Genevieve Aristide sat in her obscenely expensive Italian leather office swivel chair in her new office, holding in her hand a half-drunken martini in the manner of a truly pretentious corporate executive. Upon her polished mahogany desk was a high-value order forwarded to her by Dis and Qordial Limited, one of Armacham Technology Corporation’s many business partners, the salacious corporate whore that it was.
The order called for an entire six expeditionary Replica battalions outfitted with air,land and sea assets,also paying extra for the acquisition of multiple abandoned US military bases in europe, Dis and Qordial acting as the middleman, the buyer was one “Berry Punch,” a reclusive multi-quadrillionaire hold up somewhere in Italy.
Genevieve quirked a bemused eyebrow at the provided name of the buyer. ‘sounds like a hippies name...but judging by what shes ordered she’d have to be a very VERY PISSED OFF hippy’
Shrugging, she continued flipping through the document, finding shockingly little in the way of specific details about the buyer. Aside from a name and a rather vague location, there was nothing else stated about Berry Punch. She shrugged once more, not particularly caring that she knew next to nothing about a potential buyer for their own private army.
Now while another more responsible and globally conscious executive might wonder for more than a fleeting moment who exactly this buyer was and what they could possibly want with over nine thousand mindless clone supersoldiers, Genevieve just couldn’t bring herself to care. They had already paid in full through Dis and Qordial and even purchased indefinite servicing and warranty for their battalion, and that’s all that mattered to her. The bony-faced and morally bankrupt Aristide was never one to turn away a paying customer, after all…
She leaned back in her chair, taking a moment to reflect on the enormous amount of trouble she and the company went through to contain the fallout of the Origin and Perseus projects. While she didn’t know the precise details of how both incidents were ultimately resolved, the reports on them made mention of ice cream cones, potato crisps, Paxton Fettel’s apparent Oedipus complex, and the employment of a freelance sex worker to alleviate it. It was around there that she stopped reading, finding the suggested implications both unfortunate and repulsive.
Shaking her head clear of the disturbing thoughts, Genevieve leaned forward and grabbed the phone on her desk before dialing the sales department, eager to get things started.
On the outskirts of the massive smoldering blast mark that was the city of Fairport, a rundown airfield was bustling with activity, none of which was particularly legal. A fleet of transport planes were parked on the many taxiways of the airfield, their cargo bays being loaded with a multitude of militarized civilian vehicles and an immense volume of equipment, ordnance, and other materials. Myriads of genetically identical Replica soldiers were also boarding the planes, packing themselves tightly into their assigned seats.
Collectively designated the 4th and 18th Replica Regiments; the clone supersoldiers that comprised this unit were preparing to set out to rendezvous with their new pony commander. The details about their equine master had been disseminated to them in the final stages of their psychological conditioning. While in a hypnotic trance, anonymous voices whispered into their ears their life’s purpose, to obey all that their commander orders… and that their commander was a Purple talking pony named Berry Punch. Images of Berry’s Violet visage were subliminally broadcasted to their then highly suggestible minds. Her fuchsia coat and purple mane, huge violet eyes and an amazingly human-like smile, and most curiously a picture of a bundle of grapes and a strawberry printed onto her flank. Her cartoonish appearance was permanently burned into their memories along with the utterly ridiculous notion that they were to be unswervingly loyal and completely obedient to her.
While normal human soldiers might be a little skeptical about taking orders from an oversized and incredibly adorable and huggable sapient plush toy, the Replicas bore no such complaints, accepting completely the equine nature of their soon-to-be pony overlord. Armacham Technology’s Replica line of genetically engineered psychic supersoldiers weren’t the type to question their commander or the orders they issued even in the slightest. Be they psychotic, cannibalistic madmen, ghosts of emotionally dead little girls doing a poor impression of Japanese onryos, or indeed purple cartoon ponies from another universe entirely, the Replicas would follow them to hell and back and perform Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” while there if so ordered.
The end result of such an ethically obscene process was an entire army of mindless drones, ready to take or rescue hostages, massacre entire villages or deliver aid and protection to them, to be the most monstrous of killers or the most saintly of saviors, all on their commander’s say-so.
A short distance away from the rest of the battalion, a unique group of Replicas were boarding eighteen C-17 Globemaster cargo planes with their own specialized vehicles and hardware. Simply designated as “Replica Command,” the Replicas that made up this internal unit were the dedicated command teams of the 4th and 18th Replica Regiment’s six battalions, specially trained in all manner of strategies and tactics and tasked with assisting their commander in matters of command and troop coordination and ensure a smooth operation.
