//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: Freedom 
// by totallynotabrony 
//------------------------------//

Author note: For purposes of story, the plot diverges a little from standard Black Lagoon

Immediately after the explosion, automatic gunfire started.  Fluttershy heard glass breaking and screams of wounded ponies.  Beside her, Rainbow calmly sipped a drink.
“Wow, who are these crazy ponies?” said Pinkie, holding a shotgun she had produced from somewhere.  “If they’re your friends, Rainbow, you’d better deal with them.”
“I don’t know ‘em.”  Rainbow’s ears perked up as several loud thumps echoed just behind them.  “Wow, you’ve bulletproofed the bar.”
“Yep!” exclaimed Pinkie.  “It can handle up to fifty caliber!  I figured it was necessary since the last time the Apple Company wrecked my place.”
“That ain’t quite the truth,” shouted Applejack from the hallway.  “Are y’all alive?”
“Somehow,” answered Twilight.
“Sure,” said Rainbow.  She took another sip of rum.
“How about you, ‘Tree?”
Fluttershy merely shrieked, burying her head beneath her hooves and adopting the motionless posture she had been named for.
There were a few loud blasts as Applejack fired blindly towards the muzzle flashes outside the bar.  “Rainbow!  I think this is a good time to show ‘em why you’re called Rainboom.”
Fluttershy saw the colorful pegasus beside her grin with wry humor.  She drained the last of the rum and pulled both her guns from their holsters.  With a quick beat of wings, she soared over the bar.
Ponies with assault rifles had begun to enter the building, showing that this was no random shooting.  The patrons of the bar had all fled or were dying on the floor.  The attackers were coming in to finish off the survivors.
Rainbow’s first shot caught a stallion straight in the face.  With both her pistols blazing, half a dozen of his fellows went down in seconds.
As inadvisable as it was to expose her head, Fluttershy couldn’t seem tear her eyes from the scene in front of her.  Rainbow pivoted, dodging enemy fire and shooting back.  Pegasi were naturally agile, but she seemed to have complete mastery of her body’s movements, maneuvers brought about by hard practice on top of prodigious natural talent.
Fluttershy’s eyes widened.  Rainbow was…smiling.  The colorful mare was enjoying what she did.  How could anypony get delight from this?
“Come on!” Applejack shouted.  Twilight tugged at Fluttershy’s foreleg and the two of them sprinted from behind the bar.
Pinkie called, “You’d better pay for this, or I’ll force you to make cupcakes with me!”
Rainbow dispatched a few more attackers while backing up towards the hallway.  As soon as she was clear, Applejack herded Twilight and Fluttershy out the back door.
The car was waiting.  The four of them piled in and Twilight stomped on the accelerator.  Rainbow tossed a grenade out the window to dissuade the armed ponies who had followed them out of the bar.  The explosion was even louder than the roaring engine.
Several blocks later, on much quieter streets, Twilight began to slow down.  Rainbow slumped in the backseat, reloading her pistols.  “Hey AJ, Pinkie said she’d force us to make cupcakes if we don’t pay for that.”
Applejack chuckled.  From her position next to Rainbow, Fluttershy swallowed hard.  “Who-who were those ponies?”
“Mercenaries,” said Applejack.  “I just got off the phone with Celestia, an’ she warned me they were comin’.”
“What the buck do they want with us?” demanded Rainbow.
“Not us,” said Applejack, tossing her head in Fluttershy’s direction.  “Her.”
Rainbow turned to glare at the yellow mare.  Twilight glanced up at her through the reflection of the rearview mirror.
Fluttershy crumpled into a quivering pile of mane and feathers.  “I’m s-so sorry.”
“What did you do?” asked Rainbow.
“I don’t really know!” wailed Fluttershy.  “Everything was okay until you took me and the phoenix from the ship…”  she began to cry.
Applejack looked uncomfortable.  Rainbow’s eye twitched.  Twilight broke the moment by pausing at a stop sign.  “Where are we going?”
There was a moment of silence.  Applejack said, “Head for the assistance station.  We need to re-arm.”
Fluttershy raised her head, her tears temporarily drying.  “Aren’t they the ponies who help with things like disaster relief?  What are they doing with weapons?”
“They ain’t your typical organization,” answered Applejack cryptically.
Fluttershy sat up, watching the center of the city fade away.  The buildings got smaller and shabbier.  The ponies looked poorer and more put-upon.
“So, who sent the mercenaries?” asked Rainbow, breaking the silence.
“I was told that it was the Ponyville Animal Shelter,” answered Applejack.
Fluttershy’s hooves covered her mouth, although she didn’t manage to suppress a surprised, “Eep!”
“Isn’t that your company?” questioned Rainbow.  Fluttershy nodded.
“By the sound of it, the phoenix tradin’ wasn’t exactly legal,” commented Applejack.  “Since there was such a mess with takin’ the bird, I guess the company just decided you knew too much and decided to off you.”
“I don’t know about the laws,” murmured Fluttershy.  “I just like taking care of the animals.”
Rainbow shrugged.  “Maybe that’s why they picked you to transport the bird.  Either way, they thought you made a perfect patsy.”
The car kept going in the darkness, winding its way into the hills that overlooked Roanapur.  A small complex lit with a few lights appeared.  It looked like some kind of run-down fortification.  The ponies that were around wore the uniforms of social workers.
