Blazing Muzzles

Chapter Four: Another Mission

By Blaze Spectrum

I guess I had only one option. To get out.

Well, I might get cut up by the propellers.

I thought about it for a second, a precious second.

"Chopped up or blown up?"

Actually I'd rather die of old age. I kicked the door open and then the one at the side of the troop bay. I may die but I may live. Or at least much more likely then I would if I stayed in and waited for the damn thing to blow up. Once I was roughly forty metres from the roof, I slid down.

Well I didn't get chopped up by the propellers at least.

Now I had to absorb as much of the impact as possible. First, I landed with a bent left rear hoof. Then I rolled over till my body touched the ground. Then I had to use my front hooves to make me go into a front flip. Didn't actually hurt too much. Just slightly stung my left rear hoof. One of the advantages of full body armour. Standing up to my hind legs, I was greeted by a squad which decided to inspect the wreckage.

They immediately stopped. It was recognisable that I was wearing UPSN Space Marine Armour. Damaged but easily recognisable.

"Hold your fire," one of them whispered.

It wasn't long until they brought me in the base. They gave me a military issue credit card and gave me twenty bits to start with after I explained that I wasn't trained fully and was sent down. They were surprised, of course. I had survived a moderately dangerous mission, without physical training.  And with the lack of that training it was probably near suicide.

Twenty bits. That was our weekly salary. Not to much considering we only got a strictly fifteen by fifteen square centimetre sandwich with ham, cheese and salad. A pint of water was offered. That's all we got with one meal, and if we wanted extra, then we would have to buy it. The prices were outrageous, of course. And we probably needed it when getting stuff outside.

I went through all the things, you probably wouldn't have believed it was a military base if it weren't for the vehicles and weapons.

So after a very dull day, I collapsed on my bed in my bunker. It had a mattress that had EXTREMELY strong springs. It was as I was lying down on a sheet of fabric with metal behind it. Either way, the pillow was reasonably soft, at least. And apparently I was sleeping with another stallion. Two for every room. I would have been fine with it if he didn't snore so loud. And in darkness like this, I couldn't find my earplugs. But even if I found them, they wouldn't be much use. I never used earplugs much, even when there's a huge thunderstorm outside. And when i did use them, I never could insert them in properly, and in the end they were useless.

I could open the curtains to wake him up and give myself a chance to snooze but that was selfish. And I probably would end up in a fight. I turned my head the side facing the wall, and pulled my blanket upwards. But that didn't help. I t just made my breathing harder and it was much more stuffy. So in the end, I somehow fell asleep around two in the morning. But it wasn't long before I was woken up.

An earsplitting alarm went off. It woke me up and startled me of course. But I managed to get a grip. Unfortunately, the stallion wasn't so lucky. He woke up with a gasp of shock. But he rolled over to near the edge while he was sleeping. So he tumbled down with his blanket and a scream or two. Well maybe he was more lucky then I thought so.

He was sleeping with his armour on. So he was ready for the following announcement.

"All marines! To defensive positions! The enemy is charging!"

Damn. That meant I had to go to the armoury. Checking the time, it had only been half an hour. But that had got my adrenaline going. That along with the fact I'm normally hyperactive sucked up drowsiness altogether.

I dashed down the hallway on all fours. Just because I spent hours standing on my hind legs didn't mean I was totally used to it. Once my breath was pretty much drained. A sign which said "Armoury" got my attention.

I kicked the door open. And gave a grin to the weapons it revealed. Going to the "Armour" section, I slapped on my armour in about five minutes. I turned off the airtight feature. I wasn't going to be flat out in vacuum or under the surface of the sea. Or at least I hoped not.

