//------------------------------//
// Into danger once more 
// Story: Life of the Whistle 
// by SteamingWhistle382 
//------------------------------//

Steaming, AJ and Rainbow quickly made their way to the guards post, where they were welcomed by an relieved princess and the rest of the group 'harmony'. 

"I'm so glad you're ok!" Sighted Twilight. 

"Meh, nothing we couldn't handle." Said RD with an wave of her hand, as Applejack shook her head. 

"How are the guards getting along with the reclamation of the castle?" Asked Steaming. 

"We have a hold on most of the upper levels, as well as the complete eastern part of the castle. But they get reinforcements all the time, and we don't know where they are coming from!" Explained one of the guards who were staying with the princess. 

"... I think I know where they are coming from." Muttered Steaming, his face pulled into a concentrating frown. 

"You do?!" Asked Twilight, shocked. 

"It's more a guess than an actual knowing. I studied the history of the railways in my free time, and one of the most interesting things was the Canterlot underground railway project. It involved the connection of all the main stations of the rail lines terminating at the, back then, plentiful main stations of Canterlot via an rail line underneath the streets of the city. Some tunnels had been dug, but the plan was thrown aside when the railways were grouped and the new main station was build. One of the finished tunnels was dug right underneath the castle, with the plan being to build a secret entrance for evacuation of the castle in case of an attack on the city. But that's all the books said. I don't know if the entry was actually build, but if it was, it would be the perfect deployment point for an surprise attack such as this!" Explained Steaming. 

"Of course! I remember discussing it with Luna, when the project was started. She had been partly involved with the project, and probably came up with the idea of this secret entry. I wish she would be here right now, and not in Zebrica..." Said Celestia with an sight. 

"She could've probably told us where the entry was." Pondered Twilight. 

"Well, we have to do the next best thing then." Grumbled Steaming, as he pulled out his revolver, and a few of his bullets from his belt, as he started to reload his gun. 

"And that would be?" 

"Simple." Started the engineer, not looking up from his work. "We go down into the tunnels, and search for those buggers ourselves. As far as I know, the underground lines, opposed to their name, also had part of their lines above the ground. Have you ever noticed that, in a few parts of Canterlot, there are iron bridges that seemingly never have something running over them? Those were for the railway line. We search for the closest bridge, climb up there, search for the nearest entry to the tunnels, and cut their reinforcement route off. We should be able to stop them that way." Spoke the young man, finishing with the closing of his guns drum, and putting the revolver back into his pocket. 

"That sounds pretty risky." Said Fluttershy. 

"It is. That's why I won't allow any of you to go down there." Said Steaming. 

"What?!" Shouted Rainbow. 

"Don't even start arguing with me. After all, you girls are too important for us to lose any of you. I go with some of the guards." Said the young man with a stern look on his face, which surprised many of the guards inside the room. They didn't thought that a boy like him would be so concerned about the wellbeing of others, so much so that he would be willingly risking his life for them. Even the princess was surprised, even though she wouldn't show it. 

'Whistle Steaming, what is your past? What is the reason that you put the wellbeing of others before your own so willingly?' Thought the monarch, as she eyed the young man, who's eyes were shining with determination. 

"So, any volunteers?" Asked the man, turning to the guards that stood inside the room, still looking at the engineer in a mixture of shock and awe. 

Quickly, a group of seven men walked forward, their look filled with the same determination as the engineers. The railway man nodded in response. 

"Alright, you lot will do. Where is the Armory of this shack? We need to be well equipped if we want to storm them head on!" Steaming called, as one of the seven lead them to the Armory. 

They grabbed a small variety of guns, mostly bolt-action rifles, with two of them grabbing a pair of crossbows. Steaming stood in front of the cabinet that stored the rifles in them, scanning across the plentiful array of guns, until his eyes fell on an, slightly dusty, Coltchester rifle. He pulled it out, before checking that the reloading mechanism worked well. 

"Huh, thought we threw that one out long ago. Was the gun from one of our oldest officers. He retired a few months ago though. You sure you want to use that old thing?" Asked one of the guards, as Steaming grabbed a few small boxes of ammo in the caliber of the gun, before quickly spinning the gun around, and throwing it in the air, catching it with his right hand with the barrel pointed closely at the guards nose. 

"Yep, pretty sure." Smirked the engineer, putting his arm through the sling of the gun, and securing the gun on his back. 

