The Last Day – 1hr(s) 37min(s) 17sec(s) Prior To First Megaspell Detonation (and counting)
“Everypony understand the mission objectives? Our success here could mean the difference between one more year of war or ten more years.”
All of us gave a resounding ‘yes sir!’ in response. Apart from me that is, what with my inability to form coherent speech I just nodded my head. Looking down at my Pipbuck I went over the mission details, realising that this must’ve been at least the twentieth time since we left the facility - or what I now know is actually called Hippocratic Research - going over it.
The first thing on the list of objectives was for us to be dropped off at Outpost-23A. A supply depot a few miles out from Trottingham where we would acquire a specialist prototype weapon and wait for the stealth carriage to arrive if it hadn’t already, then we were supposed to be flown over the Trough to our drop-zone in the Zebra lands. From there we would deploy the weapon in a confirmed military-industrial town that was creating the missile-delivery system for their megaspell arsenal. From what I overheard the others saying earlier, there are at least eight more teams on their way to carry out the same mission but at different places across the Zebra territories. “Oi, freak. This is your first Op with OIA so I bet you're feeling pretty nervous, how ya holding up? .”
I looked over at…Shadow Kite I think her name was; I tried to say my name wasn't 'freak' but Lyci-I mean Lernae and I was fine. However, all that came out though was a lengthy growl and hissing. Needless to say no-one could understand that so I held up a claw for her to wait. I looked down to my Pipbuck and began to merge a couple of my previous recordings together but I saw that a small red dot was pulsing on the screen, I gave a low rumble and tried not to facehoof that it has almost become instinct to ‘hit’ record when I’m spoken to. Stopping the current log made and fiddling a little bit I created a comprehensible sentence using her voice and another’s: “Holding up-fine.”
“Woah! What the-my voice?”
I just pointed to my mouth and shook my head and then down to the Pipbuck and then back at my mouth and pushed away, she quirked an eyebrow and I gave her a grin, but stopped when I saw her cringe; I don’t think many ponies like having a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth in their eyes. With her turning away to say something to the pony beside her I chose to just look over my Pipbuck again to occupy myself, judging from the mission clock we've got ten minutes until we land at the outpost.
“Brace yourselves! Wind has picked up a bit over the area”
I tore my eyes away from the screen and wrapped one of my forelegs round a rail overhead in response, I couldn't hear much of the wind outside but from what I could see of the foliage below the trees were swaying with a fair bit of force. There was a small jolt as we hit the ground but it wasn’t as bad a landing I thought it might be, waiting for my turn to file out of the carriage I saw the captain inspect each one of us giving orders as we left. Some of them trotted straight into the large grey building on the other side of the courtyard but a lot were just standing relaxed next to the carriage, now the captain was looking me over and with a sigh he ordered me to head to the armoury in the large building to get a rifle and some armour. I tried to gesture to him that none of that was necessary since my claws and regeneration would take care of anything but it was futile, either my random hand-gestures and growling weren't making sense or he didn’t care. Deadpanning he kept his hoof pointing over at the main building.
On the short trot from the landing area in the courtyard itself to the main building I was able to take stock of most of the outpost itself, a large soulless grey building dominating with a small muddy courtyard surrounded by watchtowers and at least ten metre high barbed walls. I thought it seemed pretty basic security for holding a powerful prototype weapon but if I remembered anything about the OIA and what happened at Hippocratic then the underground is where the surprises would be.
I glanced back to the sky-carriage and the other members of our team before heading in and saw the captain with Kite and some unicorn stallion head round the side of the building. Going through the reinforced double-doors I came to a desk, but not just any desk, a desk with a bored looking stallion whose ear twitched at the doors closing. Looking up at me in apathy it took him a few seconds to do a double-take and just as I was about to say 'hi' he jabbered out a few nonsensical words and pointed above his head to some signs. I glanced at them and just walked away shaking my head in the direction of where the armoury was supposed to be. It didn’t take me long to find it but I didn’t expect the room to as small as it turned out to be, in my mind I pictured a large room overflowing with every type of weapon you could imagine on the walls and floors, manned by a gruff looking pony. Instead, all I was presented with was an almost closet sized room with one wall dedicated to weapons and a single mannequin of steel armour.
“Morning” the mannequin said in Braytish accent.
