(And an evil Julion could use his mind hack magic to force others to fight and die for him. Also, I think 100,000 is a biy large, as that suggests a population in the millions and enough land to feed it and the populace, which simply isn't possible in the current shape of Equestria. I would say 10,000 to 50,000 is more realistic while still be larger than most others) Snow looked around the room that was essentially her prison, it was about as comfortable as you would expect luxury to be to a bunch of soldiers in an evil forest in a post-apocalyptic land. Still, she could only complain in her head, the Cyro that had kept her alive so long had rendered her mute for the time being, something she expected, after all, 200 years of being frozen still makes everything a bit s5iff. She was lucky that her heart, lungs, and brain still knew how to work. She let out a long breath as she sat om the bed and had ti waut to see what these new "Commandos" wanted
( I'm going to go with 50,000 instead of a full 100 thousand, just redesigning some areas of territory in the Federation) When morning came, so did another day. The Mockingbirds got up and ready before getting straight into training that began with hoof-to-hoof before lowering in intensity with just several standard drills. The Mockingbirds were still not allowed into the armoury as of yet since they were not given authorisation to conduct missions, but that time will soon change Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk
Julion came into Snow's room after making sure she was awake, and they took seatd opposite of each other, with obvious hostility coming from Snow, "Look, Ms Mark, I'm sorry all this happened to you, but let me tell you something. I've devoted my Commandos to protecting Equestria, namely by recovering tech you created to make sure they stay out of the hooves of those who wish to only destroy. Ms Mark, we need you to let us into the Manehatten Arms Research and Development Facility. We kniw about Equestria Prime, and it is at risk. Red Eye, the leader of many of the slavers, is increasing his activity in Manehatten, it is only a matter of time before he finds out and finds a way to break in. Will you help?" Snow stared at him before going deep into thought, weighing her options
(Maybe to Manehattan itself or Julion asking the MOCKINGBIRDS to join the Commandos on their mission?)
(Aight) After some persistence, Julion got Snow to agree. He then gathered up the entirety of Alpha Squad, knowing the mess that was Manehatten, he didn't want to take any chances. He then found the MOCKINGBIRDS, "Hey." He said simply as he trotted in through the door, "Interested in joining us on an OP to Manehatten?
The Mockingbirds looked at one another for a moment before nodding. "After what we've found out about the city, we'll be happy to." ----------------------------------------- Just outside of Manehattan The combined force of the Mockingbirds and the Commandos arrived early in the morning on the next day. A small forward post was established just before entering the city. Manehattan was an absolute mess, with pockets of raiders and slavers inside of the city that could actually been seen from the camp. The Mockingbirds wore their armor proudly, but also decided not to use any Mark.Co weaponry. Not only did they not know how to use it, but believed that they wouldn't really need it.
(Julion didnt ask if they wanted to be in the Commandos, so they wouldn't have gotten Commando armor nor weapons. Hell, Commandos not in squads Alpha through Kappa Hotel (the top ten out of 25 squads) dont even get access to the Mark Co armory (they instead are given Commando developed and designed weapons that are similar but not near as good) Julion stopped the group of 56 right before they crossed one of the few intact bridges into Manehatten, "Remember, we aren't here to get involved in a pitched battle. We are here to ger in, secure what we need, and get out. I know each and every one of you is worth at lsast 10 of their best, with years of combat exprience behind you, but they have numbers, and we'ld get overrun if we try to engage beyond patrols. We are to stay on the defensive at all times. Also, if you see some Bloodbats hanging asleep, do the world a favor and torch the bastards before they wake up. Now, lets go."
(Never knew that, thank you. This will help in future posts) The Mockingbirds made their way across the city with the Commandos. All of them with the notable exception of Benedict carried standard weaponry that ranged from Marksman Carbines to Brush Guns. Benedict however, used an absolutely enormous minigun.
