean that?"

Hell followed her point. "Oh yeah. That's it right there."

The base looked like a tree house covered in wires rather than a military installment. There was a trio of stone stalks rising so far above the landscape that the shadows from the platforms they were holding up changed the level of light pervading the air. Along the sides, built on a series of: metal scaffolding, black trusses, catwalks, and stability cables was the base, built right onto the sides of the stalks themselves in a scattered wide concept room design that stretched all the way to the base of the stone stalks.

There were shriekers accosting the base already, and orange streaks of heavy tracer fire continuously lit up the space, carefully trying to avoid the supports the shriekers were swirling around. That was all Hell needed to get her heart beating again, ponies were in danger, she ran. "Come on!"

The run took them back onto the jagged, barely stable plates of landscape pockmarked with holes that lead down deeper into the planet than Hell wanted to think about. They kept a steady pace the whole time, Emerald kept slowing down, apparently under the impression that Hell would need to rest at some point.

She did not.

Hell ran.

The base and the associated spires went from being landmarks to looming monoliths as they got closer to the fenced off base of the base on the ground. More orange tracer fire, and the signature blue caps of SEA forces dotted the edges of the torn open security fences from above as the soldiers made a fighting retreat to what looked like a scouting party of warriors. They were dodging, jumping around and ducking and diving while they advanced on the retreating group of troopers.

Emerald slowed and pulled out her rifle, "What's the-"

Hell's gallop picked up into a sprint. Her body lowered with her head to reduce the recoil of hitting the ground, her hooves turned into a blurring dynamo of force, her wings spread on instinct; Hell experienced true weightlessness for the first time as her momentum started to outpace gravity. The wind whistled on the tips of her outstretched wings, each breath was a gasp, forced in and out in sequence with her hoofsteps.

The security fence rattled as she jumped through it, a grub turned around and got a face full of blur as it was simply squished and thrown aside with a comical delay of 'splat' followed by 'yeet'. The rest of the bugs noticed the incoming blur of yellow and black and screeched their gargling challenge.

Hell bashed into the first with the full weight of her sprint, her combat shoes went through the head and the reverberation snapped several things in the body as she screamed, heaved, and crashed against it. She twisted with the momentum, throwing the body to the side and into another warrior. Two dove for her, she responded by rolling her trigger down her teeth, emptying her Verdict roughly 'in that direction' in less than a second. At such a close range, Hell got another dose of green ichor covering her visor. At the 'click' of the Verdict, Hell unsheathed the flamer under her barrel and spun after lighting the lead.

The spinning flame didn't bother the now flaming bugs, who rushed in through the fire to surround her. Hell danced her hooves away from the first mandibles that tried to gut her. The next set caught her in the back leg and yanked her backwards off of her hooves, she bucked with her other free leg as she fell and shoved her front legs back underneath her only to take a swipe across the chest. The force threw her to the ground, the armor plate held.

Impact smacked into the side of her head, the world rang. Screeching reached her ears and Hell stood as quick as she could, the world spun back into focus she leaned back and by purely muscle memory, started firing her Liberator vaguely in the direction of the moving black and green blurs as her eyes refocused on the screen behind her visor.

She blinked away the pain and locked eyes with a trio of grubs rushing around her side as she smacked the butt of her rifle into the warrior coming onto her left side and fired into its head until the Liberator clicked dry. She spun around to face the grubs as the first two jumped at her. There was a pressure wave like a crack of thunder and a blue suited SEAF pegasus speared the first one through the middle at the tail end of a dive bomb while throwing the second away with the wind wake of the landing. "Come on then!" She shouted, pointing her bayoneted rifle forwards and rushing with the oncoming wave of SEAF troopers.

What was left of the grubs was trampled by the contingent as they rode out from the line Hell had broken through for them. She sat back onto her haunches as she realized the battle was over, a single hoof unconsciously checking her chest for organs falling out. It was just the armor, missing fur, and she'd need a new armor sleeve, but there was no blood. Maybe armor plating is worth something after all.

Emerald crossed the battlefield, making her way up towards Hell. She probably shouldn't have left her, it wasn't portal science though, ponies were in danger, she was a Diver, there was no bravery involved; just her duty to her ponies. Emerald was giving her a silent, confounded look by body language on approach. Leading to her silently standing in place, Hell simply nodded and stood, "Experience." She tried to say more confidently than it probably sounded.

