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Chapter 61,691 words
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Chapter 81,534 words
Chapter 91,864 words

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

“Oh no!” Twilight said again as she continued to stare at the HVMB door. “No no no! This is bad... this is so bad!”

Rainbow Dash sat next to her, looking confused. Despite having her old world memories, there had been a lot that Rainbow Dash had missed out on. Meeting Surprise, and the Everfree Plains Ballistic Research and Development Facility among them, however, Unlike Surprise, Twilight had filled her in on EPMB, but her lack of first hoof experience with it had caused her to miss the reason Twilight’s panic entirely.

“Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Rainbow? We need to find Vinyl and Surprise. Then we need to seal up this cave so that nopony can ever use what’s hidden down here!”

“Twilight? What’s...?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“It’s another nuclear missile, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight said, she rose to her hooves and galloped back towards the entrance to the cave. Rainbow Dash was quick to take off after her. They burst from the cave at top speed, only to find that they had company.

Standing before them were a group of ponies, each of them clad in patchwork barding of metal plates. Each one of them was holding something different. Some of them had knives, some of them had spears. There were a few unicorns with combat shotguns.

But Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle weren’t paying attention to them. No they were paying attention to the pony clad in the green great coat walking slowly towards them.

“Well now!” Métis Retslaf said with an eerie grin. “I’ve got two guesses for what you two just found back there... and I’m guessing it’s not a hidden entrance to Ashville.”

Twilight and Rainbow Dash both swallowed hard. They did not know this pony, but they had just handed him a nuclear missile and the ability to play god.

...

Vinyl Scratch and Surprise were headed back towards the narrow passageway to meet Twilight and Rainbow Dash. They were not as quite this time as they had been on their way out. Vinyl and Surprise were chatting about life. Despite her childlike appearance and demeanour, Surprise was a rather philosophical pony.

Vinyl’s ear twitched. “Surprise!”

“Yes?” Surprise asked.

“Shhhh!” Vinyl said, bringing her hoof up to her lips to shush the Pegasus. She leaned forwards slightly and began to listen.

“What is it?” Surprise asked.

“I’m not sure...” Vinyl said, she listened closely, but could not make out the sound that she was hearing.

Out of cover, five earth ponies wielding knives and spears leapt into view and closed in on them.

“You picked the wrong place to walk lady!” the lead earth pony said, drawing his knife as they moved in close.

“And you picked the wrong mare to mess with, smelly,” Vinyl said with a grin, her saddlebag flipped open and Vinyl’s revolver was brought to bear. Vinyl Scratch had learned a long time ago when she and her friends were threatened, that she couldn’t hesitate.

Five shots, five ponies, one Emerald Ordinance No.4 Revolver now completely empty, unfortunately for Vinyl Scratch, revolvers made a lot of noise, and this had just attracted the attention of smelly’s friends. Over the ridge, some twenty of them came into view.

“Run!” Vinyl called out. She and Surprise took off at high speed, it seemed though that more and more of smelly’s friends just appeared from nowhere, and soon enough they had the entire town of Hopeton bearing down on them.

There would be no escape, and Vinyl had no ammunition left for her revolver. Surprise had figured this out quickly enough. Surprise stopped running; rather, she planted her hooves firmly on the ground and turned to face their pursuers.

Vinyl looked back and stopped short. “Surprise!”

“Keep running!” Surprise called out. “I’ll hold them off. GO!”

“Surprise...”

The look on Surprise’s face intensified. “GO!” she screamed.

Vinyl Scratch nodded and took off in the other direction.

“Okay everypony... you all don’t know me,” Surprise said to herself, she picked up one of the fallen ponies spears in her teeth. “Ifsh tahm fer a SURPRISE!” she called out as she leapt at them.

...

Graham Cracker and Derpy were sitting on the Ashville wall, Derpy had taken to quizzing the nephite about his faith. She knew next to nothing about it. It wasn’t something they talked about back home.

“The way you describe him...” Derpy said. “God sounds wonderful.”

“God is wonderful,” Graham said, smiling with his eyes. “Any society that derives its power and authority from the will of ponykind alone lives apart from God and will crumble in the end. That is one of the tenants of our society. With God in our lives...”

