The Reality War

Yay, new chapter. Boo, short chapter, like the rest of the story. What can I say? I not really good at writing a lot because it all feels like fluff to me. Ah well, onwards!

“So Delta.”

“Mph.”

“Ya ever find that girl you were looking for? Ya know, the one that got away?”

“Mph mph.”

“You don’t talk much, do ya?”

“Mph.”

“Right. Chief, you talk, right?”

“Yes, though I prefer to not talk right now. We’re here in Ponyville looking for Combine scouts. We’re not supposed to be talking.”

“You’re no fun.”

They were sitting underneath an apple tree; only one of the hundreds on this hill. But they were scouting out the little hamlet that sat beneath them. Delta just sort of stood there, looking really foreboding, while Chief was prone looking through the scope of a sniper rifle. Isabella, on the other hand, was just sitting crunching on an apple, enjoying something that wasn’t a 200 year old Salisbury steak, or news. Though she did like Three-Dog’s reports on her escapades. Regardless, she wasn’t the sneaky type and this waiting around was killing her. Field command had told the Misfits that they were engaging the enemy a couple dozen miles outside of town at full force. Of course that was three hours ago, and they haven’t heard from them since. Just before that they got a radio from Shepard back at main HQ, saying that although the Combine war machine’s reinforcements were cut off, thirty of those behemoth ships were still on their way to Canterlot, Manehattan, and everything in between. Of course sixteen were moving towards Canterlot, with eight towards Manehattan, but that still left six for them. Isabella wasn’t worried though; they’d be fine. She was used to hearing someone say they’ll be “right there”, and then never hearing from them again. Such was the laws of the wastes, but she kind of hoped that these US soldiers would at least have survived a little bit longer. Her thoughts were disrupted though when Chief broke the silence.

“Got two large bipedal creatures flanked by several regular soldiers at the bottom of the hill. Looks like they punched through the US lines.”

“Let me handle this one… Delta?”

“Mph.” Delta proceeded to pull out a rocket launcher and fire a handful of grenades right in the path of the Combine. Thirty seconds later it was raining Combine chunks.

“Well,” Isabella stood up at this victory, “that wasn’t so ba-“

“There they are, get them!” A deep voice from behind them somewhere made them turn around before bullets from energy rifles made them turn back around and run down the hill into a barn.

“I count thirty soldiers in the trees in front of us,” Chief said, looking out one of the windows of the barn at the advancing Combine. “Anyone got any ideas?”

“There is this recipe I’ve been wanted to try out,” Isabella said, pulling out a weird looking contraption and putting several green bombs on it. “Ingredients: thirty or so soldiers, preferably enemy (they make the recipe sweeter), eight miniature nuclear bombs, and one Experimental Nuclear Multiple Reentry Vehicle Catapult.” She ran outside jumping into a cellar entrance conveniently placed right outside the barn so that only her upper body was exposed to the Combine soldiers. Hefting this catapult on her shoulder she continued, “Step one: put all your soldiers into one general area using deterrents. Proximity mines are suggested, but grenades work too.” She reached into a pack and pulled out a few mines. Using precision Frisbee throwing, she was able to create a fence around the Combine, forcing them together into a small group. One of the soldiers stepped on it and was instantly blown sky high. “It’s okay if some of your soldiers have a few premature detonations. Step two, mix in your nukes; the sooner you can get them all in, the better. Step two point five, don’t look directly at the explosion.” She fired the weapon and crouched lower to the ground. A ground shaking explosion took place and when she looked back where the soldiers and apple trees were, all that was there was a massive crater. “Step three, recipe complete,” she looked up and caught an apple that had been thrown into the sky and took a bite, “serve with apples.”

Meanwhile a Combine sniper that was about to shoot her died from a stroke from the sheer awesomeness of what he had just witnessed; although the bullet fired into his head from Chief’s rifle didn’t hurt either.

“Come on,” Chief said to the Lone Wanderer, “Let’s get into town so we can get ourselves a tactical advantage. We’re too out in the open here.”

