Cutting it close, a little too close

Everyone gasps at the sight of the fallen royal guards. A scary mechanical voice says, “I hate it when somepony gets in front of your shot.”

Everyone looks at a metal horse that stands on 2 hooves and has 3 buzz saws and a big nail gun at the end of it’s limbs. It begins to charge at them. Shining Armor uses his magic to get the Mane 6 and their forces in the throne room and Princess Cadance uses her magic to close the doors.  The doors slam on the metal Horse, on it’s face.

Twilight asks, “Who or what was that?”  Shining Armor says, “That’s Buzz Saw, one of the soldiers that was sent by General Line Breaker to make sure that we would surrender.” Rainbow Dash says in anger, “Why would you do something like that, you should have…”  Shining Armor interrupts, “I needed to protect my ponies and surrendering was the only available way to save them from the massive attack.”

Pinkie Pie asks, “What’s that sound?” Everyone turns to the doors and witness the locks and handles falling off the door because of a saw. One of the doors is quickly kicked open and Buzz Saw charges into the room. A royal unicorn guardspony uses his magic to slam the door on Buzz Saw and he is knocked back.

Buzz Saw quickly recovers, shoves his nail gun through the hole of the door, and starts firing blindly in to the room. Some ponies quickly become part of the casualties.  Everyone gets away from the door or goes into cover.

Pinkie Pie goes to one of the doors and starts chewing bubble gum.  Twilight tries to get on the radio and she asks Pinkie Pie, “Pinkie what are you doing?” Pinkie tries to explain but her mouth was full of bubble gum and the roar of the nail gun didn’t help. Twilight asks, “What?” Pinkie raises a hoof and uses her hoof to put the chewed gum into the barrel of the nail gun. After a few shots, the gun gets jammed (or in this case gummed) up.

Twilight says in shock, “How did you…?” Pinkie Pie says, “You know how you say, ‘don’t bring or chew gum in the lab or you’ll get equipment sticky and maybe make it useless.’ So I thought about what you said and I got the idea to put my gum in his gun and it worked.”

Meanwhile outside the throne room, Buzz Saw is checking on his nail gun. He realizes that his range weapon is useless, the nail gun falls off and is replaced by a bladed claw.

The rest of his squad shows up and Buzz Saw says to them, “Guys, there are some ponies in the throne room that I don’t recognize.” One of the soldiers says, “Let me guess, they are wearing brown armor and they look different from the crystal ponies.” Buzz Saw says, “Now when I think about it, they did look slightly different and were armed with guns.” The high ranking officer says, “So they finally got into the throne room.  Colts, I don’t know how they got in, but we’ll get them out… get into breaching position.” The squad says, “Yes sir, Lieutenant.”

The squad gets ready to charge while one of them plants small explosives on the doors. The Lieutenant starts counting, “3, 2, 1.” The doors explode and Mad Stallions charge into the throne room with help from the cover of dust from the destroyed doors. Bullets and magic beams fly through the air, followed by screams of pain and death. Casualties quickly are made on both sides, the Equestrian forces get a couple of dead and slightly more wounded while the Mad Stallions lost more than half of their forces.

Buzz Saw charges at Pinkie Pie and cuts her helmet in half. He is surprised to see that Pinkie Pie suddenly disappears into thin air.  He turns around to get hit by a huge rubber chicken. Buzz Saw goes in for the attack, but he stops himself after looking into Pinkie’s eyes. Buzz Saw couldn't explain it, but he didn't have the urge to harm Pinkie.

Before Buzz Saw has time to think, Rainbow Dash pushes Buzz Saw away from Pinkie Pie. Rainbow Dash holds him down as best she can. Buzz Saw gets himself free and gives Rainbow Dash a few cuts on her armor and her skin.  Rainbow Dash attacks with a tackle. Buzz Saw punches Rainbow Dash and she quickly counters with a kick (with both hooves) to the chest. Buzz Saw attacks with one of his saws. Pinkie Pie puts herself in front of Rainbow Dash and Buzz Saw to stop his attack. He tries to attack Rainbow Dash without hurting Pinkie Pie, but she jumps in front of the lethal attacks to protect her best friend.