Almost jumping out of my skin I hissed at the object only to see it cock its head at me. Realising it wasn't a mannequin at all, just a pony in armour who liked to be a statue I fumbled a little bit and played my Pipbuck: “Good morning”.
“I take it you’re here with the other operatives,” I nodded my head, “and from what I can see other than the obvious differences I assume you would be requiring a weapon?” I just nodded again, albeit a bit numbly “I’ll see what I can do.” Moving from behind the dividing glass he disappeared around a corner I didn't even realise was there. Amusingly I could hear him move about and utter more than a few exclamations of who or what I was. Patiently waiting I started to take a closer look at what weapons and armour there were on offer, it was quite an assorted selection despite what I first thought and I found myself entranced by the three magical sniper-rifles. After a few minutes more the armoured pony, which I now realised was a Steel Ranger in the employ of the OIA judging by black trimming, returned and placed a weapon on a desk in front of the dividing glass. The weapon looked quite strange, the stock or should I say 'arch' was nothing I'd actually seen before and was akin to a fusion of a sniper rifle and an assault rifle, the Steel Ranger made a sort of coughing noise and I turned my eyes back to him.
“I've been told not to issue you with any weapon, not even a side-arm other than this I'm afraid. What this is however, is the Incinerator Rifle Type 9871 Model 2, a zebra weapon of course but I'm going to a gander that after seeing those claws on your…hooves? You should be able to use it fine. You won't have used this sort before so here's a little heads up from what I've seen in the field: with the incorporation of a supporting arch in this new model, by standing on your hind legs you can use it to rest the rifle on your chest and shoulder and then you'll want to stand in an aggressive stance before firing, the three-shot burst might throw you off balance if you're not prepared for it. OR if you want to shoot and run then make sure you're ready for the recoil or else you'll go sprawling.” I nodded at what he was telling me, I did learn how to stand and fire when I was training with the others back at Hippocratic but only with Equestrian weapons...they weren't really designed to be used when standing. “This model 2 rifle is from a cache we captured a month ago and it was a newly made set too which meant that unlike the other models or even some of the earlier two’s themselves, the pyrokinetic spell has been perfected. What this means is that every bullet shot out of this rifle will set somezebra on fire. To put it bluntly of course.
Don't worry about the noise it makes either, we added a little black gem the one just below the scope, that's enchanted to muffle the sound when you fire.” He placed the rifle into a mesh cage and pushed it through the little alcove beneath the glass, “I guess you’ll want some barding too hmm?”
“Yeah, yeah” a heavy Riverpool accent gruffed from my Pipbuck, I also gave a thumbs up to the armourer, he just nodded and went around the corner again. I think some ponies might find the thumb thing a little freaky…deciding to examine my rifle while I wait this time I took note of the odd colour scheme, it appeared that somepony or even somezebra had decided to paint over the original colours with black and white stripes. Although the stripes had faded somewhat from what looked like a furious attempt to clean it so, other than the faint black and white it was almost totally gunmetal-grey. As I continued looking over the rifle myself it was then that I noticed that there was no ammo for it, I was just about to call the stallion back when I heard and then saw him come from back around the corner carrying what looked to be the same black barding as the rest of the team outside.
“As an operative of the OIA you have access to the basic set of barding, also known as level five. Don't think you're any worse off than a level one though, each level gives you just a little bit more room for equipment of your rank, you've all got the same flame-proof, waterproof and moderately bulletproof layers. I took the liberty of getting you the large-size what with your...'unique' stature, but I think it'll do. All your ammo for the rifle is in the pockets lining the left side on your lower half, supplies on the right side, two grenades of the flash-bang variety here on the top right and I’ve snuck one HE in too so no worries there.”