They were sitting in a tree house. Literally. A tree. House. Isabella thought she had seen it all, but this definitely took the cake. Regardless, this house had lots of shelves, so they were able to create decent barricades, and there was even an overlook that let them snipe with comfort. Isabella took out her favorite weapon- the Xualong Chinese Assault Rifle- and aimed it out the window at the direction from which they had come. Mines from Isabella and Delta created a perimeter six yards thick around the house.

Chief, being the sniper, was the first to start firing his gun, but soon vicious fire was being exchanged on both sides. It’s okay though, because Isabella had a lot of guns, and she used the ammo press at the Pitt a lot so she had a lot of ammo. She could not speak for the other two but they seemed to be doing fine. It wasn’t long however, before her arm started getting sore from all the recoil of the guns. Within fifteen minutes a series of obnoxious whirrings started filling the air.

“What is that?” Isabella’s question was soon answered when a shattering of glass was heard from the skylight and several flying machines with sharp blades made a bee line for her.

“What. The. Shit?! Get the fuck away from me!” She pulled out a golf club and started beating the machines out of the air with it. They were fragile fuckers though, she thought. As one hit the ground, it exploded, sending her reeling back. More came in from somewhere else and were harassing the others too. Delta just roared and shot them. With fire. From his hand.

Holy hell, I want me a flame throwing hand. Oh hell, now it’s electricity. I totally want one now. Isabella was practically green with envy but soon she found herself distracted by these machines that she prayed the Enclave never got their hands on. Because it would make them that much more annoying to kill. It was at this point that all those machines, in combination with the ever advancing soldiers (they didn’t seem to mind seeing their comrades getting killed by the mines) rendered this fortification moot. So the three Misfits jumped outside and bolted across the street to the next piece of cover. It was rather amusing actually to Isabella because Chief for his credit just kept his cool and shot anything that so much as looked at him. Though to be fair, they were trying to kill him just as much as he was succeeding at killing them. There was one point where they were almost across the street when he got tired and decided to just beat them to death with a hammer the size of a small Super Mutant. Isabella really wanted one of those too. Delta too got tired of massacring Combine from afar and decided to change tactics and drill them, literally. He took a giant drill and played dentist on their everywhere. Isabella just decided to sit back and watch the carnage. That is until a loud roar and a thump on the ground behind her made 101 turn around and look up at a massive Daddy Long Leg like creature. Several more landed behind that one and several more still landed in a perimeter around the battle. Chief and Delta looked at Isabella to see her pulling out a little blaster pistol thing.

“Now’s not the time for sidearms!” Chief exclaimed.

“Now’s the perfect time for sidearms,” Isabella said right back. She aimed down her target and fired, a rather humorous pew sound coming from the gun. The Strider she was aiming at got hit by a small beam of energy before instantly being disintegrated and blown away on the wind. She fired another, and another, felling Strider after Strider in the blink of an eye. But before she could move onto another one, a charging sound could be heard from a few of the Striders. The Misfits had only a moment to react, as they dived into the nearest house, the ground they were standing on just moments before being devastated by numerous pulse blasts.

Isabella was about to fire at more Striders from her cover but Chief pulled her further away from the enemies, who were temporarily confused about whether or not the denizens had been eliminated.

“What the hell was that about Chief? I had a good lock on one of them,” Isabella started, “And then you just pull me away like that? What were you thinkin- Why are you looking at the sky?”

She followed Chief’s line of sight until she saw it: six massive Combine super-carriers levitating right over Ponyville. Out of them hundreds of little transports flew to the ground, unloading too many soldiers to count.

“Okay, yeah. I don’t have a gun for that,” she commented, “It’s someone else’s turn for ideas.”

Meanwhile Delta was watching more of those transports unloading before moving back into the carriers. He noticed that they seemed timed, and not manually operated. Perhaps…

“Hey Delta, where’re you going?” Isabella looked after Delta as he ran towards a transport that had just touched down, shooting Combine as they got off. Chief looked at Isabella then back at Delta.

“Like Scarabs…” he muttered, and then ran after Delta.

“What the hell are you doing? You want to get us noticed? Why…” Realization hit her as she realized what the other two were thinking.

“Oh, this won’t end well.” She ran after the two who were standing on the now empty transport looking at her. She jumped on right before it levitated off the ground and ascended back into one of the carriers above.