Will To Survive

Chapter 3: Invasion

We’re still inside DimLight’s apartment, getting ready to rob their, or I guess I should say our, rivals. We pack up some of our saddlebags with some equipment, mainly just some bags to put the drug in. Now, I understand the circumstances that I’m getting into, but it still nerves me to see them load up some guns and put them on their sides. Well, all except for Cosmic Joy, she was getting two small axes and a knife, which was concealed inside her sleeve.

I just stand there with my saddlebag waiting to go. Mercurial tosses me a black hooded outfit, something you’d see at a discount clothes store. I put it on without question. It was actually quite comfortable.

“You’re wearing that so they won’t recognize us and so we blend in with the night.” Mercurial said to me wearing something very similar to what I was, as well as all the rest of the group

“Alright, we ready to go?” I ask in a nervous tone.

“Yeah, let’s go.” Cosmic added in a very hyper and joyous attitude and a very large smile snapping the knife in and out of her sleeve.

We walk out the door and begin to head to our destination, the warehouse in Milestone Industrial Park. I have never been down near that region. When the whole issue happened a few years ago, I avoided it due to it having a large crime rate. Well, the whole city had a large crime rate. It was uncommon not to hear gunshots or sirens in the morning. I’m glad those days are no longer around, well sort of no longer around.

We stop by Sparky’s Den on the way there. I was a bit curious to find out why. When we walked in, there was a mare that was yellow with a blue spiked mane up in the air, with black eyes. She looked a bit young as well. Maybe just turned eighteen is my guess.

“Hey Blue Sparks, this is our friend Sparky. Look at that, your names are kind of similar.” DimLight said pointing to this spaz mare.

Oh, now I get it. She is Sparky, and this is her den, or house, or whatever. Now it’s making sense. I just wave to her and nod my head. She didn’t accept that as a proper introduction apparently because she immediately ran up and hugged me.

“Well, hiya there! Your names Blue Spark? That’s sooo cool!” She said lively and quite rapidly while nearly choking me. I look over my shoulder to see the others smiling and giggling at my surprised reaction.

“Hey, Sparky, we need you to do something for us.” DimLight interjected.

She lets go of me and throws me against the wall, then looks at him with wide eyes. Oh how adorable and terrifying at the same time. She had this big creepy grin on her face that wasn’t helping.

“Oh really, and what would that favor be?” she said while cocking her head completely to the right when saying it while keeping perfect eye contact on DimLight.

“Look, Sparky, were invading that warehouse the Unity are in. We need you to disconnect the power going there. Can you do that for us?”

“Hell yea! I’ll go in there, all, stealthy and shit and take that power out. And you guys go in and do your thing an…” She is saying this while pouncing all over the room reenacting what she’d be doing.

“Yea, okay Sparky we get it. Let’s go.”

She jumps into a room and comes back out in a hooded outfit like ours. She then runs into the kitchen and gets her saddlebag hanging on the wall and packed the bag with a bunch of equipment that I had no idea what it did, most likely something to use to disconnect the power.

We part out the door with Sparky and head down the street, she’s even walks strange. It’s like a feeble jog mixed with a skip. I can’t describe it; it hurts my head trying to think about it. You'd thinking one of the others would tell her to chill out, but instead they let her go.

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We get to a street on a hill that overlooks all of Milestone Industrial Park. It was dark, but some of the warehouses and factories were still lit up. Cosmic walks up to me and points to one of them near the ocean.

“That’s the one we’re going after. We have been watching it for a bit. They used to have this place under heavy guard, but recently they have been leaving it vulnerable, like tonight. We should be able to get in, get the stuff and leave without even killing anypony.”

“Then why’d you guys pack up all those weapons?”

She shrugs, “Just in case, who knows what can happen, better to be safe than sorry.”

Sparky and the black pony whose real name I still don’t know, I’ll call him Inferno (I think that’s a fitting name), head off in a different direction from the rest of us to go cut power to Milestone. Me, Cosmic, and Mercurial head off in one direction and DimLight and the gold mare the opposite way from us. On the way over I ask about our plan.

“It’s simple; we are going in from the top while DimLight and Golden go from the first floor.”

“Oh, so that’s her name? Golden, alright.”

“Well, kind of. Golden is her nickname, but she uses it so much it almost has kind of become permanent.”

“Oh, okay,” That makes no sense. “Anyway, about the plan,”

“Right, anyway, we go in through the top and knock out the guards on the top floor, they take out the ones on the bottom. We go in, take the powder, and destroy their lab equipment. Plain and simple, but don’t kill the guards unless you have too. We don’t want to attract too much attention.”

