A.M.I.C.A. Task Force F-2

Operation: Pit of Vipers

Objective: Primary: Eliminate changeling threat. Secondary: eliminate or capture Discord Consortium members.

Briefing: Over the course of a few months, there have been scattered reports of a strange disease in the town of Manehatten. The local hospital blamed it on an outbreak of horse flu, but the symptoms were different than any sort of virus communicable to ponies. All of this would have remained unimportant to the Agency, if one of the ponies who had been showing symptoms had not been found dead in water drainage pipe. Even this would not have been important, but the pony was shown to be several weeks dead, after he had attended a hoofball game the day before. Further investigation into the subject by agents from investigation group "Eyes and ears" revealed that ponies who knew the victims of the aforementioned victims (usually as significant others) had been seen meeting in an abandoned apartment complex with known members of the Discord Consortium. The Agency now has reason to believe that changelings have infiltrated Manehatten. A team has been accordingly equipped to deal with the threat. A night operation will be carried out to eliminate the threat. A team will be inserted via Thunderhead to deal with the threat. Elements of Task Force N-14 "Egress Denied" will form a perimeter to prevent escape and entry of the premises.

Transportation: TH-119 "Your Best Nightmare"

Pilot: fateful Ides

Lead Agent: Burning Bush

Agents: Cloudless Night, Crushing Blow, Shadow De Sombras, June Lynch, White Fire, Westbound, Four Winds, Ray Shield.

Equipment: Nine units of composite personal armor, one saddle mounted multicannon, four saddle mounted assault rifles, one saddle mounted scatter rifle, three level 3 sparkler packs, one saddle mounted high explosive disposable rocket launcher, 15 grenades, 1280 6.8mm assault rifle rounds, 56 scatter rifle rounds, 4000 high explosive 4.8mm multicannon rounds, helmet mounted flashlights.

"Why do you think they'd give us a job like this you think?" Westbound asked Burning Bush as they rode to their destination. flying above most of the other clouds as they hurtled towards their destination.

"Because the brass needs dirty deeds done, and we know dirty like no one else." Burning Bush replied calmly.

"No, I mean, why would they need a team like this in the first place? They're just changelings, the elements of harmony kicked their entire army's ass in like ten minutes. Why the fuck don't they just send the guard?"

"Firstly, the Discord Consortium is there, which means we have to be there too. Second, the changelings that attacked Canterlot were starving, these changelings have been feeding for months now. Trust me, the guard wouldn't be able to handle this one for us."

"Oh come on. How bad can they be?" Bear interrupted.

The other ponies in the Thunderhead gave him stink eyes for the rest of the trip.

"Alright everypony, we're landing in thirty seconds. Thank you for flying air Nightmare, if you would like to make a complaint, please file it under shit I don't care about. See ya." With that, the hatch opened, and all of the ponies filed out, their weapons scanning in all directions for hostiles.

The Thunderhead lifted off and left the ponies on the roof of the dilapidated building. Burning Bush gestured, signing for the ponies to move up towards the door to the interior of the building. All of the agents swiftly obeyed, and moved to cover the door. Four Winds tried the door, it was locked. Four Winds bucked the door, but only succeeded in making a lot of noise and letting whatever was on the other side know that there were ponies on the other side. Burning Bush ran his hoof down his face. Bear rolled his eyes and kicked the door with one leg, knocking it clear off its hinges and sending it sliding down the stairs.

"Maybe we could not let everything in five miles know we're here?" Bush whispered angrily.

"Yes sir." Four Winds said as he mocked a salute and looked down into the dark.

"Thank you for volunteering for point. Now get on down there." Bush said to Four Winds. Four Winds looked at him with hellish eyes before flipping on his flashlight and moving down the creaky stairs into the darkness. The rest of the team followed closely behind him.

The inside of the building was nearly pitch black. Dust floated lazily around on the small breeze created by the passing of the team. If not for their flashlights, they would have been tripping over each other or falling through holes on the floors in the soul-sucking darkness. Agent Winds continued on point, covering with his scatter rifle. Shadow brought up the rear, his horn glowing with barely contained power.

