"AaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaah!"

*Zap* *Fwoosh* *BOOM*

"AaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaah!"

*ptew* *swoosh* *avada kedavra!*

Wired Circuit and Ray beam glanced at each other.

"At least he made a good entrance." Wired Circuit said, sighing heavily.

Eclipse burst through the wall, a police battering ram in his hooves. "Wazzup bitches?"

No less than a dozen members of the Dawn's Light stared back at him, at least half of which were unicorns who had already armed various spells of less than pleasant intent.

Feeling suddenly hot under his cloak, Eclipse felt the HUD glasses slide down his snout a few inches.

"Shit."

"That wall would have come out of our paychecks." Ray Beam complained, rolling her eyes.

"Naw. Just the budget."

Considering that a pair of earth ponies were currently detaining the two scientists with spears, they were oddly calm at the moment.

Eclipse ran by again, accompanied by an "AaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaah!" scream and closely followed by the horde of ponies he had wandered into.

This time, he managed to duck into a doorway leading down another wing of the facility. A swarm of magic blasts followed, ranging from fireballs and pure energy blasts to telekinetically thrown pieces of debris from Eclipse's 'entrance'.

The entire wall crumbled, leaving only the door still standing. Soon, that fell forward, revealing Eclipse sitting on his haunches. His ears were tucked back against his head and his expression was quizzical, as if wondering how he had been found. Three Dawn's Light approached, assured in their impending victory.

Eclipse panicked, loading several rubber bands and firing them all at the approaching Dawn's Light. Taking this and repeating the process several dozen times, he soon opened his eyes to see one pony tied up and incapacitated by the rubber bands and another with several whelps covering her body, including an eye that was swollen shut. The third was affixed to a wall, attached by staples. Since he had only fired rubber bands, Eclipse wondered for a brief moment where the staples had come from before shrugging it off.

Most of the other Dawn's Light had taken cover, none of them willing to face the sudden wall of rubbery (and staplely!) pain. Deciding to wait for his enemy to make the next move, Eclipse decided to wait, leaning against the wall and flipping a coin.

A unicorn had crawled out from his cover and charged up a massive fireball. Eclipse noticed too late, catching it only from the corner of his eye. With no time to run, he turned and flung the coin at the oncoming projectile.

The fire engulfed Eclipse in a cone, the tip of which was where the coin had impacted the fireball. The orange flames swirled around him and dissipated several seconds after, their fuel expended. Eclipse had hidden underneath his cloak, as if cloth would give him bonus fire resistance. Also, he had managed to come out of the endeavor completely unscathed, so he might have actually been onto something.

Cracking open first one eye then the other, Eclipse managed to find no major burns or injuries on his person. "Yes!" He cried out in surprised victory. "From now on, you'll call me Lord Of the Flame!"

"Hey, Lord Of the Flame!" Wired Circuit shouted. "Your tail's on fire."

"What?" He looked down at his tail, which did indeed have a small fire at the very tip of it. Screaming again, he ran around for several moments before tripping over a large piece of rubble. Taking the once-a-wall rock, he slammed it onto the tail fire, snuffing out the flame.

"Hah! Now I can really start to fight ba--" His announcement was cut short when he tried to stand and walk away, resulting in an incredible pain from his tail. Falling to the ground, Eclipse turned his head to find the source of the pain. He found that his tail was now trapped under the rock he had used to put out the fire. "Oh, come on!"

A unicorn leaned out of her hiding spot. "Did he really just do that?"

The pegasus beside her shrugged. "I thought the was the same pony we saw back in Appleloosa. Maybe not?"

Eclipse put his hoof around the unicorn. "Actually, I am."

The unicorn slowly tuned to where he had been just a few seconds ago. Turning back, she saw the debris which Eclipse had pretended to trap himself under just before it smashed into her skull.

Turning to the pegasus, Eclipse raised the bloodied stone. "Did you really fall for that?"

The pony sighed. "Just hit me, already!"

Shrugging, Eclipse obliged. Dusting himself off, he grinned. Five down with seven to go, including the douche who decided to sling a fireball at him. Time to get shit done.

Only a few moments later, a squadron of golden clad guards poured into the room, following the trail Eclipse had left since he entered the facility. Most of the attack was centered around the weapons labs, so this wing of the facility was much easier to get through.

They found Eclipse calmly pulling a rope which led up to the ceiling, though a loop and straight down to where an earth pony was unsuccessfully trying to untie himself mid-air. Wired Circuit and Ray Beam were both nearby, both of which were trying to piece together the scene they had just witnessed in such a way that they could describe it without coming across as raving mad. It was harder than it looked and from the expressions on their faces, it looked pretty darn hard.

"Okay, so it's centered on weapons..."

The guard nodded, confirming the statement.

"Well, we know what they're after." Eclipse turned to the two scientists. "Wired Circuit, I need you two to help these guys out." He said, gesturing to the guards. "Take them to whatever part of the facility they need to get to. If need be, help orchestrate the evacuation of this entire facility. Ray Beam, go and get even more guards here than there already are. If they ask why, Echo-Kilo-Five-Sol. Got that?"

"Y-yeah. Echo-Kilo-Five-Sol." Ray Beam turned and ran, making a beeline for the facility's main entrance. Wired Circuit merely saluted and made off with a detachment of the guards.

Eclipse eyed the four that remained. "Why didn't you lot go with the others?"

One guard stepped forward. "direct orders from Celestia. We were to follow your orders specifically, Sir."