I don’t have a weapon so it didn’t matter to me. We make our way inside Milestone. Most of the warehouses or factories were dark. Some of them had lights, but were dim and didn’t serve much purpose. The only real lighting was the streetlights, of which quite a few flickered. We make our way to were our target was. Outside the warehouse were tons of metal shipping crates and boxes, perfect for sneaking around. Mercurial, Cosmic, and I jumped and climbed our way to the third floor and were outside a window. The top floor of the warehouse was mostly offices along with some metal walkways that lead to the bottom floor. We expected the powder to be in the offices somewhere. Cosmic Joy used her magic to open the window. Inside were five guards, we sat outside and waited for Sparky to cut the power.

*Click*

Out goes the powers and it’s time to go. The only thing illuminating the warehouse was the moons rays. I stayed back, I couldn’t fight these ponies. Plus, I have nothing to use. It didn’t matter; Cosmic Joy jumped around like crazy and with ease took out three guards by hitting them over the head with the blunt end of her axe, knocking them all out. She was like a ninja hopping around the walkways and knocking out the ponies.

“Hey, leave me some.” Mercurial whispered in a laughing tone. These two obviously enjoyed this.

Down below you could hear DimLight and Golden get the others. I only hear one gunshot go off down there, but it was short lived. It was quiet for a while until Dimlight yelled out that it was all clear. Soon, the lights flicked back on. My eyes widened to see what was down below. A drug lab, the size of which I had never seen before, was on the bottom floor. There were tons of boxes filled with ingredients and tools, most importantly; lots of the powder is in some of those boxes.

“Look at that everypony! All that powder is easily worth about five hundred thousand!” said Golden with the biggest smile on her face, bigger than a child striking it rich on Nightmare Night.

DimLight throws some packages on the table that had the drug labs and fills his saddlebag with some of the powder. Cosmic was sitting on a ledge up high looking out a window keeping an eye out. Mercurial and I began searching the offices for any more powder, but found nothing.

Something didn’t seem right though. It doesn’t seem normal for a group as big as Unity to just leave that much product in one place. Fear got the best of me, but I kept calm. Everything is under control; nothing bad is going to happen. They planned for this.

“H-hey, I see some ponies coming here! And there are a lot of them to!” Cosmic Joy said looking out a window in the top floor. Her eyes grow wide. “Shit, Unity!”

My eyes go wide after she had said that. I look around to see the rest of the group both calm, but also looking determined to fight back. Mercurial looks and walks over to me while reaching into his saddlebag.

“Take this; you’re going to need it,” and he hands me a loaded sub-machine gun. I accept it, and cocked it.

He and I began exit the empty offices and start walking back to the others to figure out what we were going to do. Cosmic was still looking out the window while wielding one of her axes spinning it around in a circle with a large smile on her face. She looks over and sees me, jumps down and runs over. She opens her mouth about to say something until we heard a loud bang. Some of the enemies had shot down the front door and were beginning to storm in and shoot at us.

Mercurial aims his gun and unload the entire magazine at the enemies coming through the door, killing a few of them. He then grabs me and pulls me behind some cover. He reloads his gun and looks at me.

“Alright, you need to get out of here alright. Go straight through the hallways and you will see a window, go out it and fly off. Go find Sparky and...”

“I-I can’t fly.” I interrupted.

There was a small pause. “You’re shitting me right?”

“No, my wings are too weak at the moment.”

He was about to respond until we hear bullets whizzing right past us. He grabs me and drags me into the hallways and shoves me into an office across from the one he was in. The rival members begins unloading bullet after bullet in our general direction nearly hitting us. Mercurial begins to fire back. He ducks back into the office and looks at me with angered and confused eyes.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING? SHOOT YOUR DAMN GUN AT THEM!”

A bullet flings past my head. I poke my head out to see what I was doing or who I was aiming at. I see one walking up the steps to our floor. I aim my gun and pull the trigger to fire a small burst. I see two of the three shots hit him, one in his back leg and the other in the neck. He falls down the stairs and doesn’t get back up. I pull back into the room to give myself a second; then look back out and see a pegasus flying around in the air shooting a rifle at Mercurial. I aim and unload at him. I see only one bullet hit his wing, feathers pop out and he falls to the ground, crashing on top of the drug lab.