They walked out of the Armory, and back into the gathering room, where the princesses and the group 'harmony' waited patiently for them. 

"We'll be back as soon as possible. Um, is there a back door in this castle where we can go through?" Asked the engineer sheepishly. 

"No, but I think I can provide a way for you out of the castle. Say, do you know where the closest of these bridges you mentioned is?" Asked Celestia. 

"Um, on our way up here we passed under a bridge, around a quarter of a mile to the southeast of here, but I don't know how-" but the rest of his question was cut short as Celestias hands glowed with an strong golden light, before the group of eight men disappeared from their view. 

"I do hope they will be alright." Whispered Fluttershy. 

"Don't worry my dear Fluttershy, they are all well trained guards, and if he could fend off that group of men with Rainbow and Applejack, I think Steaming will be quite alright as well." Celestia said with an reassuring smile. 

"Hey! Where did Jacky went to?" Asked Pinkie suddenly, only now noticing that the metallic black haired girl disappeared. 

"Oh oh." Gulped Applejack and Rainbow in unison. 

"What's wrong?" Asked Twilight. 

"Well, we saw what happened with Steaming when Jacky was in danger, and Ah ain't want to know what happens when he gets back here to find her missing." Said AJ, scratching the back of her neck. 



"this is going.. to.. help..." Steaming said, before he noticed he spoke at nothing, as the group of men stood on the streets of Canterlot, between long rows of buildings, the castle in a bit of an distance in front of them. They could see that trying to keep the public unnoticed of the situation at the castle would be pointless, as from quite a few points of the castle, black smoke rose into the sky, with flashes of poison green and multi colored light, coming from the castles windows. The fact that a large crowd of people had formed itself in front of the gates was all it needed for them to know that there would be quite some uncomfortable follow ups, mostly for the guards. 

"Okay, that takes care of the question for how we get out of the castle. Now for the question, how do we get to the tunnels." Muttered Steaming, loud enough for the others to hear him. 

"What do you mean by that?" Asked the guard closest to him. 

"Well, the problem right now is that." He said, and pointed behind them. They all followed his finger, to see the bridge a little way behind them, towering above the streets, with no obvious access point. 

"That's going to complicate things a bit." Said another guard, staring up at the bridge. 

"Hmmmm..., how about that store?" Asked a third guard, and pointed to the paint store next to the bridge. 

"Um, no offense here buddy, but you can go about your painting hobby later, right now we need to get up onto that bridge." 

"I know that! How about we go in that store, and climb from the window onto the bridge?" Suggested the guard, as the faces of the others lit up. 

"Good idea!" Smiled Steaming, and quickly made his way to the store. 



After some time of convincing the store owner to let them go through his window (which lasted around 5 seconds until he noticed that all of them were from the Royal guards, as well as armed with heavy weaponry) they placed a ladder through the window of the room, and climbed over it onto the old iron bridge. They mock saluted at the shopkeeper, who waved them good luck in return, before they started to walk along the rusty old rails towards the castle. 

"You weren't lying when you said that the line had been abandoned." Whistled the guard to the left of the railway man as they slowly walked over the overgrown tracks.  

The embankments to the left and right of the tracks were blooming with many different kinds of flowers, and bushes with all kinds of berries had partly grown on the tracks to their left. The towering form of the castle slowly began to grown in front of the group, but the closer they went, it became more and more obvious that the railway line wasn't as abandoned as it was said. The tracks, which until now were nearly completely covered by the grass and bushes, could be clearly seen again, and instead of the rails being completely rusted, the railheads were shining brightly in the afternoon sun, indicating that they had been used plenty of times over the last few weeks, maybe even months. 

"Looks like the Changelings have been busy for quite some time now." Muttered one of the guards from the back. 

"It surprises me that nobody thought of mentioning that somebody was running on the rails up here..." Pondered another. 

"Welp, nothing we can do about that now. All we can do, is to wash these rats out of their hole." Said another, before they all bumped into each other, as Steaming stopped abruptly. They stood in front of an small, makeshift loading platform, with the only access being a small stairway, which led to the backdoor of an building. 

"Looks like somebody used this line as their private backyard railway." Frowned one of the guards wielding one of the crossbows. 

