Izedmiehan Invasionby AuguiChaptersPrologueChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreePrologue"Twilight, I've got the staff!" Rainbow Dash shouted out downwards as she burst out of a stained glass window of the Canterlot castle halls and dived toward her and Rarity. "Go! Applejack's out at those hills waiting for you!" she cried back pointing a hoof toward distant mounds in the landscape. "We'll hold them off for you!" "What about you guys? You ca-" "Don't tell me what we can't do Dash! We can hold them. We'll meet you back at base. Now go!" "But-" "GO!" With that, Rainbow Dash sped off through the air into the distance, and the first salvo of magic attacks from hostile invaders came raining down on Twilight and Rarity barely a second after they were able to raise a barrier. "We're seriously not staying here are we Twilight?!" Rarity desperately queried. "Of course not, but I can't teleport us out of here while there's so much magic and energy flying around the place" "Then what's the plan?" "We have to escape on hoof. Watch out!" A second salvo came battering on their shield strongly, and it began to falter. The enemy unicorns were approaching their location fast. "We can't keep this up Twi!" "You don't say? Look, we need to split. You go through the markets and I'll take the residential district. We'll meet back up on the outskirts and head to Applejack's beacon" "Right. Sounds like a plan" Another salvo landed. One more would destroy the barrier despite their continuous efforts to reinforce it. "On the next bombardment we split up" "Twilight, promise me you will meet me out there" "I promise Rarity. No pony gets left behind" She drew a deep breath in. "Next salvo is coming in... we'll split in three... two... one..." The pair abandoned their position just moments before the next bombardment impacted. It broke through the last remnants of the shield with ease and impacted with the ground, leaving one big smoking crater. Twilight made a mad dash away from the crater site as the Izeds approached it, weaving and dashing around corners to lose any potential stalkers. Canterlot wasn't a small city by any stretch of the imagination, and she still had quite a distance to go before getting to the outskirts to meet back up with her companion. She'd made it most of the way through the residential area without incident, but just as she was almost on the home run a guard detail had come to a point in their route where it intersected with Twilight's escape. Working with just seconds to spare before they would've spotted her, she jumped some crates onto a roof. One of the guards heard and lead the group to investigate. Thinking now was a good time to run for it, she took a running leap from the roof to another one across the narrow street. The detail took notice and casted attacks at her, one going wide and missing, and another hitting only the gutter of the roof she landed on. Now in a panic, Twilight made hasty moves and jumped another rooftop, the guards being able to still see and pursue her. She casted a spell to collapse a tall fruit stall in front of her pursuers to give her a chance to escape. It worked, except for one who managed to impressively leap over the tallest part of the pile of fruit and broken wood, just as tall as himself. The stallion, face and majority of his body covered by armour, jumped another set of crates to get onto the top. The rest of the detail had now been lost except for this one individual still in pursuit. She paused to look back to see the stallion rapidly approaching her. He jumped toward her and she dived out of the way for him to crash through a large attic window. She took stride but the stallion was back to his hooves and after her again. She thought she had lost him but kept up her pace. As the terrain started to flatten out and become more green, she realized she had made it to the outskirts. Celestia's sun was beginning to set, throwing a beautiful orange haze over the plains. She slowed and jumped down, finally coming to a stop at that border that defines where the city meets the landscape. She drew in a deep breath for her exhausted lungs, not knowing what was still right behind her. He lept off the roof and landed, crashing on top of her and the two rolled forward like a ball. Shocked he'd still kept up with her, she glanced at him and cut for it further down, though her now exhausted legs protested mightily and the stallion crash tackled her, pinning her to the ground. "Let go of me!" she screamed angrily in his face "Filth!" She headbutted him, but he didn't falter. "Hey! Stop!" he commanded. Something very small and deep within Twilight sparked and cried out for her to settle down, but her survival instincts stayed in control. Suddenly a white pair of rear legs bucked the armoured stallion off of Twilight. As the hooves met with the ground again a purple tail, now tattered and out of shape, and a mane to match the messiness, fell down behind them. "Come on!" she shouted. Twilight looked up and saw the coat, the mane, and then the face. It was Rarity. She helped her up and they made off again. "Twiley, it's me!" the stallion called out as the pair started to gallop off, causing Twilight to stop and turn in surprise. The stallion took off his identity-hiding helmet to reveal himself. "Shining!" she raced back over to him. "Oh Celestia, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! What are you doing