It was clear for just a moment. I walk out and began to walk to the window. Mercurial follows behind me still shooting at the pursuers. He kicks the window to get me out and gives me another clip for my gun.

“Take this and get out of here. I need to make sure Golden and DimLight are okay!”

I nod and jump out the window and land on a large metal crate. I make my way down and begin to sneak around to avoid detection while also trying to leave Milestone. I walk past and I see somepony in the distance sneaking around as well. I thought it to be Cosmic Joy so I run to her. When I got there, it wasn’t, it was an opposing member who looked very similar. I aim my gun to shoot her, but I forgot to reload.

She pulls out a switchblade knife and chases me all throughout the warehouses back lot. As we’re running I reload the gun and start to fire behind me, she ducks for cover. Quickly running through the lot I go behind a crate to catch my breath. I laid there with my eyes closed to help calm down. My body was shaking in both adrenaline and nervousness. The sounds of the bullets going off from inside was still going on, but it started so subside. I open my eyes to see a stallion in front of me who then hits me in the head with his hoof as hard as he can.

I lay on the ground trying to get up. He turns me around and hits me once more, knocking me out.

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My eyes open slowly to reveal me inside a basement. It was dark and cold, dirt floors, and a putrid smell. The pipes on the ceiling were leaking, and I was unlucky enough to be underneath one of the dripping pipes. I could barely see out my right eye because it was swollen from when I was hit. Attempting to move pointed out I couldn’t. My senses begin to kick in and I realize I’m strapped to a chair. I try to call out, but I was gagged with an old rag and duct tape.

I woke up at the wrong time, two ponies came walking down the stairs. Neither of the two did I recognize. One was a mare and the other was a stallion. The stallion was a light brown with a scar across his face. The mare was white and wearing a black bandana. She walks over to me and is staring me in the eyes only inches from my face.

“Well, good morning. I hope you don’t mind that we snatched you.” She had such a subtle and sweet voice as she was talking to me. “You were being quite the problem down at our warehouse.”

I look to the left of her to see the stallion pick up and box cutting knife. My eyes went wide open, and the mare must have noticed.

“Oh, that? No need to worry,” she puts her hoof under my chin. “My friend and I are just going to do a little experiment. We want to test out some myths and you seem like a perfect test subject to try them on.”

The stallion starts to sharpen the knife. He looks at the stone with a bit of frustration and throws it at me hitting my forehead.

“I need a different stone that one won’t work.”

The mare sighs lifting her eyes up and begins to walk away from me to him; they whisper to each other and look at me for a brief moment. They go back to talking to each other. I could vaguely pick out the words “kill him”. The mare walks to me and rubs my mane.

“We’ll be back in a little bit, you be good now.” And lightly slaps my head before going upstairs with the other one.

I’m going to die in here. I begin to look around to see if I can find a way out. I rustle around to see if there was something faulty with the chair, all I was able to do was free my left wing. My hope drops a little before I noticed my wing could reach the table with the cutting knifes. I wrap my wing around one of the legs and drag it over in front of me.

I rock myself back and forth and fall down on the ground while also hitting the table. With the most pure of luck a knife came close enough to my wing I was able to pick it up and cut the ropes bonding my hooves. With that I got the gag out of my mouth and out of the seat.

So my wings aren’t completely worthless after all.

I was about to get out before I heard the two walk back into the house upstairs. Luckily, due to the poor construction of the house, I could easily eavesdrop on them although it was a bit muffled.

“You go down and cut that poor fucker up; I’ll just stay here”

“Alright, sounds good.”

The pony began his decent into the basement. I grabbed one of the filet knifes that was lying on the ground and I walk over to the side of the staircase. Time seemed to slow as he walked down. I waited in the shadows until he was close enough. He was still walking down the stairs, but he was right next to me. I grab his leg and pull him down. Almost instantly I impale the knife into his neck. He squirms for a second until he finally stops. Luckily, I was able to do this without alerting anypony upstairs.

Slowly, I go up the staircase and look out the door. It wasn’t morning, in fact; only an hour has passed from when we started the raid. The house was a bit worn down, but mostly dirty from nopony cleaning the place up. The ceilings paint was chipping along with the walls. I poke my head out a little further to see the mare without her bandana on lying on the couch reading a magazine. A little to the left I see another stallion who was counting money behind a counter in the kitchen.

I had to plan a way out. Nothing I seemed to do would work. Both had a loaded gun by them, and all I had was a bloody knife. Soon, the mare got up and walked into another room leaving the stallion vulnerable. This is my chance. I have to get out fast and attack him. Hopefully I will be able to pull this off; he was good five yards away from me.