A Mad Stallion charges in to help his squad-mate, but is intercepted by a punch from Rarity.  The Mad Stallion takes a step back, wipes his snout, and says, “So you want to fight hoof to hoof…” He puts away his weapons and gets into a fighting stance. “Let’s see if you can put up a decent fight.” Rarity says as she gets in her fighting stance, “I have to warn you, I have 4 black belts.” The MS trooper says, “I have 6.” They start fighting in a fierce marshal art combat.

Most of the other ponies attack the worst of the threat, Bruce. He crushed almost half of their force. He took a lot of damage throughout the fight and he is slowing down but he is still fighting relentlessly with the power of adrenaline.

Applejack decides to one-up Bruce and he laughs at his small opponent.  He says, “Out of all these runts, they have you try to finish me off.” Applejack starts attacking and Bruce fights back. “I was expecting to fight Captain Shining Armor. I guess he’s too much of a filly to fight me.”

Applejack kicks him hard and knocks Bruce back a few feet. She says, “Ya not so tough.” Bruce says, “You hit hard for such a little pony but I hit harder.” He punches Applejack but she stops the punch by kicking it.

After a few seconds, Bruce’s hoof slides down Applejack’s pants and rips it. The rip reveals her cutie mark. Bruce notices the cutie mark and says, “I know that tattoo, you’re one of the Apples aren't you. That makes you special.” Applejack asks, “What do ya mean?” Bruce says as he swings his hammer, “We’re collecting your Clan.” Applejack says in anger, “You've been ponynapping my family. Where are they?”

General Line Breaker says on the radio, “All forces retreat. I repeat all forces retreat.”

Buzz Saw follows orders and flees out of the room. The Mad Horse fighting Rarity says, “To be continued.” He says to Bruce as he runs to the doors, “Come on Bruce, we got to go.” Bruce says as he throws Applejack across the room, “Awww things just got good, Counter.”  The high ranking officer covers his men… I mean horses. The officer says to Bruce, “Hurry up!” Bruce runs as fast as his wounded body could.

Applejack quickly recovers from the impact of the throw and she notices Bruce making a run for it. She kicks a nearby column to block his path. With the exit blocked, the MS squad had to leave Bruce behind hoping that he can get out of there by himself or to buy them some time.

Bruce tries to use his hammer to break the column, but a couple of bullets quickly immobilize him. The impact of most of the bullets makes Bruce spin and has his back to the column. Applejack says to the crowd, “Don’t hurt him, he knows where my family is.” Shining Armor says in a confused tone, “What do you mean?” Applejack says, “That colt told me that they are roundin’ up someplace and I need him to tell me where my family is.”

Everyone surrounds Bruce and Applejack asks him, “Where’s my family?”

Bruce notices that the Prince and Princesses of the Empire are nearby him. He says to the Prince, “You and your worthless body bags couldn't protect a gate let alone a city. A farm hoof got closer to beating me than you, poor excuse for a captain. I bet you can not even protect your wife” He pulls out a pistol and fires it at Cadence. Shining Armor use magic to push Cadence out of the way, to pick up some crystal pieces and throw them at Bruce. Bruce gets impaled by the crystals. He shoots the Prince’s horn off. Bruce says in a taunting tone, “What are you going to do without your magic? It was the only thing that was keeping you from being completely useless but now you’re the worst captain in history.”

Shining Armor gets upset, picks up an Assault Rifle from the ground and points it at Bruce. Applejack says to him, “Don’t…” Shining Armor unloads the entire clip at Bruce and says, “I’m not useless and I did a great job protecting my wife from you.” Bruce says as he bleeds to death, “You still lose.” He laughs at Shining Armor as he bleeds out and dies.

Applejack says to Shining Armor in a disappointed tone, “Darn it, Shining. He knew where they were keepin’ my family and now I might never see them again.” Shining Armor says, “Applejack, I’m…” Applejack interrupts, “I need some time alone.” She tries not to cry in front of her friends. Twilight says, “We’ll talk about it when we return to the Canterlot, but we've got leave now.”