“Graham? I hate to interrupt, but we have a runner, headed straight for us!” One of the nephite watch ponies said. He was staring down the scope of a rifle looking out towards the east. Graham Cracker rose to his hooves and trotted over to him.

“Let me take a look,” Graham said. The watch pony moved aside and allowed Graham to look. “Hmm... I do not recognise this one; this is definitely not one of the Hopeton ponies. She’s moving fast... I’d say about five kilometres out.”

Derpy was curious now; she got to her hooves and trotted over to Graham. “Would it be okay if I took a look?”

“Certainly,” Graham said, he stepped aside and Derpy moved up to take a look. She pressed her right eye to the scope, and shut her left eye tightly, and focused in on the pony that was running towards them. Much to her surprise, she recognised this pony. The off white coat, the electric blue mane, the goggles...

“Vinyl Scratch!?” Derpy called out in shock. She pulled her head away from the rifle and looked at Graham in confusion.

“You know that pony?” Graham asked.

“Yes,” Derpy said with a nod. “She’s a... friend.”

Graham nodded in understanding and turned to the watch pony. “She is not to be harmed. Tell the other watchers to leave her be, she’s running from something, if we have scouts out there, radio them and tell them to guide her to us. Don’t approach her, like I said, she’s definitely running from something.”

...

Vinyl Scratch didn’t look back, she couldn’t, she had no idea what had happened to Surprise, or if she was even being followed at all. There were just... so many, even a savage fighter like Surprise... Vinyl didn’t like the chances that the Pegasus had been given.

Surprise was immortal... at least, Vinyl thought she still was, she really didn’t know for sure, but assuming that she was, Surprise couldn’t be killed, but as many ponies that had come at them as they did? Numbers would eventually take Surprise down... and then...

Vinyl couldn’t think about it now, she had to keep running.

Vinyl Scratch noticed a sign off in the distance, someone had placed a large red arrow pointing in the direction that someone clearly wanted her to go. Vinyl’s first thought was that somepony was trying to corral her into a trap, but then she figured; she was ahead of all her pursuers. They had all been earth ponies, nopony was able to fly ahead and set up a trap, even Rainbow Dash wouldn’t have time to set up a trap.

Vinyl took a leap of faith and decided to follow the arrow. She turned through the street and found another. She turned and followed it, only to find the same thing again and again. Vinyl Scratch was taking a hell of a risk, but she kept going anyway.

Soon enough, Vinyl Scratch found herself in front of a large, open gate. Standing in it was an earth pony covered in bandages, and...

“Derpy!” Vinyl called out in shock.

“Vinyl!” Derpy called out, she rushed forward and threw her arms around her marefriend and pulled her close.

“I hate to interrupt...” Graham Cracker said simply. “But we really don’t want this door to be open when the Hopeton ponies get here. Inside! Quickly!”

...

Two hazard lights began to flash. A small buzzing alarm went off, and the air filled with the hiss of steam.

Something from the inside pulled the metal gear back, creating a deafening screech as metal grinded against metal. Twilight and Rainbow Dash covered their ears, and watched as the large metal door rolled to the left.

Métis Retslaf grinned widely as the HVMB door opened before him. “Get them on their hooves!” he bellowed to his troop of spear wielding ponies.

Twilight and Rainbow Dash rose without needing encouragement. The red eyed greatcoat clad pony’s face had shown him to be one that you did not want to play around with. Two of Retslaf’s guards walked into the door first, they glanced around, announcing that the area was clear, the rest of the group walked inside.

Twilight noted that the layout was almost identical to EPMB, except everything was in extremely poor shape. The metal deck plates were rusted through, the metal walls were rusted and worst of all, at least for the shape of the base, and there were no robots to be found.

“What happened here?” Twilight asked quietly to herself.

Retslaf shot her a look that told her to be quiet. Twilight needed no further encouragement. “You!” he called out. “You’re out in front!”

Before Twilight could even think of protesting, one of Retslaf’s guards pointed his spear dangerously close to her throat. Without another word, Twilight took to marching in front of the group. “Where do you want me to take you?” Twilight asked, knowing that it was a risk to have asked the question, but one that was likely the only way of making herself useful.

An un-useful hostage was a dead hostage.

Retslaf grinned widely at her. “You’re a smart girl. Take me to the missile!”

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