Steaming however, wasn't listening to what they were saying. He was keeping his eyes on the tracks in front of him, better said, on the tracks that disappeared into the tunnels, a few hundred meters away from them. He suddenly could see something from within the tunnel. It was very small, but it couldn't be anything else. He held up his hand. 

"No word!" He hissed, a closed his eyes, concentrating. 



His eyes shot open a few seconds later, quickly rushing from side to side, seeing that there were a large amount of crates, stored on the platform, which were stacked high enough to hide a grown adult 

"Quickly! Up there!" Hurried the engineer, and raced behind the crates, followed by a group of confused guards. 

As soon as they were all behind the crates, a faint clanking could be heard, coming closer, until a small, four wheeled tank engine clanked out of the tunnel, pulling a few covered trucks, before slowing down and coming to an stop at the platform. Out of the engine jumped two of the Changeling soldiers, who made their way along the trucks, opening the doors, so that they could start loading them. 

"Good think Valiant kept his word. Hehe, it wasn't like he had another choice anyway!" Sniggered one of them, as they walked onto the platform, starting to pick up the crates. 

"Can't argue with that. It really is a pleasure to have such an private Armory, on top of that, with such an excellent transportation connection towards the 'battlefront'." Smirked the other, picking up another crate. 

"But once the job is done, we can... Dispose him. After all, the castles Armory will be much better suited for our cause." Laughed the first one again, lifting the crate that was in front of Steamings face. 

When he saw the smug grinning face of the engineer behind the crate, his mind stopped its working process for a few seconds. But that was more than enough time for Steaming to take care of the man in front of him. He quickly pulled out his revolver, holding the barrel against the nose of the man, staring him dead in the eye with a stone hard expression. 

"One peep and your brain will be that engines new paint job." Whispered the young man in a threatening voice, while the man in front of him nodded in shock and fear. 

Steaming kept his position, nodding with his head for the men next to him to move to the other man, who was disappearing into the first of the covered trucks. Two of the guards quickly made their way after the man, into the truck. 

"Hey, you coming or- ARGH!" Began the voice, before being cut off with an short scream, and an thud. The man outside was tied up by some of the others, before the one from the truck was pulled outside, knocked unconscious by one of the guards via the butt of the rifle. 

"Okay, here's the plan: one of us will stay here and watch over our pal and his knocked out friend. We will use the train to force them out of the tunnel." Started Steaming. 

"How are we supposed to do that?" 

"Easy. We smoke them out. We use oil and burning coal from the engine to set the last truck ablaze, and use the hot fumes to force them out. We will do that for around 15-20 minutes. That should be more than enough time to make them run for the exits to get some air. We'll leave the burning truck out here and use the engine to go through the tunnel to the other side, to make sure that they don't try to return once the fumes are gone. If any of them try to get out of the tunnel through our side, we'll take them as prisoners, or if they don't cooperate, we have to use force to make them cooperate. Only use your guns if there is no other opportunity. Sounds good?" Finished the engineer, getting a collective nod. 

"Alright, then let's move, every second we wait out here, is a second they can use to get closer to the princess!" 



They didn't wasted any time, and quickly put the plan into motion. They poured oil over the wood of the covered truck and lit the truck on fire after pushing it into the tunnel mouth. After a few minutes, thick black smoke started to come out of the tunnel mouth, and they could faintly hear shouting, coming from deep within the tunnel. 

"Looks like things are getting a little hot in there." Joked one of the guards. 

"I wouldn't make that many jokes if I were you. Do something useful, and get in the truck. We need to see where we are going after all. The rest of you, cover the tunnel exit and make sure that anybody who comes out of there joins the two on the goods platform." Called Steaming from the cab of the tank engine, as he stoked the fire of said locomotive. 

They waited and waited, but nobody came through their part of the tunnel. After the time was up, Steaming pulled the leftovers of the truck out of the tunnel. The only thing that was left from the burned out truck was the frame, the body had been burned to cinders. Steaming pushed the truck onto the other track, and after the guards got inside the truck, they made their way down into the tunnel. They hadn't gone far, when they saw what looked like an abandoned platform, deserted of life, but covered with crates and boxes of all kinds and sizes. They continued on their way down the tunnel, their eyes peeled on any movement. Not long after, they reached the end of the tunnel, but this side wasn't as deserted as the other. It was crowded with Changeling soldiers, all eying the small train with surprised expressions, which quickly turned into one of shock as they saw that the men on board the train weren't ones of their kind, but of the Royal guards. 

