The Milk Run (soldiers)

Together Bakewell and Blitz punch the living shit out of the trooper dumb enough to threaten the mare. The surges from Bake's electric hooves set the the buck on fire inside of his armor making him scream in agony before another punch made his heart stop. Atriark's shot likely only felt like mosquito bite to the pegasus who rushed Bone, or he acted like it at the very least. Cap's knife only sent sparks and scuffed the paint as is crapped against the other pegasus's armor, not even distracting them from wrestling with Brass for his gun. Rodeo's shots did at least serve as a better distraction, sending out a loud echo as they bounced off the power armor.

Tired of the 'help' his was getting, Brass bucked the damn trooper off of him. Before he could recover the Trooper got a slug in each of his wings. With the trooper grounded Brass aimed his hunting shotgun squarely at their gut and squeezed. The pegasus was still alive, but judging off the pool of blood they now lay in, it wasn't much fun being them.

Outside a similar scene of devastation played out as the pegasi going after each of the strafers met their targets. Bone was unlucky enough to go against the trooper he'd pissed off by breaking his sledge against them. The trooper sent a clear message with three shots to the gryphon's chest. They were out cold before they hit the ground.

Flash got the honor of taking on two troopers at once, both of whom had perfect aim. As the plasma burned against his hide the pegasi fell out of the sky, the world ebbing away as the ground came closer. Sky was the last to meet her attacker. The sergeant leading the enclave squad was a dead eye, and drilled her three times in the head. She fell to earth, but hung on, clinging to life with the skin of her teeth.

Enclave Status:
Trooper 2: 27 HP
Trooper 3: 241 HP
Trooper 4: 244 HP
Trooper 5: 250 HP
Trooper 6: 250 HP

Bone: -15 HP

Flash: -10 HP

Sky: 1 HP

As Dash turned around, he discovered that the Enclave Trooper he thought he had been fated to fight was no longer there. Dash knew this was his chance to really do some damage, perhaps even save lives, tucking his wings snugly against his sides, he crept behind some cover, maintaining his grip on his Hunting Rifle. He heard the sounds of plasma guns going off and his friends yelling out. Dash gritted his teeth, his failure at saving Lightning weighing heavily on him, but he needed to make these shots. He then rose his head and rifle over the top of his cover, carefully lining up his shot with one of Enclave Troopers over a badly burnt, crippled Lightning Flash. He then squeezed the trigger with his tongue, the rifle bucking gratifyingly, sending a deadly round out at the enemy soldier.

(Sneak 70, going into cover) (Guns 90, Sneak 70, Trigger Discipline, firing his Hunting Rifle at one of the Enclave Troopers that had just attacked Lightning.)

"Well, so much for playing the hero." ale thought as he witnessed the enclave soldier get punched to death by two earth ponies. He didn't mind to much and immediately ran over to the nearest window with his rifle to try and pick off any other enclave. Just as he reached the opening he saw the "Flyboys" getting torn apart by their metal pursuers and saw bone head and lightning flash fall to the ground, their feathers charred and smoking. The former diden't phase ale, in fact he was a little happy to see the griffion fall, the latter however made his heart skip a beat.

Judging from the amount of damage the pegasi took ale doubted he was still alive and knew there was nothing he could do to help. Just then sky fell out of the...well, sky and hit the ground with a thump. Looking trough his binoculars he could see she was still conscious, though barley. "Maybe I could at least save her." ginger ale muttered under his breath as he lined up the shot on the enclave sergeant that dropped her. "YOUR NOT GETTING ANYPONY ELSE TODAY! he yelled as he pulled the trigger.

(Guns 58, trigger discipline, fire hunting rifle at enclave sergeant that got sky x2) -32 AP

Sky could only feel her entire body in pain as she just a few seconds ago she was shot down and on the ground, only able to look up and feel the world of pain around her. Small tears formed in her eyes as she looked up to the fighting above her, she could see the black around the edges of her eyes and the blood rushing around her entire body, her heart pumped like a crazy as she felt her head hurts like it had been put through a rock smasher and Sky could cough up some blood. Only to grab her sniper rifle and just let it fall to her side, Sky could do something like shoot back but her head and body were soo messed up she just watched the fighting from the ground, she had hoped that no enclave pony comes around and shots her while she is down. So Sky waits for the end of the battle or until she regains some bit of sense to fire back, for now the rest of the team are alone with out air support.

