I was thrown to the floor, at the hoofs of a pony I had never seen. I reached for my Glock, only to find myself disarmed. I still had my knife however. I pulled that instead.

"Wait! We're on your side here!"

I was hesitant, is he a friend or a foe?

"I'm Celestial Wishes, I saved your friend back there."

I guess that'd have to do. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, it was the pony who destroyed the APC.

"That was hell back there, what's going on?" He had a Prench accent, unusual considering that there weren't many Prench ponies in this country.

"It's Starlight, she's made the first move." Celestial said.

"Wait, you know who Starlight is?"

"Yea, we've been on her case for a year now. It's a personal issue."

"Well, looks like we have some even ground."

"Wait, you're the other guy? You've costed us quite a bit of trouble. I like that."

It certainly was a confusing sentiment, but it'd have to do for now. On Celestial's back I noticed a glint, it wasn't quite a long barrel like I thought it'd be.

"Tell me, Celestial, what rifle is that?"

"It's a Remington 700, why?"

"Sure as hell doesn't look like one, what is it?"

I meant what I said when I said that. The rifle he carried was far too advanced to be a Remington 700 hunting rifle. It had a full APS rail system. Even more unusual was the odd barrel length, it only went 5 inches past the furniture of the rifle.

"Well first off you're probably talking about the rails. That was a quick modification from some parts I had gotten a long time ago. The scope is a 3-12x50 optic. The barrel was just sawed short."

"So the rails were on there to lighten the rifle, you jury rigged your own sawed barrel?"

"Yup, that sums it up." he said with a shrug.

"Well that leaves one last question, where's Octavia?"

"If you're talking about the mare, she's still unconscious."

"Well, where is she?"

"She's literally right behind you."

I turned around, he wasn't lying. She may have been in bad shape but she was still breathing. A cough escaped her mouth.

"Well, now she's not."

She got to her hoofs and barraged us with questions, all of which were easily answered. I looked at the other pony, the one who killed the APC.

"And you are?"

"Clashing Helm. I'm the 'mad bomber' of the group really."

I could tell, on his armor was a whole set of explosives. They ranged from Grenades to a M203 launcher strapped to him by a one point sling.

"Well, if you two are here, who pulled us in?"

"That'd be me."

The voice came from another doorway, I swung my head to see a rugged zebra.

"I'm the support gunner. Before you ask, we know who you are and what you do. Pretty sure it was made clear by Celestial when he said his little comment."

On his back was a heavier choice in weapons, an M240B Machine Gun.

"Before you ask the name's Defiant Visor."

"Well, glad to see we have an Equestrian operations team here. Celestia does care after all."

"Not quite." Said the mad bomber.

"What do you mean?"

Celestial answered it for him.

"We aren't soldiers, just well funded."

"By whom?"

"Whoever pays the most, we have a bit in common you and I." This time it was the Zebra's turn to respond.

"Who's that again?"

"She never said, sent one of her friends along to give us what we needed."

"I see."

The sniper looked through the window, and put his rifle away. He replaced it with a Vz.61 Skorpion. It was an ugly Czeck machine pistol but it did the job well for a sniper.

"Hey guys, enough talk the Commies are closing in."

"You heard the stallion, get going. We'll be moving for the northern border, it should have the least infantry resistance due to the the wide open areas, but it'll have the most artillery shells in it. Just don't linger around." Defiant yelled this in perfect monotone, he probably was the leader.

We went and cleared room to room, The pony to go first was always Helm. Helm was armed with a Sawed Off Double Barreled Shotgun. Behind him was Celestial. The line went with the Operators going first. I followed back, knife in hoof. Octavia followed unarmed. We could hear the clatter of hoofs in the building we had just left.

We pushed a set of lockers over the door, they wouldn't be following us. We kept moving until we had gotten out of the building. As soon as we were out we ran across the street, there was a riot going on. Looting of stores was already in progress along with a full blown police counteroffensive. The police had no chance at suppressing the riot. They had no chance at beating out the communists either.

We kept moving past the hopeless situation. The only force that could intervene would have to be the Equestrian Military, I'm sure they were aware of this by now. It was 5 PM when we got to an automotive repair center, it wasn't too far from where we were but we were nowhere near the Northern Border of the city. We had a long way to go. We were legging it all the way there.

We stayed in the auto repair shop for not even 10 minutes before the Communists came in. The other ponies were talking, and I was comforting Octavia.

"Cloud, will I die here?"

"Listen Octavia, I'm not going to allow that to happen. I've risked my life once for you and I'll do it again. Just keep moving with me and we'll make it out alive."

"Why? Why do you save me?"

I thought for a moment, why do I help her? I remembered something my father once said.

"When you save somepony once, you can't help but do it again."

She accepted this, and that was when the banging started. It was a loud, steady, metallic bang. It came from one of the garage doors for trucks to get serviced. That was where the rest of the team was sitting. They jumped to their hoofs, weapons at the ready.