here, and why are you dressed like that?!" "I'm part of the infiltration unit Princess Luna organised. I'm more specifically part of the sabotage plans. Didn't I tell you all this already?" "No, you didn't, actually..." she replied, now very cross with how suddenly and the manner in which she was finding out about her brother's hazardous new assignment. "Oh... well I was going to! Honest! But between the secrecy of the project and the recent increase in spy infiltration of our own side, we were desperate to keep it on the low down. I couldn't say what was happening, not to you, not to Cadence, heck, I couldn't even discuss it with my own squad mates who were in on it outside of absolutely secure rooms. I should've also just made up some bullshit story right now to cover my mission here" Rarity made her was back over too. "Shining Armour, thank heavens. Oh- are you okay? I didn't hurt you did I?" "No, I'm fine. I have to admit, these Izeds make fairly tough armour plating" "It's good to see a friendly face all the way out here for once" "Likewise, Rarity" he offered, but quickly turned his attention back to his sister. "But a better question yet is what are you doing out here like this?" "WE were breaking into Canterlot castle to retrieve one of Celestia's recent creations that they've stolen. She hoof-picked us for this" "Oh wow, that was you? You really kicked the parasprite nest doing that, you know" "I know, but it was neither of us that actually went in" she gestured to herself and Rarity "It was Rainbow Dash who broke in and got it herself" "Where is she now?" "She went back to meet up with Applejack on top of that hill over there, where you can see that beacon. After that, the plan was to take it back to base in Baltimare. I'm not sure if they made it back" "Alright. At any rate, as much fun as family reunions are, we can't be seen together here. We're already really pushing our luck right now as it is. You two need to promise me you will not speak a single word of this encounter at all, okay? That's an order, not a request. You breathe a word of any of this to anypony and it can really come back to bite me. Now get out of here right now before you blow my cover. I've got to go back and report my 'failure' and hope that they don't catch on." "Celestia's strength to you, big brother..." she said as her last goodbye for now. "And to you too, little sis. I'll be back home soon." he replied, returning his helmet to his head and disappearing back into the residential district. Chapter One"What about you guys? You ca-" "Don't tell me what we can't do Dash! We can hold them. We'll meet you back at base. Now go!" "But-" "GO!" Doing as Twilight pushed her to, and as much as she didn't want to leave her friends there, Rainbow Dash understood how little time she had to escape. Within seconds of her crashing out the window, there were already a trio of Ized-allied pegasi after her. She spotted them, and noticed their dark coloured uniforms and their skull-themed cutie marks: the Shadow Bolts. One shot directly at her in an attempt to tackle her out of the sky, but she dodged just in time and swung the staff at the attacker. A jolt of energy rushed through her hooves and the staff glowed bright yellow and spat out magic waste at the far end as a result of the impact. She felt unusually strong due to the shock and could really feel her heart pounding. The second one tried a similar approach, but to grab the staff itself. She reeled up and waited for the moment; she bludgeoned the second attacker right in the face with the weapon, knocking him out cold. Not directly due to Dash herself, the staff then seemed to freeze time and neutralize gravity for a split second as it slammed a blast of energy into the second one and sent him plummeting back to the earth at much faster than terminal velocity. She wouldn't take any more chances now with the last pursuer still on her. She dove downwards to gain speed, then pulled back up at the last second. Using her new-found momentum, she was able to put distance between her and the last Shadowbolt who hadn't dived down after her, but the two were still tracking each other. She made it out over the plains out of the city and gained some altitude, and continued heading toward the beacon and Applejack's location on the summit of the hill. With an almighty boom an explosive mortar exploded in the sky right near her, causing her to almost lose all control and crash to the ground, recovering with just seconds to spare. The Shadowbolt had now broken off so as to avoid being similarly shot down. More explosions went off mid-air, the shockwaves rattling Rainbow's eardrums hard. She missed one, and then another, and another, and one more, before finally one did knock her out of the sky and crashing her at the base of the hill. She'd been out for a solid five minutes before the noise of barking tracking dogs and shouting squad leaders had woken her. She sat up with a start, instantly feeling a jarring pain from her left wing and side of her chest. Quickly realizing this was now no easy escape, she reoriented herself up the hill, equipped the staff under her good wing and started making her way through the flora and rocky terrain. Hopefully she'd find someone friendly soon. Applejack, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie had been sitting on the hilltop for a few hours under the shade of trees. These three ponies' mission was two-fold: their main mission was to meet up with Rainbow Dash after retrieving the staff, and the second was for reconnaissance of Canterlot and enemy troop movement. Fluttershy used new cloaking technology to turn invisible while she flew overhead to take images of Canterlot, the damage it sustained and where the enemy had made their occupation thickest. Pinkie Pie did the same but on hoof and of sentry posts and patrol routes around the outskirts of the city. Applejack was to provide and manage a small temporary "base of operations" for the six while they were there, where the images Pinkie and Fluttershy took were beamed directly back to. Majority of the day had been uneventful. They'd seen Rarity, Twilight and Rainbow Dash off, then Applejack later saw Pinkie and Fluttershy off too. Eventually, commotion brewed in the distance near the castle itself. It could be heard, very faintly over the quiet sounds of nature, from her location kilometers away four muffled booms in moderate succession. Then, over the fields, she noticed the mortars exploding in the air. They didn't last for long, however; she saw their target, and then said target dropping like a rock out of the sky. "Pinkie, Fluttershy, return to my position, double time!" Applejack said, breaking the radio silence they established. Until they were back, she'd try to get in contact with Rainbow Dash again. Within minutes Fluttershy was back, but Pinkie Pie would still take some time to return. "I'm here Applejack" she called upon arrival. "Great! I saw Rainbow Dash get shot down as she was coming back with the objective. She crashed further down at the bottom of the hill, and she ain't been responding to any calls" "Right. I still have some run time in this cloaking unit, about an hour, so I'll see if I can find her from above" "Alright, I'll stay here and keep an eye on the camp. Hit the ping if you find her" Fluttershy faded and disappeared into thin air again, carrying out her search. A cyan pegasus with a rainbow mane tends to stand out in stark contrast against a background of brown dirt and rocks and green foliage, and she too had already heard the Ized tracking Rainbow Dash down. It had not been too long until she'd seen the pegasus, and more frighteningly one of the enemies bearing down on here and about to catch her. Thinking on her hooves, she immediately dove downward, still cloaked, and crashed on top of the pursuer. Dash spun around to face the yelp of mixed pain and fright nearby behind her that she'd not even noticed was there before. Just as he tried to get back up he was knocked back down; he appeared to be fighting with the air. Then began to reappear Fluttershy, putting Dash's mind at ease. She was kneeling over him, injecting a syringe into him. "A mixture of a sleep and amnesia potion" she muttered "Dash, your wing, are you okay?" she asked as she moved toward her concerned "It's fine, Flutte- ow! Watch it!" she flinched in pain at her hoof meeting her wing, despite how careful Fluttershy was trying to be. "Sorry" "Just leave it for now" "I have some anesthetic for it" Dash protested and Fluttershy insisted, but the cyan pegasus flatly refused. "You're seeing a doctor the very first chance we get. Come on, we should hurry, they're getting close." Chapter TwoPinkie Pie had managed to get some good images of their perimeter defenses, and was more or less finished by the time Applejack called her back. Her reconnaissance had pretty much not seen any conflict thanks to the so far successful cloaking technology. It was night time, and Luna's moonlight faintly lit the field, by the time she made it anywhere near the other side of the fields on her way back. Wondering where each of her team, and friends, were she pulled up the map of her heads-up display and ran a search for the transponders they were carrying. The results showed three of them further away, green dots marked RBD, FLS and APJ, the device saying they were all atop the hill, and two more fairly closer but behind her, marked TWS and RTY. She turned and visually inspected the general direction in which the device indicated they were from her, but she could not see them at all. Stopping where she was, she laid down to the ground. "Twilight, Rarity, do you copy?" "Twilight here. Why are you breaking radio silence?" "My HUD says you're somewhere behind me but I can't see you" "Right, give me a sec" Pinkie waited. "System tells me you're approximately to our one o'clock, about one hundred fifty meters ahead" "Pulse your torches at me" In a couple seconds of waiting she spotted two individual lights pulse four times in the distance. She flashed hers in response. "Gotcha guys" she said without transmitting. After a couple more pulse flashes Rarity and Twilight had finally rendezvoused with Pinkie Pie and they progressed further together. "Halt. Check your motion sensors" Rarity said as they got to the hill, putting her hoof out to signal a halt command "I just had a blink forward of our position" "I saw it- there's another" confirmed Pinkie They each brought up one of their hooves which had a small gun strapped to it and aimed in the direction of the blips. The blips started moving closer, and closer, until the bushes started rustling and they heard the laughter and foreign-tongued conversation of two Ized troops; they looked up and the amused smiles quickly departed their faces, being replaced by ones of shock and dread. They stood still, frozen