"Freeze! In the name of the princesses, you are hereby under arrest!" Shouted the rang highest, as the others took aim with their guns, making sure to make them look more threatening then they actually were, which was pretty hard by a group of 7 against, by a quick counting, at least 100 soldiers. 

The men who were closest to the train complied with the order, but the ones further at the back were trying to turn the situation in their favor. One of them raised his crossbow, but before he even had the time to aim, a shot rang through the embankment, followed by the splintering of wood, as the crossbow was destroyed at the bow, leaving the man with only the grip and the rear body of the crossbow intact. 

"The next one won't be on your weapon sport! That goes for you all! Comply with our orders, and you will all walk out of this alive. Go against them and, well, you will share the fate of the bow." Shouted Steaming from the cab, lowering his Coltchester, as the soldiers all gulped. None of them had the thought of trying such a stunt now. 



They gathered most of them inside the trucks and locked the doors, making makeshift cells out of the rail vehicles, while the rest was lead down the rail line into the tunnel. Once they were at the platform again, they brought all of them out and into the castle. The underground platform was connected to the castle via a large number of small, narrow passes, through which they needed to navigate through. It wasn't long before the small paths gave way for an larger room, with many shelves, on which boxes full with fruits and vegetables of all kind stood. 

"Looks like the storage room of the kitchen, only bigger." Noted one of the guards. 

"Probably a secondary storage, to make sure there is always enough stuff here. You know, in case of a bad harvest or so." Said the engineer. 

"Or if Pinkie raided the storage room of the kitchen and left nothing for the cooks. Again." Sighted another guard. 

"That bad?" 

"You don't know half of it." Came the collective sight of the guards. 

They quickly made their way out of the cellars, and soon were back in the upper levels of the castle. With their backup from the tunnels cut off, the Royal guards finally had the upper hand again, and slowly but surely, they won control over the castle again. The large prisoner transport reached one of the larger hallways in the castle, when they were stopped by a large group of Royal guards, lead by an young sergeant. 

"Wow! Where did you catch these guys?!" She asked. 

"Them? Playing rats down in the tunnels. Take them to the cells, they should be the last backup of those invading buggers." Explained Steaming casually, as they started to make their way back to the guards outpost, leaving behind a dumbstruck sergeant. 

"Sergeant Kicker? What are we supposed to do now?" Asked one of the privates behind the woman. 

"Like he said, take them to the cells!" Ordered the blond sergeant, as the men went into motion. 



A few minutes later, they all reached the guards outpost, and were expecting a heroes welcome, but instead, they were greeted by the sight of the group 'Harmony', either sitting at the table in the middle of the room, or pacing around nervously, while Celestia sat next to Twilight at the table, being the only one who welcomed them back. 

"I see you've returned. Did everything went well?" Asked the monarch, as the girl jerked their heads to the door, the eyes of Twilight, Applejack and Rainbow filled with fearful nervousness, Fluttershys only filled with fear, and Pinkies glowing in her usual, cheerful manner. 

"Everything went as smooth as an branch line run. We got them out of the tunnels, and brought with us around a hundred or so prisoners of 'war'. I think that's what Raton would call an 'easy day'." Chuckled Steaming, but the playful smile on his face was replaced with an confused frown as the lack of laughter irritated him. 

"What's with those eight foot long faces?" Asked the engineer. 

"Well, you see..." Started Twilight slowly. 

"There might be a small problem." Continued Rainbow. 

"Ya'll see, the thing is-" Said AJ, her eyes darting around to avoid the engineers own pair. 

"Jacky has disappeared and we have no idea where she is!" Shouted Pinkie cheerfully, shocking everyone in the room. 

They all stared at the railway man, who was standing where he was, his eyes wide, but not making any move. 

"Steaming? Are you ok?" Asked Fluttershy, while RD snapped her fingers in front of his face. 

He shook his head a few time, trying to collect his thoughts. 

"Could you say that again?" Asked the man slowly. 

"We searched everywhere, but Jacky just disappeared. We last saw her when you guys left." Explained Twilight. 

"I see. Well then." Sighted Steaming, starting to move to the door that lead to the hallway, and right through it, before softly closing it again. 

"That went better tha-" 

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU---!!!" 

"You were saying Twilight?" Sighted Rainbow, as the shouting didn't seemed to stop anytime soon.