Inside a communications center in one of the planes was each regiment’s assembled battalion commanders, currently coordinating the loading of the battalions and its hardware onto the planes, primarily by shouting at them over the radio to hurry up.
At long last, it seemed they all were finally ready to go. The battalion commanders began radioing the individual sections they were each responsible for, ensuring all was set and accounted for before setting themselves and the rest of each regiment off on their journey.
All Forty-Two companies from 21st 32nd 40th 43rd 26th 38th battalions all checked in
Satisfied, the battalion commanders issued the order for all planes to take off. The 4th and 18th Replica Regiments were en route.
Author's Note
unfortunately when i added up the six expeditionary battalions (1,500 soldiers) numbers it came out as EXACTLY 9000 so no im not making any kind of joke,
when genevieve aristide says over 9000 mindless cloned supersoldiers
Don't Panic,
Regroup
Berry Punch woke up in a hospital room with a machine hooked into her arm, the stiff yet comfortable plastic mattress underneath her sheets being the first reason that she deduced that she was in a hospital the most obvious being the machine hitting the nurse page button she waited.....
and waited.....
and waited.....
and waited.....
and waited.....
and waited.....
Until she could wait no more she took one of the sensors off and immediately a doctor came running, coming to a full stop upon seeing it was her grumbling loudly "Damn it berry every time, every Celestia damn time!!"
"Took you long enough Blood Content....and get me unhooked!" Berry was agitated you see because she didn't remember going to anything special OR any drinking events with Princess Luna,so how come she didn't remember how she got in the hospital? doesn't matter she'll find out soon enough....
"Alright alright,Just give me a minute" Blood Content and Berry have been friends since high school, he's been give her free medical care off of his paycheck for years now....he's got a big paycheck, a week ago berry came in with a plan and he's in on it...
"Now...can you or anypony tell me why I'm here at the hospital?" She questioned him with a stern gaze hoping to find an answer in her high school pal
"No... Unfortunately only you can" Blood Content sighed hoofing her a file folder with the following on it:
From:Berry Punch
To:Myself
"is...this...a joke?" Blood Content hadn't joked in years his jokes were funny, yet mysterious...
"I'm afraid not" he looked out the window as if contemplating his thoughts "At least not by me,Maybe by you"
Back at the base.....
"Where the hell is the rest of the Regiment!" An angry Foxtrot Five-O-Eight marched over to one of the communications systems on the plane and tried to hail Command 'I can't believe they left me behind i mean they might be mindless but they aren't dumb!'
"Command here what is your situation?"
Foxtrot 508 mentally face palmed and calmly asked for a waypoint to the company commander's location 'of course....they didn't even notice i was missing!'
Foxtrot 508 walked over the hill wondering why the company was on a mountain he soon got his answer when he saw a winery built like a fortress on the top of a large cliff looking quite imposing especially with the companies artillery emplacements above it and the rest of the two regiments idly walking the grounds looking back down the mountain he now sees that the airstrip they landed on is on the property of the winery as well as several mines and a factory the property boundary was just merged with the horizon IF you were at a lower altitude but alas it is merged with the horizon turning to go to the barracks he was stopped
"Your wanted in the command tent" A replica commander with the mark RL-3 pointed to a nondescript barracks sized tent pulling 508 over to it
In the command tent Forty-Two company commanders or battalion sub commanders, Six Battalion commanders and Two Regiment Commander/Leaders were either sitting standing or leaning against the supports, Waiting for RL-3 And F-508
"Alright let's get started" RL-3 came waltzing in dragging F-508 behind him, The lights were turned out and the projector in the tent started RL-3 moved over to it and began talking...
"Alright Maggots! now as you all know our buyer is not of this world"
we talked about this in chapter one
"So obviously there is a catch to us being in Italy.." he walked over to the side and grabbed a file folder and came back to the projector he pulled a series of projection slides out of the folder and slid it into the projector
the first image detailed a series of old Nazi projects called "TRANSCENDENCE" and surprisingly "PONIFICATION" and "EQUESTRIA" the next image showed the area we were in pointing out several entrances to an bunker that apparently runs throughout the area and sections the property
after the briefing we had we we got an ideal of what to do we had to reactivate nine generators out of seventy-four to start the airflow again to get rid of the toxic gases then we had to find the fuel pumps and reactivate those again there were nine out of seventy-four to begin operations then the air compressors had to be started followed by the dimensional breacher and the wormhole stabilizer all in all it was very complicated but thing is each of these stages require that they're switches be flipped all at once then you can start the next stage