in place, not making any sudden moves to provoke any of the three ponies into firing. Pinkie had her barrel set on the one on the left who, to her, looked more suspicious than the other. Rarity and Twilight also split their aim among the two Izeds. "Steady, boy..." Pinkie whispered to herself "We'd hate to have some of that filthy blood poison our oh-so-precious Equestrian earth now wouldn't we?" The one she was staring down glared back at her; he'd now tried to put on a steely, determined face, but Pinkie saw right through it to the fear that kept growing inside him. The whole thing happened almost instantly. He swung a hoof around behind him in an attempt to slide his hoof into his weapon's brace which he then intended to use. He got as far as swinging the hoof back before Pinkie fired off one round at him, scoring a critical hit on the individual. What little armour he had on posed no challenge to the incoming projectile, which blasted its way through his upper chest, shattering the scapula, the shrapnel from which proceeded to, when he hit the ground, sever vital arteries as it was moved around inside due to his writhing in pain. The sudden, unordered gunshot left Rarity and Twilight dazed for a slight moment, but long enough for the remaining Ized to attempt to escape back into the bushes to alert his allies. Twilight recomposed herself and brought her hoof back up, and her horn glowed, using her magic to concentrate her aim on the moving target as he galloped away. Rarity at the same time attempted to line up her gun to the escapee and quickly fired, only to miss and land her round in a tree. Twilight was certain she had the shot, and she let it go. The gunpowder ignited, spinning and propelling the lead pellet down and out of the barrel. The bullet traveled across the small gap between its firer and its target in an instant, striking with deadly accuracy. After a moment the quiet of the night returned. Pinkie moved forward to inspect Twilight's handiwork; when she saw the results she whistled in admiration of her precision marksmanship. "Yeah Twilight, I don't think this one will be getting back up any time soon" Chapter Three"What the hell was that?!" Twilight demanded an answer, coming down something fierce on Pinkie "I said what an amazing sho-" "Not that, your gunshot" Twilight said sternly "He made a move, and I took him down before he could pose a threat. Textbook takedown if you ask me, ma'am." Twilight pulled back slowly but kept her commandeering stance over Pinkie "I'll be asking the techs to review that footage Pinkie" she said, gesturing toward her helmet camera. Rarity piped up from behind. "Ladies, we've gotta keep moving. Applejack's at the top and her last radio transmission, or what I got out of it, said to get up there. Besides, it's only a few minutes before they notice something is wrong here. Let's make the best of that to leave the scene instead of bicker like ruffians" Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash had finally made it to the top of the hill after narrowly evading several search parties, one of which had been unfortunate enough to stumble upon their hiding spot in a bush as they passed by. "Finally," Applejack sighed, relieved "I tracked your transponders on the way up" "Rainbow's injured, Applejack. I need you to scan her wing for me" A few moments passed as the module on Applejack's saddle inspected Rainbow's broken appendage, and their nearby computer chirped at them with the results, which Fluttershy promptly attended to as Applejack got some water and supplements for the pair. "How is it?" "Hmm..." Fluttershy turned back to Dash "Well, it's not good. I can say that much. It's definitely broken... again" "Again?" Applejack asked "Heh, yeah, when I broke my wing practicing stunts for the Wonderbolts and..." She really did hate to admit it to her friends, even after so long "found my love for... reading..." "And the fact that you're always breaking bones" The trio laughed, but it quickly soured and died as they remembered this was all before the war began, and what happened since. "Y'all know I'm not leaving the other three to make their own way home, right? We're waiting here for them" "But AJ, the objective-" "Will be completely safe with all three of us around it while we wait for them to get back" she interrupted "and even more so once they are back and we can move again" A gunshot echoed up the hill to the peak, then one more... and one last shot. Applejack scrambled to the radio "Twilight, Applejack here. We just heard gunfire, was that you?" She waited, but no response came. "Away team, this is base, do you copy?" More static followed, but faintly heard was one voice inside the white noise. "Say again, last transmission unintelligible." Enough of the familiar voice of one fashionista-turned-soldier finally came through for them to recognize who it was, but they still didn't understand a thing she said. "Rarity, this is Applejack. I'm not receiving your transmission. If y'all can hear this, proceed to the peak of the hill, priority one. We're waiting on you. Base out." "So..." "We wait. And you need some food. Some real tasty, top of the line five-course meal, fit for the Princesses themselves, courtesy of the Equestrian military" Applejack mockingly laughed and smiled as Dash sighed in grief. Author's Note Took me a while to figure out where and how to continue this after the last chapter, but it seems to work. As always, comment your thoughts!
