As the door shut in front of them, Twilight and Rainbow Dash took up Berry’s commands and armed themselves. Taking out her darts and small bottle of cyanide from her saddlebag, Twilight looked over at Dash. Rainbow Dash had that certain....flame in her eyes. The kind of flame that burns during intense moments of excitement and yet fear at the same time. Twilight had seen that flame in Dash’s eyes a couple of times, but the flames in her eyes now were much bigger than before.
Twilight, however, only felt fear. She was just a quiet, librarian. Though she’d been in many kinds of situations, this kind was probably a first for her. She could use her magic had the leather straps been removed already. Twilight had learnt a firestorm spell from the forbidden book that she took from the Royal Library that she could use, but creating such a spell in such a small room could kill whoever came in. And the three ponies inside as well. And Berry might still be in the hallway. Not to mention that Applejack was still unconscious. Twilight realized something. Wait a second....
“Hey Dash, you mind waking Applejack? We might need her for this.”
Rainbow Dash said nothing, and stepped over to Applejack. She shook Applejack several times before getting her to wake up. Groaning, Applejack rolled over before sitting up. Rainbow Dash, pleased that Applejack was awake, went on to arming herself with the switchblade. Applejack yawned and scratched her mane.
“Now where in tarnation are we? Ah’ remember goin’ ta sleep a moment ago before somepony casted a spell. What was that about?” Grogginess in Applejack’s voice made it hard to hear her voice, but Twilight could hear what she said very well.
“Better get ready Applejack. We’ve got company on the way. I’ll explain everything later.” Twilight walked over to one of Berry’s saddlebags and took out a knife. She gave it to Applejack, who gave Twilight a confused look.
“What’s this fer’?” Applejack inquired.
“I said I’ll explain everything later. Just take it!” Applejack had never heard Twilight so stern before, so she took the knife. Any remaining sleepiness in Applejack had gone away. Grabbing the hilt of the knife with her teeth, Applejack continued to watch the other two ponies with a confused look.
Twilight dipped the tip of a dart into the small bottle of cyanide, before carefully inserting it into her blowtube. She had only one shot before she had to reload, and Celestia knows how long that might take. Or how fast I can do it. Not to mention the fact that even a little cut while reloading from the cyanide-laced dart could prove fatal.
There was a thud outside that got the attention of the three ponies in the room. If the door were to open now, they would have seen Berry lying unconscious in the hallway. However, the deadbolts remained in place, much to Twilight’s relief. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t open eventually. They still had to be ready for whatever might happen.
Another set of hoofsteps were trotting up the stairwell. This surprised both Rainbow Dash and Twilight. Another set of hoofsteps could mean that more than one perpetrator could be behind all this. Or.... Rainbow Dash glanced around the room while twilight still pondered. If it’s another pony, we might gain another ally.
“I wonder how Berry’s doing now...” Rainbow Dash whispered over to the other 2 ponies. Twilight could only shrug, apparently still pondering about the second set of hoofsteps. But Applejack’s ears perked up upon hearing the name.
“Berry’s here too?” The question rang out in the room and reverberated against the walls. Twilight scowled at Applejack. She stepped back a few steps before Twilight let out a cry of warning.
“Stop moving!” Though Twilight had meant for what she said to be a whisper, it came out much louder than she expected.
The hoofsteps stopped. The three ponies held their breaths. Had I been a bit too loud? Twilight stared at the door. But Applejack was much louder than I was. Twilight shook her head. She wasn’t the type of pony who blamed others for her mistake. But if she didn’t speak up so loudly, I wouldn’t have been so loud. She looked over at Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow Dash had her wings spread and was ready to rear up and attack the moment she gets the chance. She was waiting readily by the door, with the blade already protruding out of the hilt. Twilight knew that Rainbow Dash was capable of many things thanks to her carefree attitude, and this will probably help the three ponies in this critical time of need.
Twilight turned to look at Applejack. Applejack on the other hoof.... Applejack had just woken up after being unconscious for a short time and was no doubt disorientated about what was going on. She probably didn’t even remember what happened. Twilight knew that Applejack’s applebucking skills would come in handy here, but seeing the state Applejack was in, she’d miss every shot she gave. Twilight didn’t really expect Applejack to do anything, but she gave the knife just in case. Bucking might not be the correct option now considering Applejack might lose her balance if she was on two hooves. Lucky she stopped moving. Any further steps back would result in Applejack stepping on the shards of glass. And we wouldn’t want that happening now.....
