Doctor Hoarse walked through a large room covered in ancient machinery where several nurses were waiting with him. The ruins lite up and they prepared themselves for the oncoming. As always, they expected many wounded casualties, but this time only hurt their pride the worse. The glowing letters showed over a center piece where a single pony rolled out. Bon Bon crashed by, barely dodging a massive plume of flames.
As the nurse ponies rushed toward her, Doctor Hoarse simply took notes of her shape and the sign of anymore. He watched the vortex carefully, almost hoping for more, dreading worse shapes than her. However, the darkest answer came as the smoke clear. Nopony else escaped with her, the fate of the rest were unknown until the jet arrived back at the hanger, but it was clear, Bon Bon's entire squad was dead.
Doctor Hoarse walked over to Bon Bon as she was lifted into a bed. "Mad Jack is not going to be happy about this."
"I didn't fail..." She refused to finish over face him once as her body seared in pain.
Doctor Hoarse took note of her wounds, the burns would be a challenge with their limited stock of pain killers. However, the damage was mostly along her back and down her left leg. "Nurse Redheart, get what supplies we can spare. Only the most essential, no more, no less." The mare nodded and ran off to prepare for the incoming.
Bon Bon rolled around in utter agony, yet only two things were on her mind. Completing the mission was the highest priority, but there was another thing on her mind. "Has Lyra... returned from her supply run?"
Doctor Hoarse sighed at her lackadaisy attitude, "Yes, and she's worried sick about you. The nurses are checking on her own condition in room 345. You want a spot next to her when we are finished?" He smiled at the deep blush in her face.
"No, I don't want to stress her..." Bon Bon bit her lip and raised her wrist device. "Just bring me to the commander..." Her pain exceeded her willpower and her eyes lids grew heavy. The earth pony mare tried to keep conscious as long as she could, staring up at the ceiling as they rushed her down the halls. However, a sharp pain hit her arm, flicking her eyes only to glare at the needle Doctor Hoarse was slipping her. "No... the mission..." Her body grew so heavy as she sank into the void of her mind.
"Report!" The cold words brought her back to reality. Doctor Hoarse stood between them, a defiance that Bon Bon needed more time to heal. Mad Jack refused to listen, repeating even louder. Her words drew the battered soldier up to present herself in a half daze.
Mad Jack sat in a cold throne with tubes hooked up to her body and nurses monitoring her condition. A grim expression over her face as she watched the three-way mirrors. Her only good eyes flared over previous scenes replaying at high speed from her soldier's feeds. They were moving too fast for Bon Bon to discern whose feeds she was watching, but given her present failure, it was obvious who.
The soldier stepped out of the bed, fighting back the agony to stand strong in her savior's presence. Mad Jack had brought them all here, the last vestige of the Harmony they once knew. The least they could do was salute her, even while covered in the ashes of dead friends. "Commander... the mission was a failure." Bon Bon could barely breathe, forcing the words out with the ash and smoke.
Their leader continued to gaze forward, waving off the doctor, much to his annoyance. He against reputable only for magic to wrap around his mouth and force it shut. An always surprising form of power given their commander had the appearance of a common earth pony. "Tell me, Catorce, why I shouldn't court marshaled cold corpse?!"
As Doctor Hoarse was forced to take his leave, Bon Bon didn't have an answer. Her mission was twofold, bring back the files and her soldiers back alive. She had successfully obtained the files and failed on every other count. "More could return in time-" She was silenced as her leader stomped her metal boot, scaring the nurses.
"You should have known your limit! Kill the enemy! Don't you fucking dare come back otherwise?" She glared over her shoulder at the soldier with her only good eye, the throne slowly following her. The other half her face covered her disheveled white mane, and her western-style trench coat opened to reveal a large assortment of revolves. Pulling one out, she aimed right at Bon Bon and hovered her finger over the trigger. "Split their fucking skulls open before the king's undead might can resurrect them!"
The finger slowly slipped down over the trigger and literal second before the bullet could leave the chamber, the barrel was forced upward. The bullet flew by and missed Bon Bon's head, but passed so close it cut off a single strand of hair. The gun was yanked away and forced downward as blood gushed from Mad Jack's grip.
"I... I understand." This was enough to wake Bon Bon fully. She fixed her stance and spoke the motto. "Alive or a corpse, never undead!"
Once she heard those words, she allowed the nurses to return to monitoring her condition. Pressing a few puts and removing the pipes from her body once all the daily scans were complete. Standing up, the nurses attempts to clean her wounds were pointless as she looked through their reading. She was still decaying at a slow rate, common knowledge to everypony on base, but such a sight always hardened her soldiers to fight harder. Mad Jack was not only their savior but a literal undead symbol of what awaited them in failure.
As the nurses left to attend to other patients, Mad Jack stood alone with Bon Bon for several minutes of colder silence. The soldier wanted to ask why she was summoned as her wounds hadn't fully healed yet. The smell of her burnt flesh had to be torture to her commander's undead side. Maybe that was the point. Was Bon Bon purely standing there to help Mad Jack build tolerance? If so, she accepted this new mission willingly, only hoping this wouldn't be her last.