Prologue"Twilight, I've got the staff!" Rainbow Dash shouted out downwards as she burst out of a stained glass window of the Canterlot castle halls and dived toward her and Rarity. "Go! Applejack's out at those hills waiting for you!" she cried back pointing a hoof toward distant mounds in the landscape. "We'll hold them off for you!" "What about you guys? You ca-" "Don't tell me what we can't do Dash! We can hold them. We'll meet you back at base. Now go!" "But-" "GO!" With that, Rainbow Dash sped off through the air into the distance, and the first salvo of magic attacks from hostile invaders came raining down on Twilight and Rarity barely a second after they were able to raise a barrier. "We're seriously not staying here are we Twilight?!" Rarity desperately queried. "Of course not, but I can't teleport us out of here while there's so much magic and energy flying around the place" "Then what's the plan?" "We have to escape on hoof. Watch out!" A second salvo came battering on their shield strongly, and it began to falter. The enemy unicorns were approaching their location fast. "We can't keep this up Twi!" "You don't say? Look, we need to split. You go through the markets and I'll take the residential district. We'll meet back up on the outskirts and head to Applejack's beacon" "Right. Sounds like a plan" Another salvo landed. One more would destroy the barrier despite their continuous efforts to reinforce it. "On the next bombardment we split up" "Twilight, promise me you will meet me out there" "I promise Rarity. No pony gets left behind" She drew a deep breath in. "Next salvo is coming in... we'll split in three... two... one..." The pair abandoned their position just moments before the next bombardment impacted. It broke through the last remnants of the shield with ease and impacted with the ground, leaving one big smoking crater. Twilight made a mad dash away from the crater site as the Izeds approached it, weaving and dashing around corners to lose any potential stalkers. Canterlot wasn't a small city by any stretch of the imagination, and she still had quite a distance to go before getting to the outskirts to meet back up with her companion. She'd made it most of the way through the residential area without incident, but just as she was almost on the home run a guard detail had come to a point in their route where it intersected with Twilight's escape. Working with just seconds to spare before they would've spotted her, she jumped some crates onto a roof. One of the guards heard and lead the group to investigate. Thinking now was a good time to run for it, she took a running leap from the roof to another one across the narrow street. The detail took notice and casted attacks at her, one going wide and missing, and another hitting only the gutter of the roof she landed on. Now in a panic, Twilight made hasty moves and jumped another rooftop, the guards being able to still see and pursue her. She casted a spell to collapse a tall fruit stall in front of her pursuers to give her a chance to escape. It worked, except for one who managed to impressively leap over the tallest part of the pile of fruit and broken wood, just as tall as himself. The stallion, face and majority of his body covered by armour, jumped another set of crates to get onto the top. The rest of the detail had now been lost except for this one individual still in pursuit. She paused to look back to see the stallion rapidly approaching her. He jumped toward her and she dived out of the way for him to crash through a large attic window. She took stride but the stallion was back to his hooves and after her again. She thought she had lost him but kept up her pace. As the terrain started to flatten out and become more green, she realized she had made it to the outskirts. Celestia's sun was beginning to set, throwing a beautiful orange haze over the plains. She slowed and jumped down, finally coming to a stop at that border that defines where the city meets the landscape. She drew in a deep breath for her exhausted lungs, not knowing what was still right behind her. He lept off the roof and landed, crashing on top of her and the two rolled forward like a ball. Shocked he'd still kept up with her, she glanced at him and cut for it further down, though her now exhausted legs protested mightily and the stallion crash tackled her, pinning her to the ground. "Let go of me!" she screamed angrily in his face "Filth!" She headbutted him, but he didn't falter. "Hey! Stop!" he commanded. Something very small and deep within Twilight sparked and cried out for her to settle down, but her survival instincts stayed in control. Suddenly a white pair of rear legs bucked the armoured stallion off of Twilight. As the hooves met with the ground again a purple tail, now tattered and out of shape, and a mane to match the messiness, fell down behind them. "Come on!" she shouted. Twilight looked up and saw the coat, the mane, and then the face. It was Rarity. She helped her up and they made off again. "Twiley, it's me!" the stallion called out as the pair started to gallop off, causing Twilight to stop and turn in surprise. The stallion took off his identity-hiding helmet to reveal himself. "Shining!" she raced back over to him. "Oh Celestia, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! What are you doing here, and why are you dressed like that?!" "I'm part of