Twilight turned her attention to her small bottle of cyanide and was surprised to see that the liquid was bubbling. Realizing something had been overlooked, Twilight proceeded to conjure a spell. The other 2 ponies turned to see what was happening when Twilight shot an icy blue beam at her bottle of cyanide. Immediately the liquid cyanide stopped bubbling and the bottle started to fog up. Twilight had overlooked the fact that the boiling point of liquid cyanide was just above twenty-six degrees celcius. Had it begun to evaporate into the atmosphere, the three ponies in the room would be dead by now. Lucky enough Twilight had remembered. Twilight’s freezing spell had to be turned up a bit to prevent the cyanide from freezing completely. Twilight sighed and quickly grabbed another dart by the fletching, or more simply known as the tail. She knew the spell just now had made a considerably loud noise that most certainly would have alerted the ponies outside the room. Dipping the point into the bottle, she heard the hoofsteps slowly approach the door.
Knowing time was running out, Twilight hovered the bottle over to Rainbow Dash and started pouring a bit of the cyanide onto her switchblade without her knowing. The beeping started and Twilight managed to set the bottle back next to her right before the three second timer expired. Using her magic one more time, Twilight spread the cyanide all across the blade and carefully mixed it with the blade, making it a lethal weapon. This, however, took some time. Though not long, it was enough to set off the three second timer. Before Twilight knew it, a needle buried itself into Twilight’s hoof, just narrowly hitting an artery. This was enough to make Twilight scream out in pain as blood once more trickled out of her leather strap and down her hoof. She sat and tried to suppress her pain.
Applejack and Rainbow Dash turned one to face Twilight. Seeing her friend hurt, but not willing to endanger any of the ponies in the room by leaving her spot, Rainbow Dash stood still in front of the door, hoping that Twilight understood Dash’s actions. Applejack had rushed over to Twilight’s aid and had tried to offer assistance, only to be turned away by her. Twilight could have requested Applejack to lessen her pain by injecting morphine, but the bottle was already three quarters full, and they couldn’t afford to waste much more on anypony else unless it was truly necessary, and Twilight’s wound wasn’t that grave. At least not yet. There were another seven more needles that were waiting.
Applejack listened, and stood back as requested. She picked her knife up with her teeth, and stood close by while Twilight got a hold of herself.
A shadow had fallen outside the door, and the three ponies were instantly alerted. Twilight wiped off a stray tear and picked up her blowtube. The other dart was on the floor right in front of her for easy reloading. But even reloading would take some time. The beeping and flashing lights on her collar would make dimming the room for stealth useless. Twilight looked over to Applejack. She had the same fire as Rainbow Dash had, but the flames seemed much bigger. All those hours under Celestia’s sun.... And that was enough to tell Twilight that Applejack was ready.
The door was unlocked from the outside, and the deadbolts started unlatching. Rainbow Dash reared up, and the moment the door swung open, she charged at her opponent, swinging her switchblade around like a bat. The mare that stood in the doorway must have anticipated an attack, because she had taken a step back right before Dash met her target. The mare shot out a spell that Twilight had used a few times during her journeys with her friends. Thunderclap...
Twilight knew that thunder was just the sound that follows after a lightning strike, but this spell was rather different. Rather than the lightning, the thunder came first. After the sound of thunder rang out in a hundred eighty degree angle in front of the unicorn, the unicorn would have roughly a second to aim before the lightning shot out. And Twilight could tell that this unicorn was not used to using the spell. The room was small and almost bare. The reason why thunder came first during a thunderclap spell was because it was able to stun opponents, making them vulnerable targets. The echoes from the thunder clap stunned the three ponies, but at the same time everypony else that was in the hall was also stunned by the loudness as the echoes escaped the door. A little too inexperienced to used spells now aren’t we? Even aiming inwards, the reverberations would have to go outwards soon anyway. So the unicorn couldn’t get a hold of her bearings before she shot lightning out at the garotte in the middle of the room.
The metal chair and the garotte disintegrated as Dash once more swung her blade around, this time cutting deep into the unicorn’s thigh. The unicorn wailed in pain and immediately retreated out the door. But before the three ponies could chase after the mare, a stallion, who was also a unicorn, stood at the doorway. His horn glowed a crimson red and a spell was casted onto the stallion’s forehooves. Twilight knew what came next. If the stallion were to succeed in crashing his hooves down on the floor, the sonic boom generated would be enough to push everypony off their feet, including the stallion as well. The stallion reared up on his rearhooves,ready to stomp on the ground. Twilight seized her chance and fired her dart directly into the right eye of the stallion.
