"Not long now, soon we will be sitting on warm sands and be sipping on wild Pegasus whiskey." Wild Winds, was nothing but chipper the entire time that she’d been flying us. She had nearly jumped out of her power armor when she heard that we would be on a recon mission to the Marewaii Islands. "I can see it now, beachfront property."

"And what if there's locals around?" South Breeze was ever the pessimist, but he was one damn good markspony. "And what if they hate us just like every pony in Equestria does?" Like the shots he took, his remarks were normally spot on.

"Naw, it's more likely they will be just be tribals banging rocks together. You know, maybe they’ll think we’re gods or something! That’d be awesome." Wild Winds nickered at her own comment.

A whistle came from Warm Gale. As always, he had to chime in. "If we're seen as gods, I wouldn't mind being the god of love." It didn’t help that his favorite topic was mares, but he always forced the point that he wasn’t too picky about gender.

"CAN IT, YOU LOT!" Our fearless leader, Light Turbulence, was only on edge because she was still technically getting used to her new rank of 'captain'. She had always been the youngest of the whole squad, and so we all treated her like a younger sister. Of course she hated that, and compensated for it by yelling at us all the time. She liked to overplay the whole 'I'm in charge so listen to me' sort of thing, and we all just kinda went along with it."THIS IS AN IMPORTANT MISSION. SO NO BOOZING, NO STARTING A WAR, AND NO TAIL CHASING! DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?" She wasn't a bad leader, she just made it easy for us to have some fun at her expense.

"YES, SIS!" We all yelled in unison. That started her fuming. A little more teasing, and she would retreat and pout.

"Do you want a candy?" I took out a lemon drop from a pocket and passed it to her. "Here, have a candy."

She slapped the lemon drop from my hoof. "DO YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY, MERIT CROSS!? DO YOU WANT TO BE COURT MARTIALED!?" She was absolutely fuming now, but the trip back home would be a long one. She’d have had plenty of time to have cooled off by the time we got back.

I rolled my eyes. "If you didn't want the candy, you could have just said so." She raised her hoof to strike me. It was going to hurt, but I've had captains who could and would strike me harder to just prove to the other soldiers that they were in charge. Light Turbulence was more of a product of bureaucracy than military dictatorship.

"Captain! Marewaii is in sight... and something else too." Wild winds called out.

Light glared at me. "We will finish this later." putting her hoof down, she trotted to the front of the vertabuck "What's this ‘something else’?"

"Don't know, but there's two of them, and they’re following us." Wild Winds responded. “They just showed up out of nowhere...”

I could see the confused and worried look on both South Breeze and Warm Gale’s faces. I waved at them to stay buckled up, as I unbuckled myself from the seat. Walking up to the front, I could see the two blips on the radar display.

"Might be vertibucks. Maybe there's another Enclave outpost out here on the water?" Light said as she rubbed her chin. "We’ll attempt to initiate contact." She glared at me, and I got to working at the radio knobs, switching to an open frequency. "This is a recon unit from the New Cloudsdale Enclave. Pursuit craft, state your business. I repeat, this is a recon unit from the New Cloudsdale Enclave. Pursuit craft, state your business."

There was no immediate response to Lights broadcast, not even one ten or twenty seconds later. We waited for over a minute in silence, before we got a response from a gravelly sounding stallion.

"Surrender or die."

We were once more in silence, stunned really. Even if the Enclave has been aggressive about controlling the airspace of Equestria in the past, we never jumped straight to threats like that. To have a threat directed at us so clearly felt more like it was grounders with a vertibuck, and not fellow pegasi.

"What should we do, Captain?" Wild Winds asked, but received no answer.

Light Turbulence was running through all the proper procedures in her head, I could see it on her face. I've seen it before, when untested soldiers are put in command, and have to make a hard decision. It either took a hardened heart to quickly make such a decision, or simply knowing that ‘surrender or die’ simply meant ‘die later, or die now.’

I jumped into the gunner's seat, "Take evasive action, Wub Wub. I’ve got the guns."

Wild Winds saluted. "On it, Hoof Shiner." The vertibuck banked left speeding up as the two behind chased after us. I’d always hated that callsign, so many years of kissing flank and it’s that only thing I ever got out of it.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, CROSS!" Light screamed at me. "DO YOU WANT ME TO EXECUTE YOU RIGHT HERE AND..."