I dashed out to the front guard system. I grabbed my LRR2 Designated Marksman Rifle. The charge was mostly of modified jeeps with two seats and a gunner with a weapon in the shotgun seat. And at the back was four seat in a roll cage. The driver and the gunner had doors, but not windows. Probably to shoot out of. And for me shoot in. I scoped in and blew a gunner with a rocket launcher right in the head. Then, I took out three passengers with swift headshots. Only one missed. I reloaded my weapon. Each clip had twelve bullets. And the most one could carry of a weapon was five spare clips, which is what I started with. So I still had plenty.

But that probably wasn't enough. There was infantry as well. So I manned the Nearest machine gun turret near me.

Much better.

First off, I could take out a jeep in twenty five shots. Five If I aimed at the driver. And the gun fired extremely quick. There was two rotating barrels side by side. There was some metal at the side to offer protection for the gunner. I had a sniper bullet miss my head and hit the protection.

There wasn't much to remember. It was mostly holding off infantry and blowing up jeeps. But they were making noticeable progress forward. And soon we were ordered back inside.

We were told to sit and watch. I didn't know why. Maybe they were gonna bomb them?

Well, it was answered soon.

A emotionless voice over the intercom said,"Minefield activated."

All of the hostiles were instantly blown up in a explosion that could have given somepony a seizure.

Then, the intercom said again, this time actually with emotion,"Now it's our turn to attack!"

Well, now, I was being brought over to a helicopter that didn't have anypony else to take.

But then, something very puzzling happened.

A huge bright flash went around the room. It even took half a minute for the smoke to clear.

And in it's place, was six mares.

'What the..." was my initial reaction. Where did these mares come from? And they suspiciously looked, as if the were the representatives of the Elements of Harmony. However, that was impossible for me to think of at the time.

The one with a lavender coat, and if I remember the tutor's struggling to teach me about history, was Twilight Sparkle. As they said, Princess Celestia had sent her to study about friendship. It didn't sound very chaotic back then, the average for a murder was only one kill every century. Now it was thousands everyday.

Yeah, she talked.

"What?! Where are we? What is that awkward thing with a rotor?" How far are we in the future?!"

Well, at that moment I assumed they were either insane, or got amnesia.

A marine which stayed behind to guard said,"I think we'll have to bring them back to the medical station for analysis of something wrong."

"No!" shouted the pony that was probably Twilight,"Just let me contact Princess Celestia?"

"No," the guard said bluntly.

"Please Please Please Please Please Please?"

"Okay, fine."

The rest of the mares didn't talk. But I could tell what they were like from their expressions. The orange one with a cowboy hat was reasonably paying attention to her surroundings, probably assuming she may be in hostile areas due to the marine's initial treatment. The butterscotch one with a flowing pink mane was clearly frightened out of her mind. The light sky blue one with a mane the shade of a rainbow was looking around, her messy mane going slightly shaking as she did so. Probably looking for a weak spot to knock out the marine once she had the chance and allow her friends an escape route. The pink one with a mane which resembled cotton candy was bouncing, oblivious to the situation. Finally, the white one with a very tidy purple mane was just looking around, probably disgusted by the lack of design on the walls. It was all on the faces.

I didn't really want to point a weapon at them, but I had to. I had an LRR2 aimed at the purple one's head. The marine had his pistol out.

Well, eventually, the rainbow one decided she was gonna bust them out. She kicked me in the side. And the fact she was in mid flight only made it hurt more. The orange one tried to stop her but didn't in time.

I attempted to make a grab for my LRR2 but I got my head forced down before I could get within a metre of it. She then bashed into the marine, who was trying to get a proper lock with his pistol.

"Come on!" she shouted."Lets get outta here!"

"Rainbow Dash, you're gonna get us all killed!" the orange southerner responded.

And that was the end of it. There was no more jokes. We brought them to the communication center. We went in front of one of the computers, and activated the webcam. We explained how it worked to Twilight. She's a quick learner, I can give her that.

It took four minutes for Celestia to even respond. But eventually she flashed on the screen. In a instant, her eyes widened, pupils shrank, and her jaw dropped.