the infiltration unit Princess Luna organised. I'm more specifically part of the sabotage plans. Didn't I tell you all this already?" "No, you didn't, actually..." she replied, now very cross with how suddenly and the manner in which she was finding out about her brother's hazardous new assignment. "Oh... well I was going to! Honest! But between the secrecy of the project and the recent increase in spy infiltration of our own side, we were desperate to keep it on the low down. I couldn't say what was happening, not to you, not to Cadence, heck, I couldn't even discuss it with my own squad mates who were in on it outside of absolutely secure rooms. I should've also just made up some bullshit story right now to cover my mission here" Rarity made her was back over too. "Shining Armour, thank heavens. Oh- are you okay? I didn't hurt you did I?" "No, I'm fine. I have to admit, these Izeds make fairly tough armour plating" "It's good to see a friendly face all the way out here for once" "Likewise, Rarity" he offered, but quickly turned his attention back to his sister. "But a better question yet is what are you doing out here like this?" "WE were breaking into Canterlot castle to retrieve one of Celestia's recent creations that they've stolen. She hoof-picked us for this" "Oh wow, that was you? You really kicked the parasprite nest doing that, you know" "I know, but it was neither of us that actually went in" she gestured to herself and Rarity "It was Rainbow Dash who broke in and got it herself" "Where is she now?" "She went back to meet up with Applejack on top of that hill over there, where you can see that beacon. After that, the plan was to take it back to base in Baltimare. I'm not sure if they made it back" "Alright. At any rate, as much fun as family reunions are, we can't be seen together here. We're already really pushing our luck right now as it is. You two need to promise me you will not speak a single word of this encounter at all, okay? That's an order, not a request. You breathe a word of any of this to anypony and it can really come back to bite me. Now get out of here right now before you blow my cover. I've got to go back and report my 'failure' and hope that they don't catch on." "Celestia's strength to you, big brother..." she said as her last goodbye for now. "And to you too, little sis. I'll be back home soon." he replied, returning his helmet to his head and disappearing back into the residential district.
Chapter One"What about you guys? You ca-" "Don't tell me what we can't do Dash! We can hold them. We'll meet you back at base. Now go!" "But-" "GO!" Doing as Twilight pushed her to, and as much as she didn't want to leave her friends there, Rainbow Dash understood how little time she had to escape. Within seconds of her crashing out the window, there were already a trio of Ized-allied pegasi after her. She spotted them, and noticed their dark coloured uniforms and their skull-themed cutie marks: the Shadow Bolts. One shot directly at her in an attempt to tackle her out of the sky, but she dodged just in time and swung the staff at the attacker. A jolt of energy rushed through her hooves and the staff glowed bright yellow and spat out magic waste at the far end as a result of the impact. She felt unusually strong due to the shock and could really feel her heart pounding. The second one tried a similar approach, but to grab the staff itself. She reeled up and waited for the moment; she bludgeoned the second attacker right in the face with the weapon, knocking him out cold. Not directly due to Dash herself, the staff then seemed to freeze time and neutralize gravity for a split second as it slammed a blast of energy into the second one and sent him plummeting back to the earth at much faster than terminal velocity. She wouldn't take any more chances now with the last pursuer still on her. She dove downwards to gain speed, then pulled back up at the last second. Using her new-found momentum, she was able to put distance between her and the last Shadowbolt who hadn't dived down after her, but the two were still tracking each other. She made it out over the plains out of the city and gained some altitude, and continued heading toward the beacon and Applejack's location on the summit of the hill. With an almighty boom an explosive mortar exploded in the sky right near her, causing her to almost lose all control and crash to the ground, recovering with just seconds to spare. The Shadowbolt had now broken off so as to avoid being similarly shot down. More explosions went off mid-air, the shockwaves rattling Rainbow's eardrums hard. She missed one, and then another, and another, and one more, before finally one did knock her out of the sky and crashing her at the base of the hill. She'd been out for a solid five minutes before the noise of barking tracking dogs and shouting squad leaders had woken her. She sat up with a start, instantly feeling a jarring pain from her left wing and side of her chest. Quickly realizing this was now no easy escape, she reoriented herself up the hill, equipped the staff under her good wing and started making her way through the flora and rocky terrain. Hopefully she'd find someone friendly soon. Applejack, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie had been sitting on the hilltop for a few hours under the shade of trees. These three ponies' mission was two-fold: their main mission was to meet up with Rainbow