Light was cut off by the sound of gunfire peppering the right side of the vertibuck. Wild Winds dove, and turned the thrusters on full to escape the gunfire. "Dammit! I can't make an attempt to flank them, as soon as I dodge one, the other compensates." I could see the worry on Wild Winds face.

Banking right, the vertibuck just barely avoided a energy beam. The stream of magical energy racing towards the island. Light, not being buckled in, slammed into the wall.

"The Island!" I pointed out. “We might be able to shake them if we use the terrain down there.”

Wild Winds B-lined it for the Island, dropping us down to where we were skimming just above the surface of the water. The bright sun shimmering on the crisp blue water felt unreal compared to what was happening. The Island’s immensity came sharply into focus as we raced to it, the stress on the arcano-engines now louder than I’d ever heard it before.

Gunfire rained down all around us. Whoever was manning their guns was not the best shot. With how many rounds they were firing, however, it was not like they needed to be. They’d hit us through sheer volume eventually!

I could feel a hoof pull back my seat. "What the fuck is going on!" I looked back at captain Light Turbulence. She’d lost her composure, and panic had set in on her face. “This was suppose to be as simple recon mission, no air battles!"

The sound of pinging metal caught our attention as one of the enemy craft hit us with machine gun fire. The outside air rushed in as holes punched through the side of us. Worse yet, the gunfire was followed by the sound of a pained cry.

"FUCK! LOVER BOY IS HIT!" South Breeze shouted, and started to unbuckle himself, but in his panic failed to.

Light Turbulence pushed herself off my seat and jumped to Warm Gale. "STAY SEATED EYESHADOW!" She pulled out a healing potion from Warm’s medic bag. Quickly, she uncorked it and shoved the potion into his mouth. "Just hold on, Just hold on!"

He coughed as the last of the potion went down his throat, pushing the empty bottle away. "Is that an order, sis?" Warm Gale choked out, trying to keep the potion down.

"YOU’RE DAMN RIGHT IT’S AN ORDER!" Light shouted.

Refocusing on our weapons, I noticed on a sensor panel that the radiation levels were increasing. Along with that, our air toxicity detector was having a hayday with whatever was ahead. I wasn’t the only one who noticed, as Light cursed under her breath.

"EVERYONE, PUT ON YOUR FILTERS! WERE GOING THROUGH A CLOUD OF SHIT!" She said, pulling one of the safety rebreathers off the wall. Like the safety briefing most recruits slept through instructed, I secured my own filter first before I helped Wild Winds get her filter over her muzzle. Seeing as she was too busy dodging gunfire and keeping us all alive, it’s understandable why she didn’t rush to put it on herself.

The two other craft were relentless with their pursuit, countering every attempt Wild Winds made to evade them. Our only advantage was that they were still too far behind to be able to get an easy shot on us. Reaching land, Wild Wind lifted up the vertibuck ever so slightly and skimmed along the top of the treeline. To our luck, we were heading straight to the ruins of an overgrown, old and dead city. Like much of Equestria’s architecture, it was somehow still standing after two hundred years.

Dramatically dropping speed, I could hear Light Turbulence’s hooves grind on the floor as she did her best to prevent herself from flying into the front console of the vertibuck. Wild Winds quickly banked and turned again. She was using the ruins as cover, and preventing the second enemy craft from countering her moves. With more grace than a vertibuck should be capable of, Wild Winds performed a loop-de-loop. It was a hell of a maneuver, but it got us to come back down behind the first craft that had been closely chasing us.

Now able to see the enemy craft, it was a vertibuck. Yet, it was clearly not an enclave vertibuck. Painted red with green trim, it was far outside regulation colors. Where the Enclave emblem would have been, instead was the image of a green circle of thorns. There were other details of it’s design, but I lost them as they tried to evade our persuit. I pulled the trigger to all of our guns, while Wild Winds guided the nose of our Vertibuck. The enemy vertibuck practically disintegrated under the barrage of fire. It burst into flames as it tumbled down toward the ground. There was a tremendous blast as it struck, shaking the air itself as we flew over it.