I waited for a few second and busted out the door sprinting straight towards him. I didn’t have enough time before he quickly lifted up his gun and began firing. I rolled behind a counter and when he quit to reload I flung myself over and charged him once more. He got the clip in, but not enough time before I lunged my knife into his stomach and took the gun out of his hooves.

The mare had ran in and started to fire at me. I duck down behind the counter and finished loading the gun. I pop my head around the corner of the counter tops and began firing back. She gets behind a wall to dodge the shots and begins to run off and heads upstairs. You’re not getting away that easy you little fuck. I follow her into a hallway where she was standing. We both pull our guns at each other at the same time and fire. Her bullet hits the gun out of my hoof, just barely missing me, unfortunately mine misses. On the positive, it was her last shot. She drops her gun and stares me down with anger in her green eyes. She begins to charge me head on. We clash in the middle of the hallway hitting each other. She was fast, being able to throw multiple punches very quick and hard. All I could do was fling her off every now and then if I was lucky.

We wrestle all the way to the staircase and fell down to the first floor. I was on my back and she was on top of me holding the knife I had dropped next to my throat.

“Any last words you piece of shit?” she said through her teeth.

Right as I opened my mouth another pony charges and collided with her knocker her off of me. I get up and look over to see Cosmic Joy pinning her down. She lifts up her hoof in the air where a dagger popped out of her sleeve. With incredible speeds she lunges the knife right into the skull of the enemy.

She gets up off of her and looks at me with worried eyes. “Hey, are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m good. Thanks for saving my life right there. If it wasn’t for you I would have been killed.”

“What are friends for?” She said while giving a smile. “Come on, we need to get out of here and head back to Sparky’s.”

She looks around the house and finds a stacks of bits that were on the counter in the kitchen. She uses her magic to levitate them into her saddlebag. “There, at least we can take something from them here.”

We walk out of the house and begin a steady and quick pace back to Sparky’s. We were cautious the whole way back. Police were storming the local area. Apparently, Golden had set off explosives to destroy the lab, but put enough down to light half of the warehouse into a large fireball.

We get back and Cosmic takes her saddlebag off and tosses it over into the corner and falls flat onto the couch. We were the first to arrive here, so now we wait for the rest. I sit on the recliner that sits to the right of the couch that Cosmic was now sleeping on. Just to think that under that innocent act and looks is a professional killer. I leaned back and close my eyes, thinking of the attack.

I had taken multiple lives today, not only to survive, but also to make my friends and me a profit off another gang. I had a sense of pleasure and satisfaction. It was nice, I liked it. Hopefully we do more raids like this again. From how this went, it’s safe to say we probably will.

And to think I joined just yesterday.

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I was woken up ten minutes later to Golden clapping her hooves in front of my face. I lean back up to see the rest had made it back.

“Hey Blue Sparks, did you get anything?”

“No, I was knocked out and kidnapped. Cosmic helped get me out. She did steal some money from the house though.”

Cosmic Joy nodded and levitated the almost overfilled saddlebag filled with the golden coins. Golden was able to take it as a notable success on our end, now she wanted so see hers. She wonders off into the kitchen with three saddlebags filled with bags of powder.

The rest of the group had done like I did, we started to fall asleep. Well, all except for Sparky. She was jogging in place. Just ignore her. I begin to fall back asleep until again I was disrupted, but this time by the noise of somepony yelling.

“IT”S FAKE!? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!”

I, as well as the rest, walked into the kitchen to see Golden with her head down between her hooves. The powder we collected was thrown against the wall leaving a small mist of the powdery substance wafting through the air along with an imprint on the wall.

We needed to ask no questions. We all just stood there doing nothing just staring at her. Eventually, everypony else walked out except me. She lifts her head from her hooves and looks at me.

“I can’t believe it.” and plops her head on the table again.

“I can.”

She glances back to me. “What do you mean you can?”

“I just can. They left the stuff out in the open. Not something I would typically see a drug organization do.”

She was about to respond, but decided not to. She puts her head down once again and begins to doze off. I said no more and walked out of the room and sat back down in the chair I was in before in the dark room. I lean back to see Sparky over in the corner on a pile of plastic bags curled tightly up in a ball like a dog twitching with her ears flopping at lightning fast speeds. She just gets weirder every minute I see her.