Lightning yelled out in pain as more plasma struck his body, all the strength left in the pegasus just draining out of him. It felt as his body was literally melting away (and it probably was). His vision began to fade to black and he just didn't have the energy nor the willpower to keep on flapping his wings. He just...stopped. Now, without his wings to keep him up, he began to drop, rather faster than he expected. His vision blurred and the world began a mess of sky, earth, and everything else in between.

Everything felt so surreal. It felt as time was suddenly stretched infinitely. Lightning had already lost track of how long he felt as he was falling but he knew that he was still tumbling and the earth was still slowly approaching. Before long, the thought came to his head, 'I'm going to die...' His mind wandered off to his friends...to Spectrum who he may not actually get to build a life with now...to his family that he was now leaving behind. Was this how he was going to go out? By getting shot out of the sky by the Enclave? Lightning didn't far in that thought as...the world suddenly went dark as he slammed into the ground...

Bone head heard the bullets hit the pegasus perusing him and flipped in the air to turn and attack the enclave. He was disappointed to see that the gunfire did absolutely nothing to the tin can and now he was attacking a fully prepared trooper rather than a distracted one like he hoped. "Bloody useless ponies, can't rely on them for anything." He said as he approached the winged tank.

The enclave fired off three shots, bone head could feel the heat from it as it burned trough his armor. The second hit in the same spot and this time burned the bird. The griffion winced a as he felt his flesh start to boil and then let out a yell as he continued his charge. "I will not die to the likes of..." Then the third plasma bolt hit and bone head lost control of his wings, looking down he saw that the plasma had burned through his chest and he could see bone were the red and green mixed. "No, I refuse to go down like this." he said as his vision went dark and his momentum carried him past the enclave solider and into the dirt below.

Cursed as he heard his bullet ping off the metal carapice of the Enclave Trooper. He was hoping his hard hitting Hunting Rifle would be enought without armor piercing rounds. No such luck. Quickly, the zebra unloaded his hunting rifle and fished out his only clip of Armor Piercing rounds. Making sure all five rounds were in the stripper clip, Atriark loaded them in and closed the bolt. He had always known buying the bullets were a good idea. But he always thought he would use them against a Rad Scorpion or a Robot, not an Enclave pegasus.

Taking a deep breath, the Stable 113 zebra survayed the area from his perch. It didn't look good for his winged friends. As all three were down, and none looked as if they could make it out under their own power. So, Atriark took aim at one of the Enclave and fired. He quickly cycled the bolt and fired again.

(Firing 2x at The Enclave Pegasus near Sky. AP rounds. Guns 55)

Blast watched the Enclave trooper get plastered with shots from Brass and fall to the ground in a spray of blood, some of it splashing on Blast's face. He knew this troopers time was up "Whats you name trooper?" Blast said moving beside the trooper and reaching for the troopers ID Tags He motioned for Night-Shade to kill the trooper to end the suffering that Blast knew the trooper felt. There is no sense in making somebody suffer this much on the edge of death's blade.

Bakewell stood above the deceased Enclave, panting and staring down at the corpse. A small part of her mind noted that the armor really prevented the trooper from looking much worse dead than he had alive.

Unfortunately while that one part was prattling about in its merry little way, every single other part of her was focused on the screams her hooves had caused the buck’s painful wails would cause her to have nightmares for weeks, if not longer. He was an enemy. He had attacked her first. Killing him was purely defensive and if she hadn’t stepped up when she did the ponies in her unit would have suffered and died. She had done the right thing. The best possible thing she could do in the situation.

But for the life of her Bakewell wished that the trooper had been a mute.

The mare backed away from the corpse, giving Blitz a short nod of appreciation for his help before examining the rest of the cover with a blank gaze as bits and pieces of her seemed to shut off in self-defense. She watched as a few ponies fired, but didn’t have the heart to check out and see what at or why. The answers seemed kinda obvious anyway.

The second Enclave officer was still kicking, but probably not for long. She watched an unfamiliar pony in the group do… something and make a motion to some other pony she didn’t really know. Were they keeping prisoners? She hoped not. There wasn’t much for her to do, so she sat out of the way and watched until her help was required.

Shade ran up to Blast and the downed soldier. He heard Blast's orders loud and clear. Shade shoved the barrel of his lever-action shotgun into the visor area and let of a round, surely it destroyed the Enclave soldiers head. He then pulled it out and turned to look for his next enemy.

Blitz chuckled softly as he and Bakewell beat the enclave officer to the ground, but something hit him that he hadn't really thought about, these were ponies that had families, not like raiders who killed and raped all they could see, or slavers who captured ponies and sold them on... These ponies were... well... more like himself and other ponies, just trying to stay alive.