Dash after retrieving the staff, and the second was for reconnaissance of Canterlot and enemy troop movement. Fluttershy used new cloaking technology to turn invisible while she flew overhead to take images of Canterlot, the damage it sustained and where the enemy had made their occupation thickest. Pinkie Pie did the same but on hoof and of sentry posts and patrol routes around the outskirts of the city. Applejack was to provide and manage a small temporary "base of operations" for the six while they were there, where the images Pinkie and Fluttershy took were beamed directly back to. Majority of the day had been uneventful. They'd seen Rarity, Twilight and Rainbow Dash off, then Applejack later saw Pinkie and Fluttershy off too. Eventually, commotion brewed in the distance near the castle itself. It could be heard, very faintly over the quiet sounds of nature, from her location kilometers away four muffled booms in moderate succession. Then, over the fields, she noticed the mortars exploding in the air. They didn't last for long, however; she saw their target, and then said target dropping like a rock out of the sky. "Pinkie, Fluttershy, return to my position, double time!" Applejack said, breaking the radio silence they established. Until they were back, she'd try to get in contact with Rainbow Dash again. Within minutes Fluttershy was back, but Pinkie Pie would still take some time to return. "I'm here Applejack" she called upon arrival. "Great! I saw Rainbow Dash get shot down as she was coming back with the objective. She crashed further down at the bottom of the hill, and she ain't been responding to any calls" "Right. I still have some run time in this cloaking unit, about an hour, so I'll see if I can find her from above" "Alright, I'll stay here and keep an eye on the camp. Hit the ping if you find her" Fluttershy faded and disappeared into thin air again, carrying out her search. A cyan pegasus with a rainbow mane tends to stand out in stark contrast against a background of brown dirt and rocks and green foliage, and she too had already heard the Ized tracking Rainbow Dash down. It had not been too long until she'd seen the pegasus, and more frighteningly one of the enemies bearing down on here and about to catch her. Thinking on her hooves, she immediately dove downward, still cloaked, and crashed on top of the pursuer. Dash spun around to face the yelp of mixed pain and fright nearby behind her that she'd not even noticed was there before. Just as he tried to get back up he was knocked back down; he appeared to be fighting with the air. Then began to reappear Fluttershy, putting Dash's mind at ease. She was kneeling over him, injecting a syringe into him. "A mixture of a sleep and amnesia potion" she muttered "Dash, your wing, are you okay?" she asked as she moved toward her concerned "It's fine, Flutte- ow! Watch it!" she flinched in pain at her hoof meeting her wing, despite how careful Fluttershy was trying to be. "Sorry" "Just leave it for now" "I have some anesthetic for it" Dash protested and Fluttershy insisted, but the cyan pegasus flatly refused. "You're seeing a doctor the very first chance we get. Come on, we should hurry, they're getting close."
Chapter TwoPinkie Pie had managed to get some good images of their perimeter defenses, and was more or less finished by the time Applejack called her back. Her reconnaissance had pretty much not seen any conflict thanks to the so far successful cloaking technology. It was night time, and Luna's moonlight faintly lit the field, by the time she made it anywhere near the other side of the fields on her way back. Wondering where each of her team, and friends, were she pulled up the map of her heads-up display and ran a search for the transponders they were carrying. The results showed three of them further away, green dots marked RBD, FLS and APJ, the device saying they were all atop the hill, and two more fairly closer but behind her, marked TWS and RTY. She turned and visually inspected the general direction in which the device indicated they were from her, but she could not see them at all. Stopping where she was, she laid down to the ground. "Twilight, Rarity, do you copy?" "Twilight here. Why are you breaking radio silence?" "My HUD says you're somewhere behind me but I can't see you" "Right, give me a sec" Pinkie waited. "System tells me you're approximately to our one o'clock, about one hundred fifty meters ahead" "Pulse your torches at me" In a couple seconds of waiting she spotted two individual lights pulse four times in the distance. She flashed hers in response. "Gotcha guys" she said without transmitting. After a couple more pulse flashes Rarity and Twilight had finally rendezvoused with Pinkie Pie and they progressed further together. "Halt. Check your motion sensors" Rarity said as they got to the hill, putting her hoof out to signal a halt command "I just had a blink forward of our position" "I saw it- there's another" confirmed Pinkie They each brought up one of their hooves which had a small gun strapped to it and aimed in the direction of the blips. The blips started moving closer, and closer, until the bushes started rustling and they heard the laughter and foreign-tongued conversation of two Ized troops; they looked up and the amused smiles quickly departed their faces, being replaced by ones of shock and dread. They stood still, frozen in place, not making any sudden moves to provoke