(Here's a list of all Commando squads, all but Omega Charlie have 50 squad members, while Omega Charlie is where new recruits and trainees sit for a spot to open up for their advancement into another squad: Commando Squads. Omega Charlie squad members also aren't even given Commando armor. Meanwhile, Alpha and Beta squads are the only ones with unlimited access to the armory, but of course Alpha squad members get priority) In decreasing order of overall skill 1- Alpha Squad 2- Beta Squad 3- Charlie Squad 4- Delta Squad 5- Epsilon Squad 6- Foxtrot Squad 7- Gamma Squad 8- Iota Squad 9- Hotel Squad 10- Kappa Hotel Squad 11- Lamda Squad 12- Mic Mu Squad 13- Nu Squad 14- Oscar Squad 15- Pie Squad 16- Row Squad 17- Sigma Delta Squad 18- Tango Squad 19- Upsilon Squad 20- Vector Beta Squad 21- Whiskey Squad 22- X-Ray Squad 23- Chi Squad 24- Zeta Squad 25- Omega Charlie Squad) The group made their way through the ruins of Manehatten, obviously being left alone due to the large size of their group, the only things getting in the way was the occasional Manticore, whom were easily dealt with with a large pouring in of firepower. Soon, they arrived in front of a squat building entirely made of concrete besides the steel doors, the only thing making it of any interest compared to the other buildings was the Mark Co seal above the door and that the only damage to it was superficial scorch marks and bullet marks. Snow stepped up to the door and a camera popped out, scanned her and the entire group, which she had the system input as guests with a movement of her hoof before stepping up to a spot next to the door, placing her hoof on it, and the steel doors slid open, surprisingly easily for doors that havent moved in 200 years. She showed them into a small lobby with a large elevator on the opposite side that could surprisingly fit all of them in one go, mainly due to the designers wanting the employees to have minimal wait times to get to work.
While it went overwhelmingly smooth, Snow Mark's arrival onto the scene had been a god-send for the Commandos to gain access into the facility. Once everypony was inside of the elevator, the tense atmosphere was suddenly broken by anti-climatic elevator music that almost seemed humorous. Upon watching the number of floors go down, the elevator slowed down until it came to a gentle stop. The doors soon slid open and soon, the Commandos came for what they were looking for
They came out onto a balcony that surrounded a large Atrium style room, the place was a sterile white with the only noises besides the group's breath was the quiet noise of the cameras and security bots going through their over 200 year old routine. Thanks to Snow, the security paid them no mind. Julion trotted up to the edge of the balcony and looked over to low wall that was to prevent accidental falls, the atrium went down about 100 feet, with ten stories of work balconies surrounding it. It was full of catwalks and other things that made getting around easier, while also going around a massive...robot pony that was made to look like a gigantic set of advanced power armor that was bristling with weapons. On its back, a large mini-nuke or large conventional bomb or cluster bomb launcher, on its sides were at least 4 large minigun turrets that looked like they fired 10mm or even 20mm bullets compared to the normal 5mm rounds. No doubt there was a whole lot of other weapons on board. While the Commandos were distracted with gazing down in awe at the machine, Snow slipped off to a computer and began typing furiously at it before the entire room darkened and a large hologram of a Snow who looked a lot older than the Snow with them appeared in front of them, and began speaking in obviously was a presentation style tone, meant for pitching the Equestria Prime to whomever came to inspect it. "Hi, welcome honored guests to the Mark Corporations and Industries Advanced Arms Research and Development wing. Here, we take pride in developing the next generation weapons meant to shorten the war by years, even decades, and hopefully one day win this horrid war. We are glad you could make it today, so I will start off with the thing almost the entire department has been working on ever since the victory at the Striped Fort. With our brave soldiers just kilometers away from the Zebra Capitol, we face the possibility of the Zebra firing their balefire and various other megaspell missilies at us in a "death before surrender" style that we have come to know them to have, so here at Mark Co, we want to make sure that doesnt happen. So, here it is, the Equestria Prime, our greatest weapon ever short of a megaspell." Snow was then replaced by a holographic representation of the Equestria Prime, with its various weapons becoming highlighted as the presentation went over them. "The Equestria Prime was developed with the purpose in mind of cracking the defenses of Roam so our brave stallions and mares can take the city as quickly as possible and apprehend Caesar and his Legate before they have a chance to send a megaspell launch confirmation out. This amazing animatron has several state-of-the-art weapons on board, such as most obviously, its mini-megaspell launcher, which can launch any bomb weighing up to a THOUSAND pounds over a MILE with pinpoint accuracy due to Prime's bleeding edge trajectory calculator. It also has on board 6, that's right, 6 20mm miniguns on board, 4 of whom are anti-personnel with the remaining 2 are anti-armor. Other weapons on board include the High-Intensity Pulse Energy Beam Emitter, which will fire 50,000 megapulse lasers out of its eyes to any Zebra scum who think they stand a chance against it! Barbecue anyone? Other things included are an on-board auto-repair system which can repair everything short of catastrophic failure and a flamethrower which can spit napalm and flames out of its mouth over 500 feet! The Zebra scum best hope they dont have any wood in their defense! Now, this is just a summary of Equestria Prime, it can due a lot more, such as gallop at an amazing 50 kilometers per hour! We would like to thank you for your time, and please, enjoy the rest of your tour honored guests!"