However, soon enough the door opened and relief came upon Apple Bloom. The young mare rolled in with her wheelchair and snarled at Bon Bon and Mad Jack without any of the cowardice of the previous doctor had. "You're alive. Jack was expecting the worst." She rolled over to Mad Jack and slapped her arm and shoulder, showing so much disrespect for the commander, in turn, Mad Jack rolled her eye and didn't stop her. Always a stark constant between these two and the commander's other soldiers. If Bon Bon knew better, she could almost say it was like a relationship between sisters. But this was impossible, Applejack was dead, just like the rest of the six as Mad Jack said herself upon building this army.
"What's the body count?" She finally spoke up, looking over the files, not even bothering to open them.
Apple Bloom shrugged and rolled back over to Bon Bon. "Nothing good. The others have arrived safely. We have a few survivors, but they won't last long."
"Bullet through the brain if they flat line once," Mad Jack answered so bluntly.
"Righty oh, your grumpiness!" Apple Bloom giggled as she saluted her commander in a rather silly posture. Turning back to Bon Bon, she showed more assurance. "But first we need to get you patched up."
"Healing accelerator juices," Mad Jack interrupted as she dropped the papers. "I need her back in the field as quickly as possible."
"What?!" Apple Bloom gave a loud huff. "We have limited stock, all to keep you from changing back-"
"Soldiers live and die every day!" Mad Jack screamed at her. "It's been sixteen months since the end of the Canterlot and we are no closer to stopping that monster. Every second, more ponies become his undead slaves! If we don't act fast-" She stopped as a deep growl and foam rose from her mouth. Slapping her hand down on the throne multiple times was the only thing stopping her from bouncing.
"Jackie!" Apple Bloom pulled out a few veils of blood from her bag. The moment she injected her commander's wrist, her body grew calm and the rage left her face. "Please... Jackie sent her away. The longer you smell rotting flesh, the worse you get."
"Shut the fuck up!" Mad Jack glared at her second in command. "She better serves some purpose for her failure."
The young mare rolled over and typed away on her keyboard. "Bon Bon wasn't a complete failure." Apple Bloom pulled up several files on the screen. "It will take time to decrypt, but these files will bring us closer to finding the princesses than ever before..." She gritted her teeth and continued to try and say more. "After we can confirm they are alive... maybe we could find the rest of the main six-"
"The main six are all dead!" Mad Jack stomped her boot down and wrapped her whip around her own body. "Every single one of them is a cold corpse... Long decayed and forgotten." She turned away from the young apple mare and back to Bon Bon.
Apple Bloom was silent for a moment and turned back to her work. She did not agree with Mad Jack's logic at all, as the mare was undead proving that was a total lie. No, the crazy zombified earth pony was simply running away from the truth like the rest of them. Thus, Apple Bloom didn't push it, instead, she pulled up one of the files. "This was the easiest one to break into." The screen changed and revealed an image of Twilight Velvet meeting with Princess Celestia. "This photo must have been taken before the attack."
"That's the mother of Twilight Sparkle!" Bon Bon's eyes lit up. "Maybe she could lead up to the princesses and the main-" She stopped herself from overstepping. While Apple Bloom could get away with saying the main six as much as she liked, Bon Bon and other soldiers would receive a far harsher punishment from daring to speak of them in Mad Jack's presence."
"She was in Canterlot..." Mad Jack stepped closer to the image. "I saw her name on the guest list. Going instead in her daughter stead alongside her husband." She grumbled as visions of that day tried to force their way into her exposed brain. "They could've been mere inches from the blast radiance that hit the party."
"Their deaths were never confirmed. This could be our only chance." Apple Bloom turned to Bon Bon. She tried to give an order only for Mad Jack to step between them.
"No! They are not as important as that!" Their leader pointed back at the screen and to something else in the image. A dark blue pegasus behind Twilight Velvet. "Bow Hothoof!"
"Rainbow Dash's father..." Apple Bloom zoomed in the image, surprised that their leader was able to spot that detail so easily. Maybe she wasn't as far gone as they feared. "If he's there, then this is just a simple meeting with the parents of the Main Six and Celestia. Maybe as early back as when they first defeated Nightmare Moon."
"Wrong!" Anger grew in Mad Jack's voice and she shoved Apple Bloom out of the way. "Bow Hothoof lost his arm defending Cloudsdale from Tirek." She pointed out the shape of his metal limb. "However, that's not the real problem here. It's both their appearance on an image behind a locked file." Mad Jack leaned closer and slapped her boney hand over the image. "Why? Why would Celestia keep this image hidden from us? It's too normal."
"Maybe there is something else in the image..." Apple Bloom tried not to come on too strong when she said that. But soon enough her voice found a direction. "There could be a hidden code in the image or another we can't see yet. Couldn't Button Mash clean it up more?"
"I'm certain he could, if he wasn't so busy with his secret projects." Mad Jack sighed and stepped back. "He's not the only one." She nodded to Apple Bloom and she pulled out Bon Bon's wrist device. "Daring Do and her crew are out getting the last pieces of a new weapon. It'll take them days to get back, time we don't have." She threw the device over to Bon Bon. "That leaves us with just you."
"I... I see." Bon Bon turned toward Apple Bloom and demanded. "Then I shall take the image to our second decoder. Heal me as quickly as possible. My mission is far from over."
Mad Jack smirked at her, and for the first time in a long while, actually gave her soldier a smile. "You better not fail again... or I'll be feasting on your corpse, Catorce."
"Yes Ma'am!" Bon Bon gave a final firm salute before falling to the floor.