He glanced over to Bakewell, who had a very vacant look on her face as she stood there. Was she trying to reason as to why they just killed the pony?

Nevertheless, Blitz looked at the corpse once more before stepping over it and ducking down whilst grasping the helmet with his magic, just prising it off and looking the dead pony right in the eyes. Blitz then gently closed the pony's eye-lids with a hoof and removed the pony's ID tags, looking at the name before fitting the chain around his own head as he used his magic to set the body in a position far more comfortable than how it died.

Then he looked back to Bakewell and nudged her. "This pony, he's the first REAL pony I've had a hoof in killing. And I'm going to remember him until I'm old and gray. So stop feeling bad for his death, that's my job now. If it's so bad for you, I will take it upon myself to remember every pony you kill, as well as my own. YOU wont need to think about them for even a second. Now, let's help the fly-boys, we can't be letting our friends die, can we?" Blitz finished, quickly calling out to the others.

"Everypony! Let's get a move on and save our fly-boys!" He barked at the others, regardless of if they listened to him or not, he started to climb out of the window and start trotting towards the rest of the Enclave. "Bakewell, on me so we can double-up on one! Everypony else, pick your targets and take 'em down! They have heavy armour, but we have numbers!"

Brass watched with an annoyed look on his face while Shade and Blast went to 'finish' the trooper. Shade's shot somehow found a way to miss, annoying the sergeant even further. He chimed in to the pair's moment by tering a hole the size of a grapefruit in the trooper's chest with his shotgun. As if Luna decided today was the day to test Brass' committment to the virtue of mercy, Blitz forgot his place and started barking out orders.

"Oi, dipshit." He roared. "They can fly, you can't. Stay in the fucking building so they have to ground themselves and you have a chance in Hell with those hooves of yours. Everypony else stack up on alternating balconies." Brass switched to his brush gun and took a position at the nearest balcony. "Call out targets to coordinate fire." He turned to Bakewell for his final order. "When we clip their wings, you go out there and finish the job."

--------------

Outside the tide began turning in the favor of the soldiers. Atriark's shots rang out and found home with no difficulty. The first pinged off the black carapace as all had before, the second lodged itself in the underside of the trooper's wing. He stumbled a bit, looking down at his now bleeding side, then the apartment building the fire had come from. Calmly, the trooper flicked his plasma sting armed tail at Sky, finishing her, before taking off for the soldiers' position.

Meanwhile Dash had set up out of the site of the troopers and had began his own snipe hunt. The pegasi's caution paid off in a big way, his aim holding so true that the round tore clean through the trooper's throat.

-------------

Back inside Brass saw the Enclave finish Sky and begin their charge on the apartments. With a sigh he aimed his brush gun carefully, and let out two shots with it. Next to him Ale did the same with his hunting rifle, coordinating fire. All four shots hit the rushing trooper, the armor stopping some but not nearly enough. He jerked violently, then fell out of the sky with a trail a blood falling behind him.

Enclave Status:
Trooper 1: KIA
Trooper 2: KIA
Trooper 3: 241 HP
Trooper 4: KIA
Trooper 5: KIA
Trooper 6: 250 HP

Bone: KIA

Flash: KIA

Sky: KIA

Bakewell adjusted her gaze to ensure she wasn’t looking at the Enclave trooper as Blitz found a way to remove its almost visually insect-like helm. She couldn’t see the pony’s face. Seeing the murdered equine beneath the armor would completely shatter any remaining tidbits of self-illusion that allowed the earth pony to pretend that these weren’t just normal pegasi ponies with the misfortune of being born in the wrong place. Bakewell couldn’t risk kicking onto that train of thought. She could lay awake at nights, maybe even curl up into a little ball of self-hate in a corner until she got over the blood her hooves were currently responsible for later. She would deal with her own issues after her ponies were all back safe and sound and would try to avoid breaking apart even a moment earlier.

The beige mare’s attention automatically shifted to Blitz’s face as he nudged her, giving her a pep talk. She smiled a little and shook her head in a silent “no”. There were a thousand better ways she could have replied. She could have joked that the white unicorn was already kinda grey-ish, could have insisted that it was her responsibility, or said that emotions just didn’t work that way. Perhaps most importantly she could have told Blitz that he was one innocent pegasus too late to start remembering. But she didn’t. For once Bakewell didn’t feel much like talking, instead quietly listening to the orders around her.

Bakewell remained inside, ready to dash out of the building and deal with the flyers as soon as command was spoken.