Shadow was meant to be in the dark. He was "the shadow of shadows" after all. So his tail hadn't been able to hide for long. He could see it at the edge of his vision, it ducked out of his flashlight too fast for him to identify, but he knew it was there. Fortunately, the little bastard didn't seem to think he had been made. No doubt used to relying on its stealthiness to sneak up on ponies. He had been debating on how to deal with it since he had first spotted its ugly ass. If he told his team it was there, it would slink away, and alert its friends if it hadn't already. He couldn't just leave it alone though. Ignoring it would be a very bad life choice. He had to find a way to take care of it. A way in which he could hold the advantage, but make his tail think that it had all the cards.

Shadow contemplated this curious conundrum for a moment, before his devious and cold mind began hatching a delightfully deadly little idea. With all of these rooms around... Shadow grinned evilly to himself for a moment, satisfied that he had come up with a delightfully dirty deed to act out.

"Sir." Shadow said without looking back.

"What is it Shadow? Something wrong?" Bush said.

"No, it's just that, there are all these rooms. What if we walked past something important earlier?"

"Damn, you're right. Okay, Split up, teams of three. search the rooms on this floor, report if you see anything." The teams were quickly sorted out, and they began clearing the rooms one by one. Shadow was careful to choose a room closer to where his secret admirer was located. Shadow saw that his 'team' consisted of himself and two of the new guys. What were their names again? One of them was Jude or something. The other was... Ray Shield, that sounded right. Not that it mattered much though, they would be of minimal use. He gestured for the two rooks to move in before him. They may have thought that he was being a jackass telling them to take point, but knowing what was about to happen, they most likely would have been grateful.

The two rookies dutifully entered the apartment; or at least that was what it had been, and began searching by room. Before Shadow walked in himself, he saw his little crush creeping up on him. He pretended not to notice and walked into the old lousy excuse for a living space that had once been an occupied lousy excuse for a living space. He heard the little stealthy fuck rolling in behind him, and figured it was time for introductions. He was about to turn around, when he heard the little bastard jump forward. He quickly shut the door with his magic, the thing had made it over the threshold, but the slamming door still caught it in the legs, this offset his jump so that he went careening towards Shadow's left side. Shadow made a swipe with his favorite bowie knife, but the little bastard had altered his course midair. So that he was now arcing away from his knife. Shadow saw the face of his enemy, a fanged face, buglike eyes, and a hardened exoskeleton. a changeling.

This changeling was different than the changelings he had heard about though. It was bigger, standing even taller than Shadow himself, who was no small fry when it came to ponies. It was also faster, it had dodged his blade almost before he had made the move. The changeling hissed again, and this time the rookies heard it. Both of them came running into the room. One of them lost his cool and was about to start blasting him with magic, Shadow shook his head without looking away from his enemy.

The changeling however, took a gander at Shadow's teammates. Big mistake. Shadow lunged at the changeling with his knife, the changeling saw the move, and made to dodge his supposedly clumsy attack. It looked almost like the thing was smiling, it  had made its own opening, and meant to capitalize. Shadow however, had other plans, two of his other knives came magically out of their sheaths, they were small compared to the blatant obviousness of his swordlike bowie knife, and that was how Shadow liked it. Shadow made a smirk of his own. No one ever sweated the small shit, not when the big shit was about to gut you like a herring. The changeling was no different, he sent the two small blades into the abdomen of his ugly opponent. penetrating his tough hide and burying them to the hilt in the soft innerskeletal flesh of the monster. He didn't stop there though, he followed through with his original thrust, turning it into a swipe that slashed his enemy across the neck. He didn't know so much about changeling anatomy, but he was pretty sure that fluids weren't supposed to come out of its neck like that. Or they were, in Shadow's case. Shadow continued pushing forward with his smaller blades, the force of his magic sent the changeling straight through the wall and back into the hallway.