Eclipse chuckled. "Just like her. I never even read the leadership manuals she gave me. Okay fine, but be prepared for a fight. These chucklefucks don't just lay down and wait for you to arrest them."

The guards nodded.

"To the weapons facilitory!"

"Facilitory, Sir?"

"Shut up and follow me, damn it!"

Eclipse and the quartet of guards were split along two sides of a T in the hallway. The Dawn's Light were attacking from the perpendicular hallway, having attacked just as the troop were in the middle of the T and at their most vulnerable.

Eclipse and a single earth pony were on one side, while the other guards had been stranded on the other side.

Eclipse leaned around the corner, firing a hoofful homing mini-missiles.

Two of the missiles were shot down and the rest exploded against a hasty, albeit effective, magical barrier. The Dawn's Light had practically choked their ranks with unicorns while Eclipse was leading two earth ponies and two pegasi.

Now see, this is what playing a hefty amount of real-time strategy games gets you when you find yourself in an emergency real-life strategy situation.

A unicorn's spell slammed into the corner Eclipse was taking cover behind, sending small chips and dust flying. Choking on the debris, Eclipse pointed back the way they had come from. "Pegasi! Their was another path a few minutes that way! With any luck you can follow it and get the drop on these guys! Flank em!"

Eclipse leaned out and slammed his hoof into the ground, erecting a wall of stone so the two pegasi could safely cross the no-man's land.

The Dawn's Light's continued assault soon made the barrier crumble, but the pegasi had made it across. The earth pony on the other side flung his spear when an opening presented itself. When Eclipse heard the yelp of pain, he spun out of his hiding area and hurled a small black orb at the Dawn's Light.

The orb unfurled itself over the head's of the Light, turning into a black storm cloud. The cloud fired a single thunderbolt at one of the ponies before dissipating. The electric shock killed the pony almost instantly, and burned into his side were the words 'ride the lightning'.

Eclipse's laughter earned his corner another volley from his enemies. After the fire had died down again, Eclipse leaned out, letting his shiny new HUD unit get a reading on his remaining enemies.

Most were unicorns, as expected, but the last third were earth ponies, resulting in a complete lack of air-power. That, plus they were starting to get some wear and tear of their own, even though the fight had only been going on for a few minutes.

Unfortunately, Eclipse was faring no better. His heart rate was through the roof, as was blood-pressure. Also, while he was able to contain a massive amount of magical power (chaos magic took up very little space) It would take him a week to restore what a unicorn could gain in a day, so he hadn't even fully recovered from Appleloosa before finding himself here. If he could accurately tell where his enemies' attacks were going, then he might be able to throw something back at them even with all the confusion.

Clicking his tongue, he turned to the guard next to him. "Can I have your spear?"

Needless to say, the guard gave it to him. Jumping out, Eclipse's eyes shifted from their customary red glow of power usage to an orange one, allowing him to dance around the oncoming wave of projectiles thanks to orange phantom projectiles only he could see, pick up a spear one of the Dawn's Light had thrown and toss the one given to him at a unicorn.

The spear hit the unicorn in the horn, chipping a small piece off and cracking the bone-like protrusion. Snarling in pain and anger, the unicorn prepared another spell, but the energy started to backlog, unable to fulfill the task it was originally assigned without a proper medium to travel through. Since the unicorn was casting, he was using his horn as a 'magic wand' but since it was damaged, the energy built up with nowhere to go.

Eclipse was glad he used his entire body as a magical medium by default, making him next to immune to that sort of thing unless he tried to weave a spell with a broken leg, the pain of which would stop him before it was too serious.

For the unicorn, however, the energy build up resulted in an explosive release, turning him into a living bomb. The end result was a bloody mess.

Taking the moment of distraction the pony-splosion provided, Eclipse threw the spear he had picked up, nailing an earth pony in the stomach. He ducked behind cover on the opposite side of the hallway intersection from where he began. Peeking out, he saw a unicorn remove the spear and use magic to seal the wound, presumably repairing what internal damage she could in the process.

Eclipse ducked back behind cover as another wave of magical blasts came at him. If one of them was a healer, this fight was going to take a while.

The two pegasi turned another corner. They had picked up several extra spears along the way, likely dropped when another set of guards and Dawn's Light clashed in the halls. Still, they'd be useful for the mission Eclipse had given them. Stopping at another intersection they hoped would get them to where they need to go, they were more than surprised to see two darkly armored earth ponies and a unicorn.

They were members of Luna's half of the guard.

Landing in front of the trio, the two day guards asked what the night guards were doing.

"Luna sent us." The unicorn explained. "She wanted to send immediate aid to one Eclipse, supposedly here in the research facility."

"We're under his command." A pegasus answered. "He ordered us to try and find a way to flank some opposition that has given us trouble."

The night guards glanced at each other. "Count us in."

Eclipse would have kissed Luna had she been there when he saw purple armored night guards wade right into the Dawn's Light, the two pegasi he sent providing air support with an array of spears.

With little cover and nowhere to run from the unexpected second attack, the Light was forced into covering two flanks at once, leaving them weakened and giving Eclipse's team all the opportunity they needed.

"All right!" He shouted. "Let's get in there! But if one of you two so much as whispers Leroy Jenkins, I'll make your worst nightmare seem like a wet dream!"

The two earth ponies rushed their side of the Dawn's Light, one clashing with an earth pony and the second closing on a unicorn before he could finish his spell.

Eclipse followed, gunning for the enemy healer.