Dash watched through the scope of his rifle as blood exploded from the back of the Enclave Trooper's neck. Dash knew by now that the few things his father had said about the Enclave were true, regardless, he felt good that his skills had gotten the better in this situation. He didn't let himself celebrate for long at all, however. Almost before he knew it himself, he began prowling like a lion toward where he thought looked like a good place to get another shot together, keeping his wings fixed against his sides. This was what he had been hoping that he'd be able to do. Truly help out the other ponies of the wastelands, all of them, not just the Apostolov, because the Enclave displayed a very clear and present threat to the others who just wanted to live and attempt to rebuild that sense of happiness and harmony. It gave Dash focus and drive.

(Sneak 70, Shifting to a new position)(Guns 90, Sneak 70, Hunting Rifle, Trigger Discipline, firing at Trooper 6, aiming for a wing if its visible)

Blitz looked back at Brass as he made correct orders that the others would listen to. "Well, my apologies for trying to do something while you exchanged love-taps with that trooper." He sarcastically replied before deciding to stay inside the building, he'd intentionally been sarcastic just to see if it pissed Brass off, he couldn't do much about it though, as he wasn't an enlisted soldier, just a hired merc.

Now was the brief wait for the enclave to come on into the dangerous range of Blitz' and Bakewell's hooves. Though, waiting for the troopers to attack, Blitz put thought into how the others didn't seem to care at all about the ponies they'd just killed.. How shitty would those ponies feel knowing that they were killed without a bit of respect being held afterwards?

"DANM IT!" ale yelled as the trooper that put an end to sky fell to the ground. He wasen't fast enough, that was another pony that died because ale was too slow or too weak to help. "Celestia danm you all!" he cursed at the enclave soilders that were charging at the apartment building. Now that he was fueled with rage the white unicorn was ready to kill these metal basterds once and for all, Painfully if at all possible. He layed his hunting rifle on the windowsill he was set up at and took carefal aim at one of the flying pegusus, the one that was visably wounded and yelled, "Get the weak one first!" Before pulling the trigger.

(Guns 58, trigger discipline, fire hunting rifle at enclave trooper 3 x2) -32 AP

There comes a time in every stallion's life when his manliness is tested, that time was now for Dash. The test: a nail. The result: him screaming like a little filly with pretty pink ribbons in her mane. Naturally this display of femininity alerted the two remaining troopers, who promptly charged them. Dash fumbled with his rifle, trying to fight off his attackers, instead he dropped it, leaving him a defenseless damsel in distress.

Luckily for him, Murphy got distracted by some science pony making sporks, and didn't notice as his rifle fell on its buttstock and went off...into a trooper's throat. The sound of all this alerted the soldiers in the apartment complex, who came to Dash's aid. Ale and Brass both opened up at the trooper's, knocking them out of the sky.



Enclave Status:
Trooper 1: KIA
Trooper 2: KIA
Trooper 3: 8 HP
Trooper 4: KIA
Trooper 5: KIA
Trooper 6: 172 HP

Bone: KIA

Flash: KIA

Sky: KIA

Blitz took off quickly as soon as firing continued again, but he saw the all but dead enclave pony on the ground, bleeding out and frowned deeply, changing route and trotting towards the pony. "I'll put you out of your misery." He said as he twisted off the helmet of the pegasus with a serious expression. "Sorry about this, buddy. This is just how war is, isn't it?" He said after before smashing him in the back of the neck, crushing the pony's spinal cord and finishing him off.

Then, floating the tags around his neck like the one before and fitting the helmet back into place as comfortably as possible before he was on his way to go help take on the last enclave pony left.

Atriark gritted his teeth when he saw his bullets do little to the soldier. He had no clue why his Armor Piercing rounds had done next to nothing. When he saw the Enclave pegasus fire again at Sky, he froze. The zebra just looked at where Sky had landed, a tear falling from his eye. Atriark had tried, and he had failed to save Sky.

The sound of gunfire broke him from his trance and he cycled his bolt, chambering a new bullet. The next feeling that rose up in the buck was anger. What kind of moronic commander sends air support against armored targets without proper munitions? Atriark didn't know much about battlefield tactics, but he knew that what Brass did was not at all acceptable. But that was for later. Now, it was time to kill some Enclave bastards.

(Firing one (1) Armor Piercing .308 round at Trooper 6. Guns 55.)

The Enclave troopers were grounded, and Bakewell quickly started fulfilling her orders by dashing towards them. She was originally moving to attack the weaker Trooper, but saw that Blitz had run out with the same intention, so she swapped targets to the healthier one. Rushing him without a word and assaulting him with a barrage of attacks.