The changeling lay still for a second, before getting back up and preparing to attack again. Unfortunately for the changeling, and fortunately for Shadow; who hadn't seen something so entertaining in a long time, Bear just happened to be in the hallway at the time. All Bear had heard was the sound of splintering wood and the hard thump of something slamming into the ground. And he had turned around just in time to see the changeling getting to its feet. Bear quickly braced his weapon and prepared to fire.

Shadow readied his bowie and prepared to fight again, but he was rudely interrupted by the sound of 250 bit custom magic high explosive rounds firing at 12000 per minute. The draconian roaring of the weapon scared the shit out of all of the operatives. Even Shadow jumped as the sound of 50,000 dollars per second rendered the changeling down to his basic biological components. Bear's burst lasted 820 milliseconds, or 82/100ths of a second. in that time, he fired 164 rounds, and used roughly 41,000 bits worth of ammo. The result was a structurally unstable floor and a pile of green goo that may have been some sort of creature once.

"Fuckin' A Bear! You almost killed me!" Shadow shouted in nearly terrified alarm.

"Aw come on Shadow. You know damn well I can hit a bit at two hundred meters with a multicannon." Bear replied in his oafish tone.

"What!?" Shadow shouted loudly.

"I said: You know damn well I can hit a bit at two hundred meters with this thing!" Bear shouted loudly.

"Yeah, after about 2,000 rounds! Luna's sake man, be careful where you fire that death machine!" Shadow was now angry, and his tone was much less calm than usual. He was also speaking much more loudly than normal, but no could be sure whether it was his anger or the fact that multiple rounds fired in an enclosed space from a cannon tend to be loud.

"You're welcome." Bear muttered as he rolled his eyes and turned around.

The rest of the agents  from the group had sprinted into the hallway to see what was going on by this time, and were currently eyeing the splattered remains of what had been the changeling that attacked Shadow. Bush was the first to speak.

"The fuck happened here?" Bush asked as he looked over the newest hole in the wall and the floor with something that far surpassed interest.

"Bear nearly killed me that's what! Crazy bastard is gonna be the death of me!" Shadow accused angrily.

"I was on target the whole time! They weren't even close to you you little baby!" Bear replied. Seeming offended that anyone would dare to question his marksponyship with his favorite weapon.

"Alright, this conversation is over. Bear? Watch your aim. Shadow? Quit your whining." Bush pointed to each of them in turn, then turned and motioned for them to follow. As Shadow shook of his anger and followed the group, he noticed that someone appeared to be missing. He took a quick headcount, eight.

"Where the hell is West?" Shadow asked Bush.

"What?" Bush was taken off guard, he had taken point, and figured West was behind him, as his partners hadn't reported him missing.

"Where. Is. West." Shadow said more slowly.

Bush saw that Westbound was missing and called out."Who was with West?"

"Me and Four Winds were with him sir." Said White Fire.

"Well then. Where is he now?" Bush asked almost tauntingly.

"He was right behind us a moment ago sir." Four Winds said worriedly.

"Fuck. You were supposed to be covering each other Princess damnit!" Bush shouted angrily.

"He was here sir." White Fire said firmly.

"Well now he isn't." Bush sighed and calmed down a bit. When he resumed speaking, he was considerably his tone was considerably more even. "Okay, I believe you. Hold up a minute." Bush spoke on squad channel into the radio. "West. West are you there? Come in West." *Static* "Fuck." Bush said quietly as he turned and looked at White Fire and Four Winds.

"Why the hell did you not tell me he was missing?" Bush's voice was one step above a whisper, but the way he said it through his teeth indicated that he was absolutely livid.

"Because we..." Four Winds began.

"Luna dammit to hell! You were supposed to look after each other! How the hell could you not do that?" Bush exploded into rage, giving everyone a hint of perhaps why his name was Burning Bush.

White Fire opened his mouth as if to speak again, when a door behind them opened and Westbound walked out. He was covered in blood, both changeling and pony. He looked over at the surprised group of agents, and his face contorted into a mask of pure rage and hatred. He let out an enraged shout, and charged the group of ponies at a speed that they didn't think was even possible. As he ran, he racked the bolt on his assault rifle. The other ponies weren't even close to reacting when West began firing.