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The next day I awake still in Sparky’s Den. It was around nine according the clock on the wall, but I don’t trust it. Didn’t look like something that would be accurate in anyway. Honestly I don’t trust most things in this den. I lean forward still in the couch to see that most of the group had left. It was just me, Mercurial, and Cosmic. Cosmic was in the kitchen eating something and Mercurial was still passed out on the couch, looking like he was drunk the night before.

I get up and walk into the kitchen and sit down, not saying anything to Cosmic. I just sit and look at all the crap lining the room. The sink filled with dishes, the wallpaper being torn off. The door was half off going to the bathroom, the floor was made of cement and cracking. Looked like my apartment I used a few days ago to live in. The only difference is this place was heated and furnished, so the terrible atmosphere didn’t bother me too much.

Cosmic finishes her food, but instead of getting up and putting, or attempting to put the dish away, in the sink, she just looks over her shoulder and uses her magic to fling it over there. She missed, and it fell down on the floor and smashed.

“Damn it,” She mumbled as she used her magic again to pick up the small bits and hover them over to the trashcan, successfully. She looks at me with a cocky grin then plops her head onto the table. I just had to laugh; it was a funny sight to see. She raises her head and stares at me.

“So, what are we doing today?” She asked me with one eyelid half down and the other about the same.

“How am I supposed to know?”

“Oh yea, right, umm,” She rubs her eyes with her hooves, “I remember early this morning Golden said she wanted to get revenge.” She shakes her head back and forth, “That won’t end well. Trust me on that.”

“Why?”

“Well,” She said grabbing a cup filled with water and taking a sip. “She has a unique skill. It’s over exaggerating. She is going to just bomb rush some place the Unity have control of. Either that, or she is going to find a way to kill one of their main ponies, or some shit.” She takes another sip of water.

“Will she?”

“Probably not, but you have no way of knowing with her.”

Oh great, so I’m working with a delinquent for a boss. This is not what I expected. I thought that Dimlight was the main pony here, but apparently not. It’s this Golden one, but what about what’s-his-face?

“Hey, what’s the name of that black pony?”

“Who? Oh, his name is Black Mail. He joined in around the same time I did. He’s been a huge help, getting information and planning out strategies.”

“Did he set up the attack for the warehouse?”

“No, Golden did. That’s probably why he wasn’t with us. He didn’t want to be involved in something he didn’t do. He’s kind of uptight like that.”

I bet so, but I can’t judge him I guess. I look down at the table and close my eyes for a few moments. Still, even the next day, my mind is wrapped around the night of our attack.

I stand up and walk back into the living room and head out onto the streets waving goodbye to Cosmic Joy. I begin to walk aimlessly around looking for something to do. I must’ve walked for some time, because I eventually was in the downtown region.

It’s a wonderful sight to see how much this place has improved sense the riots and all. This place that was once filled with garbage, rubble and debris from the damaged or destroyed building, is now healing its way back to its glorious state. Building stand tall and proud, shops are open and lively and filled with ponies with smiles. The sun rises leaving a nice color scene to the area around. It is a wonderful sight.

I walk around and see a booth selling out candy and magazines. I buy a chocolate bar. I look down to see today’s local newspaper. On the front page had a picture of the warehouse on fire with the caption,

Shootout in Milestone Leads to Disaster

The whole time as I skimmed the page, it kept mentioning another group of ponies called Vimont. I have no idea who they are, maybe the others will know. I purchase the newspaper and begin to head back.

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I finally made my way back to Sparky’s Den to see Cosmic making more powder and Mercurial just sitting there talking with her. When I walked in they just looked at me and nodded their heads. I walk over and place the paper on the table to show them.

“Oh hey, check it out. Our little raid is on the front page.” Mercurial said with a satisfied tone and a warm smile.

“Yeah, who is Vimont?”

“There another group, or family if you want to call them that, which are in the same business as us and Unity.” Cosmic added, “We don’t really do much with them mainly because they don’t really care about us, yet that is.”

“So why does the paper say that Vimont caused the attack?”

“Probably because we were in Vimont territory, they didn’t mind us being in there. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but we have good connections with them. As of right now that is.” She goes back to her work not saying another word.

Mercurial get up and walks over to help Cosmic with the making of the chemical. I just sit and watch while the two work together to make the bizarre substance. I took an interest in how they made it. How they added the mixtures, when they added it, the filtering, etcetera. They must have noticed me observing them.

“Want to know how to make this stuff?” Cosmic said with her usual friendly smile.

“Sure,”

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