While the rest of the Mockingbirds looked at the machine ahead of them in awe, much like the rest of the Commandos. However, upon hearing about some of the details, Damien became troubled about hearing one important word. 'Caesar' Damien couldn't believe it. His expression turned from wonder and awe to absolute horror. He wished that he didn't hear those words, almost as if it was a trigger phrase for a mental problem he never had. He backed up from the rest of the group and collapsed onto his knees.
While the rest seemed too engrossed by the machine, Snow noticed Damien essentially collapse. Sighing slightly, she trotted over to him and placed a gentle hoof on his shoulder, looking at him with a face that was well beyond its appearence in years and in a reassuring way that only the most caring of mothers could have. Sh closed her eyes and seemed to try to speak for a few minutes before getting frustrated and finally getting out a quiet, raspy, "I-it'll be okay." Before trotting away, going further down into the facility, fiddling with machines and computers here and there
Damien looked back at Snow, his eyes wide with pure shock before regaining composure and got back up. Not long later, he looked back at Equestria Prime with the Commandos as computers came back up. Unfortunately for him, his mind would be clouded by judgement and guilt. And unfortunately, this would almost kill him within the next few hours by Red Eye.
Snow went about the deployment cycle of Prime, knowing the machine still needed work to be completely done, but it would fulfil what the Commandos wanted. She came to the last computer at the foot of Prime and began typing in several lines of code. After which seemingly the entire floor that Prime stood on began lifting up, slowly taking the robot up the facility as a hole opened up at the top, revealing a tunnel to the above world, she then trotted back up and lead everypony back out of the facility to a small park where Prime now stood. Without a word, the white mare climbed up a small ladder on Prime and started, from the looks of those down below, began fiddling with something at the base of the back of Prime's neck. What she was doing was setting up the combat inhibitor and final coding tweaks to the machine before climbing back down. She nodded to Julion, showing he commanded the bot now, before slinking to the back of the group, where the MOCKINGBIRDS where, now looking for a way to slip away.
Equestria Prime is online. All systems nominal. Weapons hot. Mission: the destruction of any and all Zebra Legionaries Prime boomed with a voice that could be heard for miles. The Commandos celebrated the emergence of life that Prime signified. While everypony cheered, Damien still felt sick in the stomach from what he had discovered. Eventually, Jack looked at Damien. "Hey, you alright Damien?" Jack replied with concern. Damien looked back at his friend and gave him a weak smile. "I'll be fine, no need to worry about me." After a brief moment passed, Red Eye's forces started to pour from the East. "Here they come!" the Commando yelled as seemingly all of the forces tried to find defensive areas.
Equestria Peime quickly deduced in mathematical fashion that Red Eye's forces were the enemy, and so it opened up, its miniguns popping out fully before spewing lead at the slavers, mixed in with occasional large bursts of energy from its eyes that sent huge energy bolts to fry whatever poor soul was in the way at the time, however, Equestria Prime wasn't exactly manuverable, giving the slavers time to dart in to try to find cover Equestria Prine couldn't shoot through, while trying to avoid the Commandos. In the confusion, Snow simply slipped away, knowing the fight wouldn't last long as Red Eye wouldn't send more than 100 or 200 men on an exploratory venture
The fight lasted less than thirty seconds, with Prime and the Commandos making short work of any form of Slaver they had come across. The Mockingbirds, being deadly as always, assisted the Commandos and took down the Equestrian slavers with ease. While it wasn’t exactly a problem as of yet, Red Eye’s forces outnumbered the Commando/Mockingbird force almost 30 to 1.Yet, a single member of Alpha Squad was the equivalent of 10 elite slavers. The Mockingbirds as a whole, maybe the equivalent of an entire platoon or maybe slightly more. Yet, statistics weren’t a problem. The force they had encountered was a scout force, the real deal would have learnt about what they were dealing with and pretty soon, the entire city was going to come down onto the Commandos like a sledgehammer. Ashley gave it roughly ten minutes until a serious force arrived, and about half an hour before the whole force decided to roughen up the Commandos. Meanwhile, the Steel Rangers had learnt about what had occurred and not willing to give the Commandos a serious bargaining chip on the table, was soon going to come onto the Commandos with force. They didn’t care if they had to fight Slavers or not, failure was not an option. ------------------------------------------------------ Damien seemed