"Twilight!" she shouted out."You're still alive?!"

"Sure am!"

"But, but... HOW?!"

"Somepony stupid enough to put a spell on us when we were all together. We were warped to whatever time that pony pleased.."

"Okay, where are you? I want to see you, now!"

She looked at me for a second, with wide open, pleading eyes. She was irresistable, even adorable. Eventually I said,"We're fifty miles from the west of Fillydelphia."

She resumed the conversation,"We're about fifty miles from the west of Fillydelphia."

"That's about a over two thousand kilometres from Canterlot!"

"I'm sure you have the strength to teleport here."

Apparently that was all Celestia needed to know. She galloped away, not even bothering to turn off her webcam. So I just clicked disconnect.

It was five minutes before she appeared thorough the door. Twilight charged forward to hug her so violently you would have thought she was assaulting her. Celestia joined the embrace, and giving her a noogie probably of affection.

So after all of that, we explained everything to Twilight. She was horrified. But actually decided she wanted to join. To contribute. As for Pinkie, her mane seemed to deflate entirely. Rainbow Dash's interest was piqued, Applejack probably was thinking about it. Rarity looked at Twilight with a disapproving glare. As for Fluttershy, she was just curled up more compact then I thought possible, shivering. It didn't take a genius to figure out if it was because she was cold or scared.

Well, now that I had finally got Twilight to practice, she didn't cooperate. First off, we had ultra realistic wax statues with real grenades on them. I told Twilight to aim for the head.

She took five seconds to load the bullet in. And twice as long to aim. Now that she did aim, she was hesitant to pull the trigger. I have to give her though, she's really good at magic. I couldn't see the sniper rifle shake even once.

"Come on, Twilight," I assured her with a raised voice,"They're fake."

She pulled the trigger.

The head of one of the statues got blown right off, leaving pieces of fake brain, eyes, bone, and lots of blood splatters. Twilight cringed as soon as she saw that. I told her they were to simulate what would really happen, but she still didn't want to carry on. It took ten minutes to coax her again.

She slid another bullet in. This time, I told her,"For a better effect, aim for the grenades. you know, those green circular things with a tiny cylinder above it?"

"Okay," she responded.

There was the loud crack of the shot, the rifle recoiling. Wow, she was a crack shot. She hit a grenade and blew up all of the wax squad. Nothing was left except for a pile of fake gore.

Twilight cringed at the remains.

"You want to contribute, you gotta be able to suck up gore. It isn't a good feeling to be blowing heads off. But it feels good to be fighting for what is right," I told her.

Well, It wouldn't be easy to deal with the others.

Next up the line was Applejack. She signed up for close quarters combat. So I had to give her some lectures.

"The shotgun is an very effective weapon at close quarters. It's just plain lethal around three metres. From longer distances, it isn't as effective, because it sprays bullets. But from that range you can harm multiple hostiles. The combat knife, is great for point blank encounters. I recommend aiming for the heart or neck. Don't try the head unless you're pretty damn strong."

Well, the first thing she did after that lecture was walk up to the statues, and kicked their heads clean off. The fake gore went wild. It wasn't as insane the damage a sniper bullet did, but it was pretty gruesome nevertheless. Applejack was obviously disgusted but tried to hide it. After that, she finally grabbed a shotgun. I had to show her how to use it. The recoil was a bit of a shocker for her at first but she adapted. She was shocked by the sheer force of these "new crazy gun or what you call its".

"Um..." she told me, as if she were spitting something out,"I'm not sure if I wanna contribute in this war, Joey."

"You want to sit by and watch innocent heads get blown off while you sit and watch?!"

That got her.

Apparently that was all I needed to do. More staff came to give them basic training. Night passed by as a drag. I couldn't sleep.

But a voice went over the COM again. And guess what?

Another mission for me. Next Chapter: Chapter Five: Test Mission Estimated time remaining: 38 Minutes