"Divers!" Both Hell's and Emerald's heads pivoted over to the approach of a gangly grey earth pony stallion in a sharp officer's uniform. "Thank Super Equestria you arrived just in time."

Emerald's snark resurfaced, "Who's the kid?"

Hell stood up and removed her helmet in one fluid motion. Next step was the under hoofed salute, a pair of stomps and raising her chin. "First Officer! Lieutenant Hell Diver of the nineteen oh first, reporting for VIP extraction sir!" That got her a few looks, as the nearby troopers’ expressions grew a little brighter. A few hooves slung into shoulders and the officer stood a fraction taller and maybe just a little bit straighter.

"It's good to see another Seapony out here, Diver, right this way, we already have him on the ground floor." He turned, and obviously the subtle, 'we're out of time' went unsaid, but not unfelt in his pace. He rounded a turret emplacement, and Hell nodded to the mare operating the thing. The mare was silver, freckled, probably around Hell's age; she waved down with a fake smile and a piercing stare look that could have curdled milk at fifty yards.

Hell walked on, Emerald taking up the rear, when they got close to one of the lower sheds, she heard the yelling. "I demand an explanation! What's taking so long! I should have been evacuated from this dust hole hours ago!" Followed by strained indoor voice talking as the officer opened the door, Hell got a look at the face of her VIP. His tensed, spittle spitting face, inches away from a SEAF trooper marked as the sergeant at arms. "You're just as incompetent as those bugs! You muscly goon!"

"Ferrous Storm-"

The officer was immediately interrupted by the scientists yelling, and his exaggerated flapping blonde mane as he spun. "You! Where have you been!" His gaze turned towards Emerald and Hell, "You!? Where have you been?!"

The sergeant at arms took a step forwards, "Sir-"

"Shut up! Two Tartarus Divers? Where's the evac ship?! I'm not-"

And then Hell punched him in the nose. He was a scientist, not a soldier, so she didn't hit him that hard; just enough to knock him onto his flanks and leave a nasty bruise. His blustering immediately came to a dead stop as he clutched his face and stared up at her snarling, pointed teeth.

Hell's mind flashed through all the angry ponies who ever yelled at her for being what she was born as, and she channeled that inwards into her best impression of her drill sergeant from boot camp. "Traitorous insubordination won't be tolerated. This is your only warning. I will drag your unconscious body to evac, you will not insult this team or its ponies, or you will spend the rest of your tenure as a doctor in a cell. Get up, we need to move." Then Hell fitted her helmet on.

I probably should not have done that... Hell thought as she stood ramrod straight. The doctor got up slowly, staring daggers at her but keeping quiet. The sergeant at arms looked pleased, at the very least. The officer had the decency to hide his smile. She made a half salute towards the sergeant and reached down for the buckle attaching her arm screen under her armor plating. "Sir? Can I have your name and your SEAFNID?"

"Sergeant Bradford, X403301" He parroted.

Hell reached up towards her radio settings, "This is N-one actual to CAS, come in CAS."

"Reading you three by three, this is CAS, over."

"Overriding protocol seven, I'm hoofing you over to Sergeant Bradford, X403301, over."

"Copy that, altering controls, ranging course. Good luck out there Tartarus Diver, over and out." Then Cross Fire's voice clicked dead over the band.

Hell tossed the arm band and a quintet of stratagem spheres towards the sergeant, who caught them in a pale yellow levitation. His horn was cleverly hidden under his hat. "You need these more than we do, the path back is clear."

"Appreciation Diver. I'll make them co-"

Screaming from outside, "BUGS! BUGS! BUGS!" Multiple voices cried out.

Hell spun out the door with a single rotation of steps, Ferrous was doing a tiny little dance. She addressed him curtly. "You are to follow behind Emerald at all times and follow every instruction she gives you. If you're missing all of your legs and she tells you to run... You'd best figure it out." He gulped, and Hell turned towards Emerald, "Watch him."

She nodded.

Hell tracked the wave of troopers making their way from the bunks, the dropped packets of food left behind from the tiny moments of reprieve. Hell made pace, running with the group out towards the forward defensive line. She stopped, stutter stepping as she saw the horde.