A white unicorn came out of the building to meet the car.  Her indigo mane was styled far more than was really necessary to care for the sick and needy.  She also wore a large semiautomatic outside her uniform in a shoulder holster, seemingly unconcerned about anypony seeing it. 
Rainbow squared off with this mare.  “Rarity,” she said, as if swearing.
The white mare smiled, but not because she was pleased.  “What is it today, Rainbow?  Come to spread your filthy feathers all over my fine wares?”
Rainbow growled, and her hooves twitched towards her guns, but Applejack stepped in front of her.  “We’re just here for the basics, Rarity.  There was a little dust-up down at the Yellow Nag.”
Rarity nodded.  “I heard it from here.  Well then, I take it you need some ammunition?”
“No telling what we’re up against,” muttered Rainbow, looking away.  “Better throw in some forty millimeter grenades.”
Rarity’s eyebrows went up, and she smiled.  “Darling, you can’t afford it.”
The blue pegasus grabbed for a gun at the same time as Rarity’s pistol was clearing her holster.  The two of them brought their weapons level at the same time, each aiming at the other’s face.
“Stop!” cried Fluttershy.  Despite the tense situation, both mares looked at her.  Courage spent on the initial outburst, Fluttershy drew back, letting her mane fall over one eye.  “Don’t hurt each other.  There’s been enough shooting already.”
“I was meaning to ask,” said Rarity, “Just where did you find her?”
“They kidnapped me,” whispered Fluttershy, having retreated even further behind her mane.
Rarity wavered for a moment and then turned to the yellow mare, stuffing her gun back in its holster and leaving Rainbow aiming at air.
“You poor thing,” said Rarity.  She looked at Applejack.  “Is this true?”
The orange pony shifted uncomfortably.  “Yeah.  What happened at the bar earlier was somepony tryin’ to clean up a liability - her.”
“This simply will not do,” said Rarity.  “Come with me.”
She led Fluttershy and the three members of the Apple Company into the building, which turned out to be an armory.  The timid pegasus gasped at the sight of so many tools of destruction piled everywhere.  There were large guns, somewhat smaller ones, ammunition, blades, and all sorts of things for which she had no name.
Rarity thrust a pistol into Fluttershy’s hooves.  “Here, try this.”
“But I don’t…”
The white unicorn studied the weapons on display and picked out a belt of shiny brass machine gun cartridges.  She hung it around Fluttershy’s neck like some sort of weaponized scarf.  The yellow pony started to protest again.
“Do you know anything about guns?” asked Applejack.  
Fluttershy shook her head vigorously.  "No, I just know about veterinary things.  I take care of animals on the land and in the air, and I was learning how to scuba dive so I could care for sea creatures, too.  That's it.  No guns."
“Oh.”  Rarity looked deflated.
“You could still give us some of that stuff,” said Rainbow.
Before the healer/arms dealer could protest, Twilight stepped forward.  “Look Rarity, we’ll do you some favors, okay?  If we’re going to protect our guest, we need those things now.”
“All right,” Rarity conceded.  She began collecting equipment to put in the trunk of the company car.
Applejack promised to pay the bill when it came and the four of them got in the vehicle.  Rainbow smirked at Fluttershy.  “I guess you aren’t totally useless.  You’re good at getting ponies to be nice to you.”
It was intended as an insult, but Fluttershy deflected it.  “All you have to do is be nice to them, too.”  You should try it sometime, she didn’t add.
The ride back to the boat was quiet.  While boarding, Applejack explained that they had to go meet the ponies who had given the Apple Company the job to acquire a phoenix.
“But why do they want to kill me?” whimpered Fluttershy.
“Don’t rightly know,” replied the orange mare.  “But Celestia’ll get us an answer.”
“Who is she?”
Applejack pushed back her hat.  “She sorta runs things around Roanapur.  Nopony really know much about where she came from.”
“Hey, are we ready to leave?” called Rainbow.
“Everything’s good to go,” reported Twilight.
“Alrightly then,” said Applejack.  She sat down at the controls and did a few checks before powering up everything.  The boat’s three engines rumbled to life.
Fluttershy went below deck to check on the bird.  The supply of food pellets was getting low, and she refilled the feeding tray.  A few crimson feathers had fallen to the bottom of the cage, and the phoenix seemed a little unhappy.    Fluttershy could relate.
Her company had been conducting illegal deals, and using her as fall pony.   When things went bad, killers had been dispatched to stop her from telling what she knew.
Fluttershy was terrified of what could happen to her.  Any group of ponies who were willing to kill a bar full of probably-not-innocent-but-still-bystanders would do nearly anything. 
The pegasus thought about letting the phoenix fly free.  Perhaps by erasing the evidence, it would help her cause.  Releasing a domesticated creature in a strange environment, however, could end badly.  Better to wait until there was no better option.  She wondered what Rainbow would think about Fluttershy putting a bird over her own safety.
Heading up to the railing, Fluttershy watched Roanapur shrink in the distance.  It had been an unpleasant place, but at least she’d developed some idea of what to expect.  With nothing but the horizon ahead of the cruising boat, she felt a disconcerting lack of order.  Her future was open, and anything could happen.
Fluttershy stayed there, watching as the sun began to heat the edge of the world.  The soft glow grew stronger, creeping above the black waves and turning them shades of aquamarine.  Golden light fell on Sweet Apple’s bow as it sliced through the sea.
The yellow mare closed her eyes, enjoying the brightness ahead and leaving the darkness behind.