As Twilight and the others get out of the throne room and make their way to their Pelicans, Discord and the Royal Guard are chasing off or fighting the Mad Stallions.

A drop pod falls from the sky and lands in the middle of a firefight and crushes a Mad Stallion. The pod’s door opens and buttered corn falls out followed by bullets. Both sides are quickly destroyed by a mystery soldier. The soldier turns out to be Crazy D and he says as he gets out of the pod, “Aww man, the corn didn’t pop…” He turns around and sees the dead bodies. “and killing my allies might be a problem. Wait a minute, who am I fighting for again? Oh well, getting my popcorn is more important right now. I wonder which one of these guys was using a flame thrower.”

Discord sees Crazy D and asks him, “Are you one of Unit 1’s friends?” Crazy D says, “I won’t tell anything until my corn’s popped.” Discord snaps his fingers and the corn pops into a pile of buttered popcorn.  Crazy D says to Discord, “Ok, the answer to your question is that were frenemies; He’s my friend but I’m his personal enemy. Or were you asking if we’re allies, then the answer is yes.” Discord says, “You’re a little late to fight, the so-called threat is running after I turn some of them into animals and messed with some of their stuff. I’m glad most of them aren’t magic proof.” Crazy D says, “Aww, I wanted to hit horses with my fish… oh well, more time for popcorn.”

Crazy D jumps into the popcorn and starts eating it. Discord says, “I can’t wait to start working with you.”

Meanwhile, in another part of the Crystal Empire, a squad of Royal Guard spots a bunch of Mad Stallions running away from gunfire from an unknown owner. Within seconds, the mysterious owner turns out to be a woozy Unit 1 in a grey prisoner’s uniform. He sees the Royal guardsponies and says, “Private Unit 1 reporting for duty.” One of the guardsponies asks him, “Are you ok?” Unit 1 says, “I’m barely fighting off the drugs they used to knock me out.” Another guardspony says, “I’l take him to a Pelican.”

Some of the Guardsponies start celebrating as they see the Mad Stallions retreating into their Under Kickers and into the snowy border of the Crystal Empire.  As soon as the Mad Stallions were out of sight, pilots quickly assumed it was safe to stay and some of the officers called the Lunar Eye to request a base in the Crystal Empire.

A few minutes later, every pony (including Crazy D, Unit 1 and Discord) regroup in the Crystal Plaza to recover from the attack. There is chatter amongst the Royal and Crystal guard about Unit 1 (some call him a hero during the battle of Canterlot, some question what happened in Ponyville, some believe that he’s a spy working the new threat, while others are unsure what to make of him).

Unit 1 is wearing special patches to decrease the time of the drugs’ effects and he is placed far away from most of the survivors for safety reasons. Fluttershy goes up to check on Unit 1 and finds him laying down in a Pelican with a blanket and pillow. She asks him, “Are you ok, what happened to you… well if you want to tell me?” Unit 1 says, “All you need to know is that I’m alright and I’m planning to go outside and get some fresh air before I call it a night.” He gets up and goes outside of the Pelican. Fluttershy asks him, “Can I come…?” Unit 1 interrupts her, “No, I want to be alone for a few minutes.” Fluttershy says, “Ok um… see you later, I guess.” Unit 1 walks a short distance away from the Pelican.

When Unit 1 is out of sight of everyone including any animal, he makes a secret call. Unit 1 says, “This is U1, I’m in their ranks, and they believe that they won, but no one is suspicious about the sudden retreat.” He giggles. “They think Discord scared off your troops with his magic, General.” General Line Breaker says, “Good, Let them celebrate U1 while you secretly sabotage them and remember, if you get caught; place yourself in their most populated area and take as many of them as you  can with your ‘surprise’. Now get some rest soldier, you have a busy day tomorrow.” U1 says, “Yes sir.” He ends the call, quickly goes to his bed, closes the Pelican’s hull door and sets his timer for the destruction of the rebellious army.