depressed, but refused to let it cloud his judgement or thoughts. The Commandos had an entire city to make their leave from, and didn’t have much time to do so. The Mockingbirds decided to scout ahead of the rest of the main Commando force, sticking to the rooftops of the city with the assistance of Ashley and Jack being pegasi that carried Roger and Damien and reporting back when any form of Red Eyes scouts were spotted. He soon found himself standing on the roof amongst a research facility for the Ministry of Arcane Sciences on the otherside of the city. While he reported the exact locations of Red Eyes forces as an early warning, he hopped down to the top floor of the building for added protection if snipers were about where he found himself in the room of what used to be the home of an extremely wealthy individual. While he did find himself inside of the room, he literally felt his life-force being drowned from something in the next room. It felt like an ominous hum was sounded in the next room, something that felt entirely unnatural. Upon making his way inside of the room, he found that the entire room and windows were blacked out and that on a podium, sat a glowing rainbow coloured crystal. “What the hell?” Damien replied. This crystal felt unworldly, yet clearly had origins in Equestria. Whatever he found had been tampered was taint that had taken on a crystalline form that had been experimented on by the former owner, and from what he could gather, it was given to him by a untrustworthy source in Maripony who smuggled the experimental liquid to him. For what purpose, nopony would ever know, but Damien assumed that it was going to be sold to the Zebra or the black market. While he looked at the crystal, he found three skeletons of who he assumed were the former owner and two other acquaintances, and the heavily decayed body of a slaver scout. By now, his soul felt like it was being torn apart and being in the room itself was a generally unpleasant feeling. But just before taking his leave, An entire team of Steel Rangers stormed through into the room, rifles pointed at him. “Don’t you damn move an inch. Reach for your weapon and we will fire!” The Steel Ranger said as he looked down Damien before feeling a sudden sharp pain from the crystal, as if the spirits of the Rangers felt weaker. “What the hell is this thing?” “Nobody shoot, I have the feeling that the entire front floor has a gas leak. If you shoot, you’ll kill everybody here.” Damien replied, gesturing a sign of surrender that only seemed to provoke the Rangers more. “Nice trick, but it won’t work on us. You’ve been sighted with Commandos, and because of your affiliation with an enemy force, you had been marked for death by our Elder.” The leader of the Steel Rangers replied. “You damn Brothe-.....Rangers are all the same” Damien replied in annoyance. Just before the Rangers were going to shoot, the crystal suddenly shot a surge of rainbow lightning through everypony in the entire room, all of which that seemed to kill almost everybody in the entire room instantly except Damien. For some reason, he was still alive. Unfortunately, he had lost total control of his body as he collapsed towards the floor. His entire body went numb, yet his mind was still very much alive. His soul however, was a different story. He felt the whole world go into slow motion as he fell towards the ground, watching as the rifle of a dead Brotherhood member fall towards the ground. With the safety off. “Oh sh-“Damien thought before he watched the rifle fire a bullet from its chamber, watching the sparks fly into the air. The room suddenly flashed into a brilliant light before following up with an unbelievable amount of heat. And the sound, oh god the sound! The explosion threw Damien’s body straight through the walls of the building, plummeting towards the highly radioactive river that cut through the city. Yet, everything to Damien still occurred in slow motion. While he understood that everything was happening in real-time, it was a hell of a long fall towards the radioactive river. His eyes watched skywards as the entire building collapsed onto itself, debris were flying everywhere in all directions. He felt music play from a falling radio, turned on and playing a pre-war song. “Take me....take me to heaven.” He looked back upwards as the sensation of death came over him. His organs felt like he was being burnt alive, while the rest of his muscles felt numb. There was nothing he could do as he fell downwards towards the river, he was going to die. He looked back as his entire life flashed before his eyes, and all regrets the former human ever had appeared before him. He hit the green sludge of water hard as he sunk into the river. The explosion had alerted the commandos, who were about a kilometer away on the otherside of the river with Prime. The Mockingbirds watched a charcoal colored unicorn fall from the building and towards his death, his armor in taters and suffering burns and cuts across his body. It wasn’t until he fell about half way that they realized who it was.