The horizon was jagged with the shape of the monsters. The terrain was covered, as was the sky. shriekers, and enough bugs to make the ground look like it was alive and moving. Chargers and brutes, easily mistaken for a hoard of rolling boulders made in scattered formation through the mess.

These SEAF troopers were going to die here.

Hell felt as though the band wasn't enough.

She caught a breath trying to escape her throat and turned. Running away from the maelstrom of monsters, towards the marker on her HUD compass Emerald had placed for extraction, opposite their landing point. After Ferrous stumbled for the third time going down the encampment slope, Hell and Emerald exchanged a concerned glance as they both realized Ferrous wasn't going to be able to keep pace. Hell once again considered carrying him, only both of them would need a full range of movement if they got into any trouble.

Said trouble which was on approach. Another patrol was dead ahead, just over the next ridge of rock. "I'm going to clear a path!" Hell shouted over comms. "Do not stop running! Priority one is the VIP!"

Emerald responded by breaking left, still sprinting up the hill. Hell broke right, for the back end of the scouting group. Cresting the hill clarified the dots into targets, and her for them as well. A pair of queens screeched out a warning and all of the bugs turned to face her as she made a headlong charge towards their group. A few seconds passed in the visual stalemate before the warriors made an about face and simply started skittering the other direction. One of the queens lowered its head and matched Hell's charge, the rest of the scouting group started to beeline for Emerald and Ferrous. "They're coming for you!" Hell shouted into her comms.

She turned into the weight of her gallop, breaking back towards Emerald. The queen began to strafe to cut her off; it was fast, too fast for Hell to get around. She switched to a three legged run and carefully pointed her liberator and let loose. Desperately trying to manage the recoil while running lopsided. Most of her shots went far too high as the seconds closed and the distance between them disappeared. The monster staggered and something inside it broke as Hell's rifle clicked dry. The triangular head, now with about twelve extra holes, slumped and twisted to the side. It hung from barely attached sinews as the beast continued to charge.

Hell was prepared this time.

Instead of the bug slumping over and dying like it was supposed to, it twitched in sequence. Hell took a deeper pair of breaths and rushed up under its claws as the bug doubled in speed. She hit the ground, throwing herself onto her side and sliding into one of the needle black legs. The bug, having no clue where Hell had just gone and off balance due to the leg kicking, toppled over and started writhing against the ground, chunking gouges out of the ground with the mandibles that still worked - none of which Hell saw, as she was already on her hooves again, running towards the sounds of gunfire.

As she got closer, she made out the quick shapes of Emerald and Ferrous dodging up the slanted stone surface away from the bugs. One half was running after them, the other had broken off to cut off their run. Hell rushed towards the second group, skidding to a stop when she was close enough while flipping out her pistol. She took two deep breaths to steady her hooves and fired off one bullet.

The carefully managed arc led to a single dead grub, its bulbous green backside popping like a balloon. Second bullet, and the same thing happened to the grub next to it. The warriors turned their heads and Hell followed the same procedure, inhale, fire, exhale. Several heads popped as she fired in rhythm, bugs smashing into the ground as they fell; in a few cases, the warriors sped up, rushing towards her in a burst of adrenaline.

All the while, Hell was looking at the range and wondering: Why don't I try sniping more often? To which the universe answered her in the form of a bug raising its head to the sky and letting out a horrific scream, sending pink mist into the air as it compressed its body in a rhythmic, alien motion. Hell fired a single bullet into its side, to which the universe added on an extra slice of irony, as that was the last bullet in her magazine. Her eyes widened.

She reloaded faster than she'd ever done before, while walking towards the bug in question as it finished its call. A trio of shots put it down and it slumped over as the ground started to shake. A blast of rock followed nearby, streams of pink smoke burst from the seams underneath; then the ground started to collapse. The rocky substrate did its best impression of sand as the sinkhole spread outwards, the ground sloughing away and obscuring the pink mist.

Hell didn't have any time to call out, she had already started running. Hell was fast, but mother nature was faster. First, she felt her back hoof go down to strike against the ground only to find air. She stumbled and half caught herself, but the ground beneath her other hoof gave way. She grabbed into the rock as it split in front of her, desperately trying to cling to the surface as it broke apart, her heart filled her throat as her entire body realized she was about to fall.

And then she did.