Handing the gear over to me I put it in my saddlebags and nodded my head as I turned to leave. Halfway out the door however, the Steel Ranger called me back saying I forgot my weapon, laughing awkwardly which came out as a mix between a cough and a growl I went back and picked it up from leaning on the mesh box and, using the sling, I let it rest on my back comfortably. Nodding my head again in thanks I went out of the armoury and made my way back to the sky-carriage where everypony would be waiting for me. Exiting the main building and trotting slowly over to the sky-carriage I spied three out of the seven-pony team not including me, when I got up to the sky-carriage itself I took off my rifle and rested it against the carriage whilst I set about putting on my barding. It wasn’t that hard to put on which was good news but not only did it feel a little tight on the legs when I tried standing up there was the fact that my Pipbuck couldn't be covered. So I just cut them off midway up with a quick flick of my claws. I snorted at how easy it was to penetrate, if this was some of the best armour going, then tearing through a zebra with their primitive armour would be a piece of cake. Slinging my rifle onto my back again I took a look at the others and saw that they were standing completely still and were saluting, I quickly realised why and hopped over to join them just as the captain took notice of us. As he drew up to us with the other two following just behind, Kite had her horn glowing and was levitating a steel box just larger and wider than a hoofball.
“Alright everypony, onto the stealth-carriage. It's Oh-Eight-Thirty now and we’re on schedule to be at the drop-zone by Eleven-Hundred.” Filing in one by one we bundled into the stealth-carriage which I just realised was a stealth-carriage and not the sky-carriage we flew in on, it seemed much stuffier than the sky-carriage either because we were all standing this time or that the interior seemed to darken weirdly. Just before ordering our pegasus pilot to take off the captain made a mention that we'll be going over the Trough and it's about an hour or so out from the outpost, trying to recall that name I'm more than certain that that's the place where a lot of Equestria's soldiers are poured into.
“Reflective camouflage activating” the pegasus called back just as he leaped into the air, I was wondering what made the stealth-carriage different I suppose camouflage was obvious. Unlike most of the others who were now quietly talking amongst themselves I closed my eyes, sleeping while standing wasn't uncommon it just wasn't that comfortable plus I had a sneaking suspicion that it would become a rare commodity during our time in the Zebra lands.
0hr(s) 0min(s) 0sec(s) Prior To First Megaspell Detonation
*BANG!*
Snapping open my eyes at the sound, akin to an echoing shot from a rifle, I glanced around to find what had made the noise. Seeing me oblivious to what was happening outside the mare in front of me (who looked like she had seen a ghost) poked my shoulder then pointed towards the window where everypony was looking, sheepishly looking out into the blue sky yielded the culprit.
A green glow on the horizon. Like an emerald had somehow coloured the clouds and sky itself, I heard somepony whisper that the glow was coming from the direction of Cloudsdale, I was mesmerised by it, as alien as it was beautiful. A sudden blast of static jerked me out of my trance and I turned my head, like the others, towards the cause of the sound. The captain held a hoof to the radio on his chest with a panicked look in his eyes, “This is Captain Ebony of bravo team to HQ we are enroute to our objective but have spotted what appears to be a me-”*KABOOM!!!*
Behind the captain I saw a mushroom-shaped cloud of green fire push itself upwards towards Celestia's sun what must have been at least thirty miles in front of us.
I just stared at it and barely registered the yell of the captain telling the pilot to turn the carriage around or Kite screaming that it's a megaspell. The cloud just hung there and that's when it hit me, a split-second epiphany, I recalled an Equestrian War-Time Commercial of the effects of a megaspell detonation: if you're close to a megaspell but far away enough to escape the explosion then there was the initial shock wave that has enough force to level buildings.
I heard the almighty whooshing noise just before it hit us and then as the windows were smashed from the force and the carriage careened out of control I felt myself slam into one of the roof corners almost breaking my back. Roaring from the pain I could barely move, I could hear the alarm whining next to me as well as the shouts and screams from the rest of the team who must've been pinned too, I tried to open my eyes not remembering when I had actually closed them but found that no matter how hard I tried I could only open them a crack before deathly green light filled my vision. Trying to determine what was happening was a pain in the flank but I thought it would be nice to know if I was going to be turned into Chimeran flat-cake or char-grilled hybrid; I forced my left fore-claws to sink in the chassis of the carriage to pull me slightly closer to the window my top half was above. I yelped as one of my elbows snapped from the effort of fighting against the forces driving us downwards, pulling myself slower this time I waited until the moment I felt the wind slap me and opened my eyes...in that very same moment upon seeing the muddy brown of the ground rushing to meet us I thought to myself: “I wonder if it wants to be friends?”
You sat around, walked around, flailed around...no level gained.
New Perk: Megaspell Watcher
Remember how mummy used to tell you not to look directly at the sun or you'll go blind? That includes Megaspells as well!
-1 Perception
