“Aurora, last minute check. Are all weapons and ammo accounted for?” I looked around the all but barren armory for any other gear I could possibly need.

Aurora flickered between Harmony and I for a few seconds before nodding. “All weapons are accounted for and you should have enough ammunition to wipe out a small army… Several small armies. I still think bringing in an assault carbine would be better than that sniper rifle, most of the enemies aren’t gonna have full suits of power armor.”

I knew where the gun was. “I’m already carrying a lot of weapons on me, run the calculations again, you know my physical limits. Tell me, would another weapon and several hundred rounds slow me down?”

Aurora shook her head. “No need to be so snippity with me. You could have just easily asked without having to be so snarky.” A few seconds passed before she spoke again. “You won’t have enough gear on you to slow you down any meaningful amount. Just watch your ass out there and don’t make me work so hard this next fight.”

“Yeah, yeah I know. Avoid gunfire and only engage when I have to. You’ve given this lecture so many times I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.” I sighed and grabbed one of the nicer assault carbines and 20 mags of ammo. “Now then, let’s make sure everyone else is ready. We’re walking into war and I’m not so sure you and I can take it on alone.”

Onyx and Demo trotted in wearing full suits of reinforced metal armor. “Well, I know we’re not supposed to be on the front lines, but isn’t this just a little too much armor plating for us to be wearing? I get the armor piercing rounds and long range rifles, but this much armor seems excessive.” Even just standing still they made enough noise to be heard from a mile away.

“There not bulletproof, but they’ll definitely keep you protected from a lot of the smaller caliber weapons and at least make it so you don’t get shredded to pieces if anything bigger than that starts firing at you. But do be careful, even with everything we’ve collected so far it’s not gonna be enough to sustain us if we take too much fire.” I dug around my saddlebags for a second.

Onyx nodded. “Trust me I know, you’ve been talking about this for a while now. Making sure everything is ready, you’ve even got Aurora working almost all the time to calculate our chances.”

“98.7% chance of winning. Room for uncertainty is low, as it should be when fighting a war. Midnight are you gonna throw over the… Oh I see, not the weapon I was thinking of but that will increase our chances.”

I pulled out a 40mm grenade rifle that I’d been storing for some time. “Demo, catch.” He caught it with ease. “There’s a pretty large box of grenades in the right hand corner of the room. I suggest loading up, we might need some grenade bombardment.”

Demo opened the rifle’s action and dropped the mag. “It’s a fine weapon. Have you tested it out?”

I shook my head. “I test fired it to make sure that nothing was broken about it. Beyond that I haven’t touched the thing beyond cleaning it before setting it on the shelves. I think there’s some special grenades in here, raiders carry odd ammo seeing as this is one of the rarer weapons I’ve seen.” I levitated the box out and set it gently down.

Demo pulled the lid off and smiled as he looked inside. “High explosive, plasma, shit I think there might be some cluster grenades here. Who did you kill to get your hooves on these! I’ve only heard about these through ponies who’ve lived out here for 80 years. Are you sure you didn’t merc some raider boss and steal his stash before we met?”

I chuckled. “Not that I know of, if any of the raiders I’ve killed have been the bosses of big groups. Then they weren’t very good at their jobs. Now don’t just stand there, load up.”

Demo stuffed all but a few lone grenades into his saddlebags with glee. “I’ll make sure they get used to their fullest extent. I might use some of these to clear the way for our soldiers. Might be able to knock down a stable door with enough of these. Just think of the possibilities.”

“Well we shouldn’t keep the princesses waiting. They’ve already sent a unit of soldiers ahead, they’ll be there soon and ready for the assault.” Harmony trotted down the stairs, her armor thudding lightly all the way. “Now put away what you can’t carry and let’s move.”

“She’s been on edge for a while. Does she know something about this mission that we don’t?” Demo slid the box back into the room with a concerned look on his face.

“Aurora’s been running the numbers for her, she’s been obsessed with our odds ever since the princesses told us we’d be doing this. Aurora said we’ve got almost a 100% chance to win off of our firepower alone, but not without casualties.” I sighed. “It’s been the casualties part that’s been worrying her. My armor isn’t quite the suit that hers is and that makes her worry about my safety, I’ve already had one close call wearing this armor and she doesn’t want me to get hurt any further.”

Demo nodded solemnly. “One time is all it takes for the love of your life to be scared about fighting. Seen too many ponies die to early because of stupid reasons, but you’ve got Aurora to guide you, and plenty of firepower to cover your asses.”

Onyx bumped his rear hips against Demo producing a loud metallic clang. “Do everything you can and we’ll take care of the rest.”

“Let’s get a move on, our forces are on the move, and we’ve got a long way to go before we go head to head with Crimson Skull’s forces. And we won’t get a better time to strike.”

Author's Notes:

I'm sorry this is a short chapter, but too anyone who stuck it out this long, know that I finally have time to work on this story again and am fully committed to finishing up this story before I go back to school. Upload schedule might be weird, but I will get it finished so both you and I can have closure with these characters.

Thank you for waiting so long and sticking around.