About six hooves. A silvery glow surrounded her, halting her momentum, her flailing came to a stop and her eyes were drawn towards the beacon of white from where Emerald was standing. Ferrous had caught her. The ground was still falling away; she could feel herself drifting forwards slowly and from her spot in the air, Hell could see the last few bugs getting their innards turned into outards by Emerald.

Although winged, Hell did not enjoy being airborne. There was something about having no ground under her hooves that scratched at the space where her wings connected to her back and ran all the way down to the tips of her hooves. It felt like air was getting into her body, swirling around and promising imminent death. Hell was still drifting towards the edge, occasionally jerking downwards as the aura failed to hold her weight.

Hell made the mistake of looking down.

Not only could she barely see the still settling rocks tumbling over each other and throwing up dust, but a deep, ominous green glow started to pervade the cloud of debris. Hell found herself visually locked onto the sight as the glow grew brighter, scattering outwards through the cloud as it settled around a massive shape. It rose, peaking its torso from the cloud of dust and raising its head for a wail that had to be deafened by her suit speakers. A roar she felt.

A bile titan, aptly named, rose from the rubble. With a jagged length torso twice the size of a pelican, head, abdomen, thorax; all articulated by pulsing green musculature and surrounded in pitch black chitin. Near the height of the crater itself, it began moving its legs, shoving building width spires of black chitin into the collapsed rock, bringing itself forwards towards the edge of the crater while staring at Hell the whole time.

Hell inched closer to the edge, "Come on come on come oncomeoncomeoncomeon!" body lengths turned into one, the aura flickered one more time, the titan roared again, sending vibrations up her armor and into her hooves. Then the magic flickered out entirely. Hell's back hooves kicked and her wings flapped on instinct as she pushed against nothing and desperately grabbed at the side of the crater as she slammed into it. Rock parted into dust under her hooves as she ran up nothing without moving until her front left caught on something hard.

Adrenaline was the only thing on her mind, the titan behind her, mostly gravity. Her back hooves kept scraping against the rock as her front hooves tore at the hard point and she pulled herself over the edge. Her eyes caught the sight of Emerald moving towards the crater, as she was lifting herself over and kicking into a gallop, she yelled over comms, "Run!" Which was exactly when the head of the bile titan peaked over the rim of the crater.

Eyes the size of her head focused down on her back as she broke into a sprint. The ground shook as the titan clawed its own hard points into the side of the crater it had made. Emerald screamed, at least, Hell thought Emerald had screamed, she couldn't really hear over her own breathing. The reverberations behind her, her own hooves striking the ground.

Ferrous was falling behind.

Even with the head start they had, Hell was briskly catching up to Ferrous, Emerald had left him, running as fast as she could. Hell glanced over her shoulder to see the monster less than three steps back, for it the distance between the crater was less than a single rippling articulation of all of its four story tall legs.

Hell rushed up to him and stopped in front, kneeling her back legs while still running, "Get on!"

Between heaving, "What!?"

Hell bore her teeth, "DO AS I SAY!"

Hell staggered herself until she was directly in front of him and then crouched as if she were about to pounce. He jumped over her shoulders, kicking and wrapping his hooves around her neck. As he did so, Hell reached for a stim, and shoved it into her leg, the plunger went down and within one beat of her heart, Hell saw white.

A moment passed that felt like sucking in one single eternal breath, her body filling with energy as reality came crashing back into focus. She was catching up to Emerald, the white at the edge of her vision was fading around the corners of her periphery. Her running became more pony-like, as opposed to the strange jumping she had unconsciously started doing. Her breathing started to hurt, the weight of Ferrous on her joints started to settle in her mind as the run continued.

Hell carefully reached for a stratagem ball as she ran. The ground and the miniature hills were uneven, tripping meant death, if the intensity of the rumbling was to be believed. She got halfway through working the data for an orbital strike as the feed cut out and Beach's voice sounded over all comms. "Destroyer leaving low orbit Divers, dispatching emergency extraction shuttle."

"It's gaining on us!" Emerald shouted.

Hell tossed the stratagem ball and flicked the all comms channel open with her ear. "Get me Horizon!"

Seconds later, "I'm here? What's-"

"I need air support, danger close! Repeat, AS-Zero Zero!"

"Hell!" Emerald shouted.