any of the three ponies into firing. Pinkie had her barrel set on the one on the left who, to her, looked more suspicious than the other. Rarity and Twilight also split their aim among the two Izeds. "Steady, boy..." Pinkie whispered to herself "We'd hate to have some of that filthy blood poison our oh-so-precious Equestrian earth now wouldn't we?" The one she was staring down glared back at her; he'd now tried to put on a steely, determined face, but Pinkie saw right through it to the fear that kept growing inside him. The whole thing happened almost instantly. He swung a hoof around behind him in an attempt to slide his hoof into his weapon's brace which he then intended to use. He got as far as swinging the hoof back before Pinkie fired off one round at him, scoring a critical hit on the individual. What little armour he had on posed no challenge to the incoming projectile, which blasted its way through his upper chest, shattering the scapula, the shrapnel from which proceeded to, when he hit the ground, sever vital arteries as it was moved around inside due to his writhing in pain. The sudden, unordered gunshot left Rarity and Twilight dazed for a slight moment, but long enough for the remaining Ized to attempt to escape back into the bushes to alert his allies. Twilight recomposed herself and brought her hoof back up, and her horn glowed, using her magic to concentrate her aim on the moving target as he galloped away. Rarity at the same time attempted to line up her gun to the escapee and quickly fired, only to miss and land her round in a tree. Twilight was certain she had the shot, and she let it go. The gunpowder ignited, spinning and propelling the lead pellet down and out of the barrel. The bullet traveled across the small gap between its firer and its target in an instant, striking with deadly accuracy. After a moment the quiet of the night returned. Pinkie moved forward to inspect Twilight's handiwork; when she saw the results she whistled in admiration of her precision marksmanship. "Yeah Twilight, I don't think this one will be getting back up any time soon"
Chapter Three"What the hell was that?!" Twilight demanded an answer, coming down something fierce on Pinkie "I said what an amazing sho-" "Not that, your gunshot" Twilight said sternly "He made a move, and I took him down before he could pose a threat. Textbook takedown if you ask me, ma'am." Twilight pulled back slowly but kept her commandeering stance over Pinkie "I'll be asking the techs to review that footage Pinkie" she said, gesturing toward her helmet camera. Rarity piped up from behind. "Ladies, we've gotta keep moving. Applejack's at the top and her last radio transmission, or what I got out of it, said to get up there. Besides, it's only a few minutes before they notice something is wrong here. Let's make the best of that to leave the scene instead of bicker like ruffians" Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash had finally made it to the top of the hill after narrowly evading several search parties, one of which had been unfortunate enough to stumble upon their hiding spot in a bush as they passed by. "Finally," Applejack sighed, relieved "I tracked your transponders on the way up" "Rainbow's injured, Applejack. I need you to scan her wing for me" A few moments passed as the module on Applejack's saddle inspected Rainbow's broken appendage, and their nearby computer chirped at them with the results, which Fluttershy promptly attended to as Applejack got some water and supplements for the pair. "How is it?" "Hmm..." Fluttershy turned back to Dash "Well, it's not good. I can say that much. It's definitely broken... again" "Again?" Applejack asked "Heh, yeah, when I broke my wing practicing stunts for the Wonderbolts and..." She really did hate to admit it to her friends, even after so long "found my love for... reading..." "And the fact that you're always breaking bones" The trio laughed, but it quickly soured and died as they remembered this was all before the war began, and what happened since. "Y'all know I'm not leaving the other three to make their own way home, right? We're waiting here for them" "But AJ, the objective-" "Will be completely safe with all three of us around it while we wait for them to get back" she interrupted "and even more so once they are back and we can move again" A gunshot echoed up the hill to the peak, then one more... and one last shot. Applejack scrambled to the radio "Twilight, Applejack here. We just heard gunfire, was that you?" She waited, but no response came. "Away team, this is base, do you copy?" More static followed, but faintly heard was one voice inside the white noise. "Say again, last transmission unintelligible." Enough of the familiar voice of one fashionista-turned-soldier finally came through for them to recognize who it was, but they still didn't understand a thing she said. "Rarity, this is Applejack. I'm not receiving your transmission. If y'all can hear this, proceed to the peak of the hill, priority one. We're waiting on you. Base out." "So..." "We wait. And you need some food. Some real tasty, top of the line five-course meal, fit for the Princesses themselves, courtesy of the Equestrian military" Applejack mockingly laughed and smiled as Dash sighed in grief. Author's Note Took me a while to figure out where and how to continue this after the last chapter, but it seems to work. As always, comment your thoughts!
