Children of Oonte: Chapter 2
Plans are made for a run.
Fluttershy's Nightmare:
"Do you mean that we are going to be attacked by this, Claw Combine?" The big human called Sherman Harewood asked, with a hint of annoyance in his voice. Fluttershy was sitting in the too hard seat and trying to understand why she was in the NSA interrogation room again. Mr Harewood was a scary looking human, he was big and blocky like a stone giant. Except he was more brown than grey. Brown eyes, brown hair but the suit was black.
Fluttershy gathered her courage and answered, "Yes" She glanced at Ashley but Ashley seemed to be preoccupied.
"I do not believe you and if you cannot convince me, I cannot convince my superiors," Sherman replied with more annoyance in his voice.
At that moment the lights flickered in the room. "What the hell?" Sherman asked. Then the lights flickered some more and the room shook. Pieces of plaster started to fall from the ceiling. Fluttershy could hear explosions in the distance. What was going on?
The ceiling above the table started to look like something was pressing down at that section. With a crash, all sorts of debris rained down on the table. Fluttershy flung herself off of the chair and headed for a corner. Sherman backed up towards the door and Ashley headed to the other corner. That is funny, Fluttershy thought, Ashley cares about me and would try to be next to me. A gout of fire fell down from the ceiling and some of it splashed on Sherman. It set his clothing on fire and he started screaming and running. A tendril of flame stretched from the table and touched Ashley and her fur and clothes went up in flame. Ashley started screaming where she was standing while Sherman slumped against the wall still on fire.
Fluttershy watched the fire and cringed back into the corner, this was so horrible. The flames on the table flowed down to the floor and slowly began to move toward her. She could sense that this was no ordinary flame, the fire was just a covering for something cold and malicious. Something colder than the spaces between worlds or the deepest darkest winter. The flame creature was slowly creeping towards Fluttershy like it was savoring each of her fear filled seconds. What, this thing is toying with me? Fluttershy started to get angry. Burn my friend and somebody else in front of me and then toy with me! She got up and started to walk towards the flame thing. The creature stopped its slow advance and seemed to be confused. It even started to retreat. That fueled Fluttershy's rage and she moved faster towards the creature.
Then the flame creature belched some flames on Fluttershy and her fur caught on fire. Fluttershy started screaming, her yellow fur blackening under the heat and the pain was unbearable. While she was screaming the flame thing jumped down her throat and it was like her insides just froze solid. The pain was like having her guts sliced apart by tiny razors. Cold sting then pain. She just screamed and screamed.
Something seemed to hold her and say "Don't cry pony." over and over. Fluttershy slowly came out of the nightmare. A boy was hugging her from behind and sobbing out "Don't cry pony." Fluttershy stroked the kid's arm until he stopped hugging her. "You OK?" the boy asked, tears leaving clean tracks on his dirty face.
"Thanks." Fluttershy said. Why would I dream that?
Fluttershy looked around the room. The boy went back to his mother. The old guy was staring at her with a look of horror on his face. There was a mix of faces in the hallway, Sherman, Rich the zebra and one of the unicorns from downstairs. Fluttershy looked at Ashley, Ashley was just sitting with a white glow in her eyes and a white/purple glow on her horn. A few seconds the glows faded.
Sherman walked up to Fluttershy and asked "What's going on? Steve heard loud moaning."
Fluttershy replied "I had a dream that I was back underground, it was awful."
Sherman replied "You know, I have not been able to sleep either." Fluttershy could see a quick flash of fear in his eyes as he replied. Sherman motioned to the folks in the hallway, and said it was just a nightmare. Everyone in the hallway went back downstairs.
Sherman turned towards Ashley and said "Steve and Rita do not have enough magic to make food and I want a chocolate doughnut. The food bars are OK but you get kinda bored with them."
Ashley did not reply for a few minutes.
"Sorry, I was thinking about something," Ashley said in an apologetic tone. "You said something about a doughnut?" Ashley asked. At the mention of the word, Fluttershy's ears pricked up. A nice chocolate doughnut would make the morning a bit nicer. Even the old guy got up and moved to the group near the window.