The stallion, yelled out in both pain and fury and stumbled backwards as he lost his balance. Falling out of the doorway onto his back, his forehooves had extended enough to reach the office door opposite the room the other ponies were in. The sonic boom released was enough to completely shatter the metal door and rain down bits and pieces onto the already wailing stallion. Pieces of metal embedded themselves into the stallion’s abdomen. Bloody streamed in a steady flow out of his eye as he he tried in vain to pull out the dart embedded in his right eye. Applejack saw her opportunity and drove the blade right into the chest of the stallion. The stallion let out a sharp gasp of pain as he tried to cast another spell. He failed,however, when Applejack pulled the hilt of the knife and pulled the blade upwards. Blood sprayed out of the wound and splattered onto Applejack’s face. Unfazed, Applejack continued.
The blade cut right through the stallion’s heart right as his horn was starting to glow. Applejack pulled the blade upward harder and the blade nicked the top of the stallion’s right lung. More blood sprayed out as Applejack heard a faint release of breath but could still feel that the stallion was still alive. She took the blade out and began to saw back and forth on the stallion’s throat, just to make sure he couldn’t harm the three anymore. Applejack knew that nopony would die if you run the blade across the throat in one clean swipe. All the sinew and arteries made that impossible. But thanks to all those crazy movies being played at the Ponyville Cinema, action junkies started spreading the news. Darn fools. Not that it mattered anyway. By the time Applejack was done sawing at the stallion’s throat, he was already dead in a pool of his own blood. He really was a mess, and the blood had sprayed all over Applejack’s face and unkept mane.
Rainbow Dash had flown past Applejack and the stallion to chase after the unicorn, who was casting a teleportation spell around herself as she ran down the hallway. Dash extended the blade one more time to finish the unicorn off, but the unicorn had completed her spell and disappeared, causing Rainbow Dash to stumble head over hooves onto the carpeting of the hallway. She spat out dust and proceeded to fly back to Applejack, who was panting with exhaustion and trying to wipe the blood of her face and her mane.
Twilight stepped out of the room, only to see the carnage that Applejack had left. Twilight didn’t hold back as she started vomiting onto the floor next to the dead stallion. Applejack snickered and Rainbow Dash tried her best to choke back a laugh, though without much success. They hadn’t seen Twilight vomit before, but she made one of the most funniest sounds when she does. To Rainbow Dash, it was like the sound of Fluttershy saying yay mixed with rarity’s wailing. Soft and ridiculous. Applejack had thought that Braeburn’s vomiting sounds was funny, but Twilight’s vomit sounds took the cake!
Once Twilight finished, she looked up, teary-eyed from the retching, to see the two smiling ponies. After what they had gone through, Twilight had expected exhaustion in the eyes of both of the ponies. Applejack had apparently gone overboard with killing the stallion in such a way that Twilight wouldn’t want to know how Applejack knew. Dash did look a bit disturbed though, at what happened to the stallion.
“Where’s Berry?” Was all that managed to come out between Twilight’s breaths. The other two ponies glanced around the hallway, but without much success.
“Maybe she’s in one of the offices?” Rainbow Dash gave a suggestion.
Then it came to Twilight. Could it be...? Had the thud outside the room been Berry? “Hey Dash, is there a possibility that Berry might have been taken while she was in the hallway just now?”
Dash considered the possibility. “Come to think of it, wasn’t there a thud outside the room before whatever just happened happened?”
“I heard it too. If she was taken, then we’ll have to decide who to save next. Berry had left her saddlebags behind, and she probably had a list of ponies to save! Like how she knew where Applejack and I was!” Another adventure had seemed to cheer Twilight up.
“Hey wait a minute!” Applejack spoke up. “Berry knew where we wer’ ?”
Twilight and Dash nodded in unison. Twilight spoke, “Apparently she has to help save us all from whatever is going on now. Thanks to her, Rainbow Dash is still here, and thank Celestia, so are you.” Twilight gave Applejack a warm smile.
“But if she was taken by somepony.... doesn’t that mean that we’r screwed?” Twilight hadn’t considered that option yet, but apparently Dash had, since she answered first.
“Well at least she left her saddlebags behind. She left them there just in case she wasn’t coming back. She probably can handle things by herself.....” The last sentence had unsure written all over it.
“But we haf’ ta’ save her too!”
Twilight and Rainbow Dash nodded. “But first...”Twilight began. “That explanation I owe you.”
Applejack listened attentively as the both Twilight and Rainbow Dash began telling their stories.