"One down, one to go!" I called out. Looking at the radar, everything was a haze. For some reason, I couldn’t locate the other vertibuck now. With all this toxic shit clogging the air, every sensor we had was somehow now useless.

"Do you see it?" Wild Winds asked as she focused on flying our craft through the ruined city.

“No,” I shook my head. “Sensors are completely dead. Looks like we'll have to do this the old fashioned way and actually use our eyes for once."

"So much for spending time at the beach.” Wild Winds groaned. “And what the fuck is up with this place? The radiation is everywhere, but why’s everything covered in plants? I can honestly say I’ve never seen so much green before," She whipped us to the side, narrowly avoiding a length of vine stretched between two of the decrepit skyscrapers. "and it's starting to piss me off!"

I could feel some weight on my seat again. Taking a glance back, Light Turbulence stood behind us. Her uniform was all scuffed up from bouncing all over the vertibuck, but she looked fine otherwise. "Report!" she huffed.

"Who ever has been attacking us is definitely not Enclave. On top of that, the island is incapable of supporting pony life… abundant greenery notwithstanding." I tapped my hoof on the radar. "Also were flying blind right now. Whatever is in the air is jamming all of our sensors."

Light leaned in, taking a better look of the greenery covered ruins. It was a strange sight to see compared to Equestria, with all the gray and brown being replaced by blues and greens. The building themselves looked almost ready to fall over, only being held up by the absurd amount of vines that webbed in between the brick and steel. Trees poked out of long vanished windows, and flowers of all colors dotted all over like stars in the night sky.

Light looked enamored with the sight, and I couldn't blame her, we all were. "Shame really... Let's gather our data and get the hell out of here."

I cocked an eyebrow. "Did you forget that we're still under a..."

Bullets rained down on us again without warning. Wild Winds banked right sharply to get us out of the fire. The chattering fire from the other vertibuck pinged off us again. The vertibuck shook violently as the left engine whined. Alarms were going off all over the cockpit now, and Wild struggled to pull us away from getting hit again.

"Fucking hell, the asshole hit the left propeller” Wild Winds cried. “Brace yourselves, we're going down!" Her attempts to keep the vertibuck stable as we rapidly lost control gave me the time to spot somewhere we might be able to crashland.

"Ahead of us, there's a tunnel!" It wasn’t much, but it was something we could use to get away from those assholes chasing us, if at least for a moment.

Grinning, Wild Winds did her best to roll the vertibuck onto its right side. The right propeller pulled us as we drifted sideways through the air toward the tunnel entrance. Throwing the throttle to max, Wild intended to get us in as deep as possible. I really didn't plan on being pancaked on the side of this island today. All I could do was sit and trust that she could make us fit in there on the first try.

"HOLD ON EVERYPONY!" Hitting the ground, the sound of metal scraping on rock became a roar in our ears. Wild Winds did her best to keep the vertibuck from rolling over completely. The glass cracked as rocks bounced off the vertibuck, and the right engine burst into flames as we skid along on it.

I don't know how far we'd slid into the tunnel when the vertibuck finally came to a stop, but I was just glad that we stopped in one piece. Smoke wafted about the cockpit, as no less than a dozen ringing alarms filled the air. Wild groaned and slammed her hoof at some switches on the control panel, hoping to turn them off. When she did, sparks shot from the control panel and everything in the vertibuck went dark as the power died. The crackling engine fire was all that met our ears as we sat there in semi-darkness.

"Is anypony dead?" I called out.

"I'm alive." said South Breeze

"Looks like little sis ith out cold." Warm Gale called out with an odd slur. “An’ I’m fine.” I looked at Wild Winds, noting that a little blood came from his mouth. Probably bit his tongue in the crash, but not too bad it seemed.

"Let's get moving, were sitting ducks here.” I said as both her and I unbuckled ourselves. My legs felt stiff, and protested at the idea of moving after a crash like that. Pointing, it was on me to take charge in the captain’s absence. “Lover Boy, you take the captain and see if you can wake her up. The rest of us, gather supplies and get ready to disembark."

Opening the door of the vertibuck, we were all hit by a wall of thick, humid air. As all of us froze with the odd sensation, the sounds of wildlife echoed in from the dead city. Despite the heavy radiation, this island was somehow still teeming with life. It was like a juicy looking fruit, tempting bait that made me want to get out and explore it. Too bad that fruit was more than likely full of poison.