(Attack Enclave Trooper 6 with Electric Hooves x4. -32 AP. 82 Unarmed)

Great now there was only one left. Ale took a moment to reload, he'd left one bullet in the chamber so this process would be just a few seconds shorter, as he put the new magazine in place he saw the beige mare charging at the remaining trooper. "Damn it." ale muttered to himself as he took aim, waiting for a chance to shoot without risking any friendly fire incidents. Once he'd see an opening he would calmly pull the trigger and hopefully end this battle.

(Reload)

(Guns 58, trigger discipline, firing once at trooper 6 after bakewell finishes her attack and is out of the way.)

Dash quickly wiped some sneaky tears from his eyes and picked up his rifle. He couldn't believe how much that had hurt, the nail had missed all of the thick parts of his hoof and struck a nerve. His entire front left leg hurt from it, but saw that by some stroke of ultimate brilliance, the gun had went off and had actually hit the enemy trooper, and some assistance from others, had actually grounded the enemy Pegasi. Dash got himself together as quickly as he could and took aim steadying himself before firing, this time firing once more.

(Guns 90, Trigger Discipline, Hunting Rifle, firing twice at Trooper 6)

After Shade apparently fucked up a point blank shot, he ran for cover. he jumped behind the remains of an old wall. He reloaded his shotgun. Shade stuck his head above cover for a second to call to Blast.

"Blast get your ass over here!" he yelled to him then went back into cover. Hopefully Blast would get here soon.

(reloads shotgun)

They say teamwork is the greatest weapon of all. This is clearly wrong: a Balefire ICBM is the greatest weapon of all. Teamwork is not even a close second, it can not end civilizations. However, it can do somethings, like killing a half dead enclave trooper. Also it makes a pretty great boston cream pie, but enough about that.

Atriark started off the share-a-thon by shooting the buck square between the shoulder blades. The pegasus did not enjoy seeing another jet of blood erupt from him and tried to fly away. There was a Bakewell in his way however, and she hit him like a snowshovel. The severely wounded and frankly miserable trooper staggered back in a daze giving Ale a clear shot to finish him. Dash meanwhile was still picking up his rifle after dropping it. He got the participation award.

Enclave Status:
Trooper 1: KIA
Trooper 2: KIA
Trooper 3: KIA
Trooper 4: KIA
Trooper 5: KIA
Trooper 6: KIA

Bone: KIA

Flash: KIA

Sky: KIA

Brass holstered his gun and turned to his 'soldiers'. In reality only one or two had shown themselves to be worth their salt and he made a note to reward them for it.

"Rally up at the trench while I get on the horn to let command know we've taken the hill." He barked.

Loot:

4x Plasma Rifle
5x Health Potion

"Thank celestia."Ale sighed when the fight was over. Holstering his rifle he took no time in securing some of the enclave equipment, after all a military force that well armed must have some good loot on them. Ale was not wrong in this respect, the first trooper he looted, the one that had attacked backwell, had a health pot on him and ale was able to pry the plasma rifle from his cold dead hooves.

As he walked out onto the tightly packed snow that had been freshly colored red with the blood of the fallen he had to wonder, was this little mound of dirt worth all of that blood? After all they had lost two good ponies today and one griffin who frankly deserved worse. As ale looked to where his comrades had fallen he had a thought, "If this is what we can expect from the enclave then we'll need as much equipment as we can carry." And with that rather grim thought ale made his way over to the closest fallen ally, intending to field strip them.

The white unicorn approached the body of his old "friend", bone head. At first glance the griffin didn't seem to have any usefull gear, both his weapons were broken and his armor was sub par. Ale kneeled down to begin checking the old birds pockets for any loose caps and instead found something much worse, a pulse. His eyes widened, "alive, he's alive? If he's alive then the others might be..." ale thought aloud only to stop when he realized what this meant. Ale levitated out his revolver and pointed it at the unconscious griffin. If he was alive then he'd go to the m.a.s.h, get fixed up, and then come back to haunt him. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, something stopped him, a voice in the back of his mind, reason most likely. It said "don't do it." For as much as he hated the bird he was still an ally for the moment and if they were going to win this war then they needed every hoof or in this case talon available. Ale was locked in an internal struggle, kill your enemy now or spare him and hope it doesn't bite you in the ass later. Before he could come to a solution he felt a hoof on his shoulder and was surprised to see who it was attached to.

looted
health potion x1
plasma rifle x1