"I'll set up the bipod against a car, Helm work on rigging an explosive to something! Celestial you get in a point for an ambush, I'm going to suppress them while you flank them. You two over there, try not to die!"

The orders were simple enough, I had Octavia position herself in another room. She couldn't be hit in that area, so she was safe. I hid in a fort of boxes, they weren't bulletproof, but I didn't plan on hiding through the whole thing. I pulled my knife out and waited. Helm had dragged a few gas cans to the garage door, with no detonator. What was he doing?

I figured it out soon enough. The door exploded, then erupted in a fit of fire. The communists had decided to use a breaching charge to blow through the garage door since it was too thick to be hit down with what they were using. The commies couldn't enter through there, so I heard hoofsteps coming from a hall leading into the garage. They ran in the open, and that was when I heard the roar of the M240B.

It had a slow and steady bark, one that couldn't be mistaken. There was a fit of screaming, then a yell to get in cover. A round passed through a box next to my leg, luckily I wasn't hit. The sniper had begun his flanking tactic and crossed past the line of fire. He had almost reached the ponies when he was shot at by a burst from an AKM. He wasn't hit but he did jump behind the engine block of a truck. A set of three ponies ran into the garage, they too were communists.

It was an MG crew, two ponies to carry the MG, and one to load it.

The weapon of their choice was a SHVaK 20mm cannon. The bark of that weapon was much louder than the M240, and soon enough no fire from my friends came. It wasn't that any of them were hit, but hey were suppressed. I got a motion from Celestial to kill it. That was exactly what I did. They were just next to the boxes, so I jumped from the stack with knife in hoof.

The loader looked back, surprised by his death. I slammed my window breaker against his skull, then swung the knife hard into the chest of the MG gunner. He coughed up blood and continued to fire in the air. His eye's were locked on me as I stabbed him two more times in the chest, I pushed him to the ground and the MG toppled on top of the third crew member.

I slashed into the third crew member's chest and neck, it effectively killed him. That was when the loader's hoofs wrapped around my neck. It was a rear-necked choke. He pulled me backward with a hard thrust, causing us to topple to the ground. I lost my knife in the fall. I'm not going out without a bang.

I swung my head back, hitting him in the jaw. He didn't let go, he was a persistent bitch. He threw a swing with a free hoof into my ribs, I rolled over, now he was against the ground. I did another headbutt, this time his arm slipped. I bit hard into his forearm, just above the hoof. Blood poured out from it. He backed up as I searched for my knife. It managed to end up in the head of the MG gunner. I reached for it but instead got a hit in the groin. I fell to the ground, getting myself back together.

The loader was sitting on my chest, a knife in his hoofs. He raised it up and began to swing down. Instead of making contact I swung my legs up and wrapped them around his face. Swinging the legs down, his head slammed against the pavement. I now had the upper hand. I jumped to my hoofs, and he did at the same time. He charged at me, knife forward. I grabbed his knife hand and threw a swing into his stomach. Then it was time to throw two more.

I picked my knife out of the gunner's head and swung hard, trying to get a slash at him. He parried it with a swing and dove at me. I dodged his tackle and lifted my knife. He was split open from chest to stomach. He landed on the floor, bleeding out. He tried getting one last look at me, but as he lifted his head I slammed my hoof into his temple.

The rest of the communists had been watching, horrified. That was when a steady stream of lead when downrange from the M240B. Two of the ten's heads were taken off, four more were fatally wounded. They got back in cover, pointing their rifles at me. I ran to them in a zigzag motion, causing them to miss. One of their rounds nearly skimmed me, but I didn't notice it. I jumped off of the head of one of the ponies and dove towards one of the one's in the crowd.

I tackled him and stabbed him in the neck while we fell. As soon as he hit the ground I threw a swing into the jaw of the pony next to him whilst giving the pony behind me a solid kick in the face. I then spun around with a leg in the air, kicking both ponies. They were down for a few moments. I used it to my advantage and threw a kick in the face of the other pony. There was now one standing.

'Wait, what's the weight against my leg?' I thought to myself.

I found it out soon.

I pulled my Derringer out from it's leg holster and fired a shot into the head of the last standing pony. I fired the other shell into the leg of one of the ponies who was regaining control. Another pony I kicked was standing up, Tokarev in hand. I threw the Derringer at him, effectively knocking him out.

The last one I stabbed twice. I did the same to the other. The force was done for, which made them one less problem.

We had regrouped and assessed the situation. No casualties, no wounded, no remaining hostiles. Helm searched the group for shotgun shells and grenades, both of which he had found a considerable amount of. He picked up 7.62 rounds for both Celestial and Defiant. They gladly accepted the gift as a token. We left the weapons there. Carrying enemy weapons would be a fine way to get killed by whatever security force comes in to clean this up.

Octavia was shaken, but not dead. The room certainly was bulletproof, for a fine number of shells had bounced off the door.

Now we just needed to head north.

Author's Notes:

Horray for new characters! Horray for better fight scenes as well.