//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 
// Story: Infiltrate 
// by Nevermore 
//------------------------------//

										Scootaloo
“Run!” I yelled.  I could see the shadows on the street growing larger. I turned over my fallen scooter back onto its wheels. It had no handlebars, but I could still ride it.
“Come on!”  I said dragging the in-shock Sweetie Belle into the wagon that I pulled behind me. I jumped on the scooter/skateboard, flared my wings and took off down the street. The shadows of the hail were growing rapidly. 
That’s when they hit. The first crashed into the ground in front of me, with a violent explosion, nearly knocking me of my skateboard. I kept going as fast as I could. They were falling everywhere, shattering roof tiles, cracking the street, slamming into walls and razing buildings.   
We turned into the Fillydelphia town square. There were ponies everywhere, trying to escape the icy barrage. Some ran into houses while others made for the outskirts.  We sped to the nearest house, and dove inside. I could still hear them falling. I looked at my friend. For a white pony, she sure looked pale.
“We’re gonna be alright.” I said. She looked up at me with those huge green eyes. We both jumped as the door was smashed to pieces. I jumped in front of Sweetie Belle, until I saw the familiar cowpony hat. 
“Applejack?” I said.
I was suddenly bowled over by a yellow body with an enormous pink bow.” Scootaloo! Sweetie Belle! Y’all are ok!”
“Not really.” I said looking down at my foreleg as Twilight Sparkle entered the room. There was something different about her. I heard a buzzing noise as the clear shield she had projected dissipated.
“Wow… AJ you couldn’t have just USED the door, instead of demolishing it?” Twilight said with a giggle.
“We got bigger problems than that right naow. We gotta get these young uns’ out of here pronto.” AJ had a steely look on her face. She scooped up AB and Sweetie Belle with her head and looked at me. 
“Ya think you can keep up with that thing?” She eyed my scooter. Or what was left of it anyways.
“In my sleep!” I said with confidence. I kicked it over, and mounted it, which just involved me stepping up onto it. 
“If you say so...” Twi looked at my fore-leg. “We got to get you to see Zecora as fast as we can.” We all jumped as the house shook from another impact.
Twi looked around. “Hurry!” she said. “The others have already gone! Let’s go!” 
We all took off out the door. I could see the shield forming around us from Twilights horn. We dodged several hailstones that fell around us.  I heard a loud crunching sound. I looked up and saw a hailstone thud onto Twilights shield, shattering around us. The force of the impact dove us all to the ground for a moment. I heard Twilight grunt from the weight of it.  The sound must’ve been loud I thought, because my wings were buzzing. We sped through the city as things exploded around us.  The noise was deafening. Houses were destroyed as we ran.
One fell right next to me, just outside the shield. The shield blocked the shards, but did not block the shockwave. I was thrown off my scooter, and rolled to a stop. The others kept running. I scrambled back onto my scooter. I could hear the whistling of the death ice coming. 
I sped to my peak. I swerved and dodged several, barely missing the deadly shards of ice that flew at me.  
One fell directly in front of me; I barely had time to react. I popped my scooter up, gripping it with my forelegs, holding it downwards as I cleared the ball. When I was midway across, the thing exploded, sending spikes in my direction. But I knew it was coming. They thudded into my scooter harmlessly. I grinned as I landed, on top of the shards, shattering them. The adrenaline fueled my body, pushing my wings faster that I had ever gone. I sped through the town, maneuvering to miss them. As I sped by a demolished house, I snagged a piece of plywood from the siding. Good thing I did too. Almost right after quite a few landed in a row. They shook violently and blew. I dropped prone on my scooter, holding my shield up in front of me, and felt several spiked lodge in the wood. A lot more came after; they thudded into my makeshift shield until it snapped in my hands. I jumped up and took off. 
I could see the edge of town, as I sped out, the massive chunks no longer fell. I could see the others waiting for me. I caught up t’ them rapidly thanks to adrenaline.
We kept running until we were a good ways from the city. We all collapsed.
The two cowpony sisters rested for not much longer than five seconds, jumped up, and hugged.  Twilight rolled onto her back and moaned. Sweetie Belle was passed out on the ground. I turned to watch the icy fireworks.  The last few fell from the heavy clouds, and all was silent. I sighed. What happened? What had Equestria done to provoke this invasion? 
I was snapped back to reality by what my eyes were seeing. Thousands of shadows were descending from the clouds. They were pony-like, but even from this distance I could tell that they were different. They were larger than our average Pegasi. They looked like thousands of Big Macintosh’s with wings to match. I ran over to the others.
“Look!” I exclaimed. “We are being invaded by Pegasi!” They all looked up and gasped. 
“Where did they come from?” Twilight asked to no one in particular. She looked around. “They must’ve been concealed within the clouds!” 
“That’s why they all came back after the princess got rid of ‘em!” AJ exclaimed. She stomped a hoof down, cracking the earth beneath it. “They put thousands of pony lives in jeopardy!  Ah’ll make them pay for this…” She was panting heavily. We all backed up a few paces.
“That will have to be some other time.” Twilight said. I yelped as a rouge beam of sunlight hit my frozen foreleg.  White hot pain raced up my leg. The skin squirmed and writhed with me as the pain intensified. 
“First things first, we’ve got to get Scootaloo here to Zecora’s as fast as we can. She will know about what to do. AppleJack would you mind carrying Scoot?” Twilight paused as AJ nodded, scooping me up. She tied my wagon to herself and levitated Sweetie Belle into it.
We ran, with Twilight gripping my scooter with her magic. We arrived at the train station on the outskirts of Fillydelphia. It was still running.   I assumed that all of the people had gotten out, because there were only the employees left, and they were boarding the last train, as it seemed. 
“Wait!” Twilight yelled. The workers looked up.  We ran up to them. 
“Is there any room on that train?” We all asked. The conductor stopped sweeping.”Aye,” he said.”We be still a’boardin.” We all jumped through the open door. We walked down the aisles until we found an open car. We all piled in.  Me and Sweetie Belle and Twilight on one bench, and AJ and AB on the other.  
I looked out the window, to see the last of the employees boarding the train. As the train started to move, we all relaxed.
“Whew! Ah’ am BEAT!” Apple Bloom exclaimed.  We all slumped down . “This train takes all day!” AB said with a smile. “Ah’ don’t know about y’all, but Ah’m outta shape! Ah haven’t run that much since… well since we ran away from that cockatrice last year!” We all giggled. 
“We all best get some sleep, we’ve all had a very strenuous afternoon, and I’m sure we could all use it.” Twilight said with a yawn.
“Strenu-what?” AJ said with a grin. We laughed again, and soon fell asleep to the bouncing and the roll of the train.