Hell sidestepped a knife the size of her torso. It hit the rock and sank down, the black, ridged chitin parting the stone like butter until the width went from 'torso sized' to 'studio apartment sized'. Hell almost fell over, skidding sideways as she felt something under her hoof crack and snap. The muscles forced her to stay upright as her hoof twisted inside her combat boot, the pain was very clear on what had just happened.

Hell reached for another stim as she caught the audio of Ferrous screaming into her ears as another spire of black chitin came down in front of her. Hell turned on her good hoof, slamming her bad one into the ground as she rotated her momentum to glide around the edge of the leg as it sunk the rock under her hooves. She didn't scream, she couldn't. Not with Ferrous choking her, not for the pain, it hurt so much that she couldn't think of anything else. Horizon said something over the radio channel, but her mind simply couldn't process it.

As soon as she was clear of the roaring, another stim went into her leg. She did scream the instant her bone snapped back into place, tearing into the muscles in her ankle as the stim stitched those back together too. The seconds after that faded away into the same state the stims always inflicted. Floating weightlessness as her mind jumped back down from survival autopilot. She saw the blue beacon and Emerald running towards it. Hell made pace, riding the high of the magical stimulants until she was running with Emerald again.

Her body then reminded her of how far she was pushing herself. Her chest seized as she continued to heave in as much air as she could into her mouth; it was like drowning. Shoveling air into her face, but it just wasn't enough, the burning the pain in her legs and could this idiot please stop CHOKING ME!

Hell took a split second to bite into Ferrous' leg. His response was to jerk it back and give Hell the necessary space to continue breathing normally, she ducked her head down and tried her best to speed up. A horrific, gargling echo sounded out from behind them, both Emerald and Hell turned to look over their shoulders to get a good look at a stream of flaming acid streaming through the air towards them.

Hell shut her eyes and ran.

She heard a scream more akin to a yip. Some instinctual part of her mind snapped her eyes open to see Emerald collapse into the dust. The rest of her mind knew what came after and she looked away. Vision blurred, Hell continued running, she could feel the blood in her mouth from the exertion, balling up in the corners of her mouth and hitting the back of her throat with every heave of breath.

Hell kept running.

When she got close enough to see the beacon, she flicked on her comms again. "Whe-" A cough tore blood from her mouth as she spat, "Where's that air support!?" Hell kept running.

An explosion of static filled the other end of the radio as Horizon's voice was marred and mixed with the sound of turbulence. "Ten seconds." Still fit through the static, full of iron and determination. Hell turned her gaze up, and her HUD caught the IFF of the pelican on entry. Then she looked over her shoulder to see the titan had fallen far behind her. She stopped sprinting and immediately felt the transition of her blood pressure shooting up. Her heart thumping hard enough to feel in her tail.

"Why did you stop!?" Ferrous yelled into her ears.

Hell shifted her weight and looked him in the eye. Likely, some combination of the black screen over her eyes and her mouth dripping her own blood over her canines was enough to silence him. Hell trotted up the hill and looked back at the titan again. It wasn't looking at her; a pair of gears clinked together in her head. The sound of the pelican's thrusters roiled through the air as Hell finished her trot up to the platform. She stared at the titan as it thumped forwards and the pelican landed next to her.

She backed into it. Ferrous was quick to get off of her and jump inside.

Hell stopped with one hoof inside, staring over the hydraulics at the titan as it approached.

It wasn't looking at her.

"Hell!" Horizon yelled back over the comms, she turned over her shoulder to see him peering out of the cockpit. "What are you doing? Strap in! We need to go! Now!"

Hell stared back for a second as the ramp she was standing on groaned and lifted her up. Then her hoof hit the emergency release button on the side of the door. There was a buzz as the ramp flopped back down onto the ground and Hell stepped out and reloaded her short rifle.

"Hell!"

Hell ignored him and lined up her rifle, the first time she'd ever used the scope. She got a perfect view of the monster's head, the segmented blue eyes, the black chitin, the hinges on the side of its jaw and its gaping mouth. Pew. And she fired the first shot. The bullet traveled the distance for a second before passing by silently. She adjusted, a second crack found the bullet closer; a third, closer; a fourth, dead on target.

Then she emptied the magazine. She watched through the scope as every single bullet bounced off the carapace like it was nothing, the yellowish streams of bullet fragments and ricochets pairing with the cracking noise right next to her face. The gun clicked dry and her hoof flung into motion. She pulled the release with the side of her mouth, slammed in the next magazine, threw her shoulder forwards to cock the weapon, then emptied another magazine into the titan's head.