"Hoof Shiner, you're going to want to see this!" South Breeze called out to me.

"We don't have time for sightseeing,” I said, turning to him. “We need to get supplies and find shelter as soon..." My eyes followed his, looking down to find a Mangled and half crushed pony under the vertibuck. IT wasn’t a body, or a skeleton, but the form of a pony covered in tattered clothes and still leaking blood. The pony had what looked like a enviromental suit on, as well a gas mask. Clamped securely to the one leg of the pony that wasn’t completely destroyed by our crash, was a pipbuck.

"I think we killed a local." South Breeze pointed out unnecessarily. A familiar whine grew in my ears as we stared at the odd sight.

Without any warning, Wild Winds jumped over me. Her bruised wings struggled to flap, but she turned around quick enough to get our attention. "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that asshole is back!"

At the end of the tunnel, the enemy vertibuck was now flying at just above ground level. It had slowed to squeeze into the tunnel after us, but it was still approaching. Two energy beams shot out from it at our vertibuck. The bright beams struck and blasted off the other propeller. Their next shot shattered the cockpit window and melted my gunner's seat.

Looking around, we needed to find a place it couldn’t maneuver to hit us at. A bright yellow sign on the wall ten feet from us caught my eye, hanging as if it had been placed just yesterday. It depicted a stairwell going down, and sat over the rusted open door of an entrance.

Without any idea where it lead, I made a judgement call. "Everypony follow me, we’re going underground!" Another shot from the enemy vertibuck lanced off the hull of our own, boiling away it’s paint and melting the metal plate it hit to slag. “now!”

Wild Winds saw were we were going, and was the first into the stairwell. She held her energy weapon up as she did, ready to take out any more hostiles that met us. I was next, but a hail of bullets and energy beams followed me, cutting off the others. Using our ruined vertibuck as cover, the two stallions looked at me with worry. Fuck, I was going have to make a hard choice.

"EYESHADOW, COVER LOVER PONY!" I ordered to him.

They nodded. South Breeze readied his energy rifle, and began attempting suppression fire at the vertibuck. The vertibuck retaliated against South Breeze, and Warm Gale took the opportunity to run to the stairwell. Without much of a problem, Warm made it inside before the enemy could adjust to hit him.

It had worked, and now South was all alone fighting a vertibuck. No greenfeather to combat, he was good enough to avoid the bullets. However, when the energy beam cut through his cover, we all saw him panic and change cover. Thankfully he hadn't been hit directly. With a quick hiss, something zipped toward our virtibuck. A rocket slammed into where he’d been taking cover before, blasting half the vertibuck apart. As the smoke cleared, we could see South on the ground and crawling up against the wreck. He was alive, but the blast had left him with some deep cuts.

"I'm going to go get him." Warm spoke up as he turned around.

I raised a hoof in objection, but I could see the determination in his eyes. He and South were best friends, and Warm was not about to leave his buddy behind. I didn't have the cold heart to hold him back, because right now we really didn’t have a choice. Passing the captain to me along with his medic bag, he flared his wings. With a quick push into the air, he shot out to South.

To his credit, he got to South fast. The virtibuck resumed shooting with it's energy weapons as he reached his friend. South screamed in agony as Warm pulled him up and slung him across his back. He spread his wings and took a deep breath, ready to try to make the return trip. Another loud hiss filled the tunnel, and another rocket zipped by. In a flash, both of them were gone.

My hooves fell out from under me. Wild looked away with her eyes shut tight, letting out a quiet "No." that even to me was just barely audible. All I could do was close my eyes and bow my head. Warm and south weren't just two soldiers or comrades to us. We had just lost two friends, and that hurt us all.

Closing the old door, we turned and quickly headed down the stairwell. The captain was still on my back out cold, and we had no idea what we’d find ahead. We needed to get somewhere safe, come up with a plan to get our hooves on their vertibuck, and head back to New Cloudsdale. It wasn’t the most rock solid idea I could have come up with, but it was the only one we had for now.

"Hay Hoof Shiner, you hear that?" Wild Winds whispered. I stopped and concentrated on the sounds around me. Unlike the greenery above, the stairwell was dark and eerily silent. Ever so silently, I could here something, something like... "crying, I think?" Wild pointed out.