"Would you like a doughnut filled with yellow cake or Devil's food or even Devil's food with raspberry filling?" Ashley asked. Sherman stuck his hand out for the doughnut. "Sorry, I wish I could make it for you but I barely have enough magical power and we might need it later," Ashley apologized. Sherman put his hand down slowly, could tell he was disappointed. "When we get to a safe place I will make all the doughnuts you want," Ashley promised.
The old guy introduced himself, "My name is Seth Brandon and I would like a piece of apple pie later."
"No problem, when I have the party, just step up and tell me and I will make it for you," Ashley said.
"We need to decide what to do next and that kid Rich is getting to be a pain," Sherman said.
"OK, let me see what I can do about the food situation, its probably going to be more food bars," Ashley replied. Could hear the tiredness in her voice. "I will go downstairs later and we will have a meeting about our next steps," Ashley said.
"Fine," Sherman said a bit tiredly.
Ashley motioned to Fluttershy to come closer and told her that she would make three bags, one for human food, one for pony food and one for water. Human food has meat which ponies can't digest but humans could eat the pony bars but there is no meat and maybe they won't like some of the grass or flowers.
Ashley concentrated and made the water bag first, that was easy.
Seth got up and moved towards the window and said "I heard you were going to make food bars for people with meat in them, can you use just kosher meat?"
"Are you OK with chicken, beef, turkey, tuna and salmon?" asked Ashley.
"Yes, that is fine," Seth said.
"You are now the official food Pony!" Ashley announced. Fluttershy stood up and saluted and then giggled.
Ashley made a harness and put the bags on Fluttershy. Power is almost gone gotta be careful now. No more magic for me until I can recover. Wish I could have more sleep but its near dawn and we have to move. Then she went downstairs with Fluttershy leading the way.
The meeting downstairs went pretty quickly. Ashley explained that the Claw Combine (CC) had attacked the major cities in the world to put Humanity off balance. Since they were hunters and not strategists the Claw combine would be putting more emphasis on ground troops. Strategist enemies would just bomb the cities from orbit and flatten them all.
The CC just caused enough damage to throw off the local defenders and they would send small teams to hunt and do worse things. The CC also had some equipment that generated an energy field that blocked electronics from working. That explained why most equipment did not work. Ashley did not mention magic because that would just make things worse but that was what was really being used.
Most people in the 21st century thought believing in magic was for little children or folks with issues. If you were a pony, you knew better. Even regular ponies knew better. The Claw Combine used dark evil magic in their weapons and it was in the air. Not enough to cause damage but you do not want to be in the area too long. Of course the patrols would probably cause more trouble first. The electricity blocking field (EBF) was magic too, no tech involved.
Ashley did not like hiding things from people but it would just a be a big pain to explain the existence of magic. Eventually some human would realize that some of the stuff could not be done with tech and folks would get angry. Hopefully by the time people realized that magic was real it was in a safe place and not in the middle of a firefight. Right now, people were focused on surviving and not really caring how their food and water was being made but soon as the pressure eased, questions would be asked.
Mechanical stuff would still work but you would have to power it. No cars but bikes would work. If we could find any. Hooves don't work so well with bikes but Ashley remembered seeing some bikes that had been modified for ponies. Anyway, the plan was to join up with the DC herd in the suburbs and hopefully be out of the electricity blocking field.
The hard part would be dodging the patrols, the CC were doing patrols a few miles out from their position. Ashley could sense where they are but they moved faster than walking speed so they must be riding some sort of vehicle. That meant that patrols could be within attacking range real quick and there would be very little time to find cover. If the CC patrols have a good sense of smell and hearing it would be even harder to hide from them.
They only had six guns and ammo was pretty low. Ashley did not have enough power to make bullets and the other unicorns were too tired. It was probably a good idea not to engage the enemy if they have a choice. There were few questions, someone wanted to know about food and if they could get cars working. Ashley was surprised when one of the unicorns answered that question, the CC would probably be able to detect if there was something electrical working and would move quickly to attack. Thank goodness the unicorn, Steve did not mention magic.
Then the meeting ended and people left to gather their belongings. In one hour, they would start their run to the DC Herd.