She's still out there. Bounced through Hell's mind.

She wasn't leaving.

'Click-clatter-flip-snap-chk-shk' followed as Hell reloaded again. She caught a blur of green in the corner of her HUD as Emerald crested the hill. She could feel the reverberations from the titan as it got closer. Hell kept firing, the monster continued to roar and try to step on her squad mate. She saw a few bullets not break open, the constant fire leaving bullets embedded in the armor.

She caught Horizon's voice as she jumped into a run "Hell! Get in! Automated systems are launching in twenty seconds!"

The titan was getting in spitting range of the ship.

Hell's eyes widened with focus as Emerald got closer.

Horizon yelled through the comms. "HELL!"

But Hell wasn't thinking. Emerald was missing half of her helmet, and it looked like most of her mane was missing. She'd taken a glancing splash of acid to the side of her head. Hell closed the distance in seconds and skid across the ground while her hoof screamed at her. She drifted across the rock, her wings flapping and trying to twist the air around her with no success, her hooves came up as she slid to a stop in front of Emerald and snapped her tail out to the mare as she stabbed down into her neck with her last stim.

Teeth met tail and Hell sprinted up the hill, nearly pulling Emerald off of her hooves as the mare desperately clung onto Hell's tail for the little extra speed that it granted her. Hell may have been tossing debris from her hooves directly into Emerald's face, but it didn't matter. The gurgling echo of the titan preparing to blast another stream of acid sounded out, Hell swung herself, skidding again as Emerald came crashing into her from the side as Hell's eyes locked onto the pelican ramp.

Her front hoof wrapped around Emerald as she twisted her momentum, and Hell dove.

The two mares flew forwards, slamming into the grating inside the pelican with enough force for Hell to see stars. "GO!"

The keening wail of the titan mixed with the angry thrusters of the pelican hitting maximum power in under a second. Hell was thrown to the side as the pelican turned nearly horizontal to avoid the acid. As both of them were thrown to the side, Hell gripped Emerald around the head to protect the open side of her helmet. They impacted the side of the pelican, Hell's wings uncomfortably scraping against the grating as her back found a comfortable spot wedged inside a hard piece of metal.

Emerald sagged on top of her as the weight shifted with the g-forces of the pelican leveling out. Eventually they were flying straight, and Emerald rolled off of her. Injured, tired, probably traumatized, but alive.

Hell snorted, and got a bit of blood in her nose.

She caught the look from Emerald, what with half of her helmet missing, as she blinked the stars out of her eyes.

Hell laughed, relieved. Charged with success, with victory. The breathlessness led it to be mostly quiet chuckling, but eventually Emerald came around enough to sigh into her own laughter. The two acid and blood covered mares laughed their manes up as Horizon tried to keep the pelican steady and Ferrous looked at the two crazy mares on the floor with a look half bordering on fear.

"No-" Emerald was interrupted by a cough slipping into a longer sigh and laugh as she chuckled off her failure to speak. "Not bad for a cave pony." Emerald made no move to get up, nor did she take her eyes off Hell.

Hell got her giggles under control long enough to say, "Experience." with a straight face. Not that it mattered, Emerald couldn't see her face. Nonetheless, a second went by before both of them burst out into pained giggling again.

Ferrous came to some kind of mental apotheosis, "You're both insane." He settled out loud.

"Both of you strap in!" Horizon shouted over the engines and the turbulence.

Hell shakily stood, lifting herself up with a mix of the wall and a hoof hold. Emerald slapped her over the shoulder and used her weight to help them both stand up together. They strapped in next to each other in time for the pelican to breach the atmosphere.

Level up!
Level: Four
Title: Space Cadet

New perk!

Faster!
Why go slow when you could go fast instead? Increased maximum speed!

Author's Note

My attempt to write something a bit longer, with far more detail, along with a specialty mission of my own design. New characters in the foreground, extra extra details and more, while adhering to the more descriptive side of combat without being as gruesome or hard as nails on the Divers. That, and a slightly happier ending.

I'm not exactly sure how well I wrote this chapter, but I really like the idea I tried to write out.

Lemme know what you think, creative, mean, silly, or otherwise 'criticisms' or advice are welcomed and encouraged!