As quietly as we could, we moved forward to investigate the sound. A few feet past the next corner, we came upon an old tarp that had been pinned up like a tent against the wall. Holding a hoof out to the others, I crept up to it. Slowly, I reached my hoof up and hooked it around the old plastic. As I pulled it back, I revealed a pony mare inside.

She had a soft pink coat, and a sky blue mane and tail. Strangely, she had stripes much like a zebra, although much more faded than any I’d ever seen. Along with a shockingly diminutive horn, a pair of just as diminutive wings sat curled on her back. The mare looked at us through her cracked face mask, her vibrant blue eyes shimmering as they went wide.

The mare stared into my eyes for a moment, gasped, and fainted right at my hooves.

I let out a grunt as My vertibuck landed with less grace as I would have liked. Either we needed to fix these hunks of junk up again, or we needed better pilots. Both ends of it made me glad that I’d been holding my drink in my magic. Using magic for every little task felt weak and without any real grace, but it did keep me clean at times like this. As the doors opened up, I was forced to feel the foul humid air of this wretched Island. The air filter I was using was less than comfy, but it did keep me from breathing this toxic air.

Stepping out from the vertibuck, my red overcoat flapped in the rogue winds that came through here. I stomped at the ground, trying to knock off the dirt that had collected on my red shoes. Without any luck, I was about to wipe them off on the griffin holding the door. Hesitating, I decided to wait until I was getting back onto the craft.

"Admiral Flintlock Hook! What a surprise t' see you here. What's t' occasion?" Blackspot was an odd stallion. How he’d ever made first mate to the ship he served aboard was a mystery to me. I didn't trust him, or Captain Carving Doll. I could see the evil in their eyes, but without proper cause, I could not purge them from the fleet.

"Shut your trap Black Spot, and show me t' recording.” I snapped, not wanting to have my time wasted.

He bowed, and two twin unicorn mares stepped up from his sides. One approached holding a pipbuck in her magic. They both had the same twisted green eyes as Black Spot and Carving Doll, like it was some kind of disease a pony could catch. The other mare not holding the pipbuck, turned on the notes screen and pressed play on an audio file with her magic.

"Payment will be sent to the dead drop upon completion of the contract. Any deviation or errors on this job will result in reduction of your pay. You will lead the princess as far from Charon’s Stop as you can, to the surface would be best. Feed her wanderlust as much as possible, make sure she’s enjoying herself. Then when your are where you’re certain that nopony will find the body, dispose of her. The story if you are caught on return was that she is to be considered lost to the outside due to her own foolishness. What happened to her must be a mystery, and under no circumstances should you ever reveal where her body could be found. Your success in this job will help ensure peace in the Orphic Kingdom for years to come."

Black Spot stepped up to me once again. “We only found three bodies, t' two others belonged to t' vertibuck that was shot down in a separate incident.” He waved his hoof, and the twins walked off out of sight.

I smiled. "Now isn't this an interesting' treat." Beckoning Black Spot closer with my hoof, I wiped some of the mud off my shoe on his vest. “I’ll give you permission to chase this ‘princess’ down into this toxic no ponies island. Goddess speed, Savvy.” Waving the first mate off, I turned my attention to one of my pegasus holding a metal briefcase. Black Spot looking more then willing to put some distance between him and me as he returned to his crew.

“We recovered the black box from the unknown virtibuck, ma’am.” The pegasus called out, quickly flying to me.

Taking hold of the briefcase in my magic, I opened it to take a quick look. The cloud tech flight data recorder was still in pristine condition. Shutting the briefcase, I passed it to my griffin guard. “You can return to you crew sailor.” The pegasus saluted, flying off to rejoin Black Spot.

Returning to my vertibuck, I took the care to properly wipe my hoof shoes off before entering. I didn’t know why some ponies loved walking on dirt, and leaving a mess everywhere, so uncivilized. Taking a seat, the engine whirred to life, and the vertibuck quickly lifted off. Taking me away from these goddesses forsaken islands, and back to my ship.

Pulling out my pocket watch, it looked like I would get back in time for tea. That, and see how Captain Carving Doll’s new cyber wings turned out. I know that they will make quite the buzz.

Start New Game? [Y/N]

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