To Whom It May Concern

by Wheller

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Vinyl Scratch, Graham Cracker, and Derpy Hooves had taken a place on the Ashville wall, looking out into the Divide. The ponies that had been perusing Vinyl had not approached. Vinyl figured that Surprise had effectively tied them up.

Derpy looked over to Graham, the earth pony had just returned after excusing himself to change his bandages. This probably wasn’t the best time to be asking him personal questions, at least that’s what was going through her head at the moment... but she had to know.

“Graham? Your burns... how did they happen?” Derpy asked.

Graham Cracker turned to look at the Pegasus, his eyes conveying a neutral expression. “Last month, while I was scouting movements of the Hopeton ponies on the upper ridge, a Pegasus pony that I had not ever seen before appeared behind me. He called to me by name. I turned to look at him. I did not know him, but I knew that he was not one of the Hopeton ponies. I greeted him kindly, and asked what he was doing here. He gave no reply. He stared at me for about thirty seconds, and then he approached. ‘We remember Graham Cracker.’ He said, and then the most curious incident. I inexplicably caught fire over my entire body and he cast me into the Divide.”

Derpy’s mouth fell open. Vinyl Scratch looked up in surprise; she knew instantly who Graham Cracker was talking about.

“How did you survive?” Derpy asked.

“It was simple; I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me. God was testing my conviction, and I was determined to survive. I fell into the river, which carried me away from Ashville entirely. I took me three days to reach home. I told God that I was going to survive, and he didn’t see any reason to disagree,” Graham Cracker said simply

Vinyl raised an eyebrow. “Oh... don’t tell me you’re a nephite!?”

“I am a nephite,” Graham Cracker said. “God has not turned his back on ponykind. He is still there; he is just waiting for us to come back to him.”

Vinyl rolled her eyes, though it was not visible under her goggles. “Yeah... listen pal, I know Princess Luna. I hate to break it to you; she’s certainly everything that the books claim to be.”

“You misunderstand our faith, miss,” Graham said simply. “We do not doubt that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are who they claim to be, they are powerful. They are two of God’s angels, they have simply lost themselves.”

“Yeah... right,” Vinyl said rolling her eyes. Derpy shot her an annoyed look, which Vinyl promptly ignored.

...

Surprise thrust the spear forwards, spearing yet another pony with it. She was winning, and as much as the ponies around her hated to admit it, they knew she was winning. Surprise had broken this spear with the last thrust, and she quickly tossed it aside and picked up another one. These ponies weren’t exactly smart, and they were clearly not used to fighting someone who could fight back. Surprise was a frenzied fighter, and despite her childlike appearance, she was not someone to be trifled with.

A new pony had appeared over the hill, this one, however was armed much differently than the rest of them. This one had a chain knife. The pony revved the knife loudly and leapt down towards her. Surprise was ready and brought the spear to bear, impaling the pony that had leapt at her without effort.

The pony dropped the chain knife and it stopped revving. Surprise quickly threw the spear aside.

“Amateurs,” she said with a huff, she picked up the chain knife and revved it loudly. Now it was time to go on the offensive. She spread her wings and leapt into the air. Charging the group of ponies who had all just decided at once that they were not getting enough out of their current situation, they all dropped their weapons and turned tail and ran. Surprise showed them no quarter, dive bombing the group and ripping them to pieces with her powerful weapon. Blood and gore showered the Pegasus pony, and she found herself smiling.

Oh how she had missed this.

...

Twilight and Rainbow Dash had lead Retslaf and his ilk into the missile’s fire control room. Through panes of dirty glass they could see it sitting, completely dormant, yet still menacing. Twilight looked around the room and noticed that there was a flashing console that somehow was still in good condition far off to the left. It was not the launch console. It was too small, but it interested her nonetheless. She wanted to go over to it, however a spear wielding pony brought it closer to her throat.

“No...” Retslaf said. “No, let’s see what she’s so interested in. Go ahead, little pony, and go play it.”

Twilight trotted over slowly to the console, and pressed the flashing button on it.

“Head researcher’s personal log, this is Doctor Emerald Sparkle reporting...” the recording let out an exasperated sigh and continued to speak. “Idiots! Idiots all of them! The best and brightest of our generation are certainly not residing at HVMB! I swear; it’s not enough I’m uprooted from EPMB to supervise the test launch of the Crusader X... It’s also bad enough that I know what’s coming today. Ever since Princess Luna personally came to me... she’s told me what happens today. In about six hours, the orders are going to come in. Princess Celestia wants this installation gone, and she’s going to use the launch of the Crusader X to justify it. I’ve gone ahead and swapped out the Crusader X’s warhead with regular high explosives, It’s going to destroy Hopeville, but it won’t be the ecological disaster that Princess Celestia is trying to engineer. I got to hand it to Princess Luna, she’s taking a big risk with this, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Celestia banishes her to the moon for tipping me off. Damn the Luddite. This would never have happened if Queen Gaia hadn’t become sick. Hopeville Missile Base is a goner, I’ve gotten everything set up. I need to be back at Everfree Plains to insure that the luddites don’t get it... too much is at stake, Princess Luna has confirmed that much for me... I just hope Doppler got everything ready while I was gone... or this is going to be a really short trip.”

The log ended with a click, Retslaf seemed uninterested. Ancient history, it mattered little to him.

“Well that was a fucking grand waste to time. You! Time to get to work!” Retslaf said, pointing at Twilight Sparkle. Two of his ponies opened up the launch console; Twilight glanced over to it and noticed that all of the thermionic valves in the console had been broken. Every single one had been smashed open. Someone had deliberately broken them. It was obvious that Retslaf wanted her to fix it.

Twilight swallowed hard, she wasn’t as familiar with electronics as say, Vinyl Scratch, who would have been better suited for the task, but even she knew that there was no way to fix it with all the valves smashed.

“Bring up the package,” Retslaf said. One of his ponies set down a box with Pony Express stamps all over it. It had been opened to reveal that it was full of replacement valves for the circuits. “Fix the console,” Retslaf said.

“I don’t know if I can...” Twilight said.

Retslaf looked annoyed at her response, clearly that had been the wrong answer. “Hold her down.”

Two ponies put their hooves on Twilight, holding her back from what Retslaf was about to do, while several other ponies grabbed Rainbow Dash.

“Hey!” Rainbow called out. “What are you...?”

Retslaf kicked one of his unicorns that was levitating a pistol, causing her to drop it. He picked it up in his teeth. “Hold her wing open.”

One of the other ponies bit down hard on Rainbow Dash’s wing, holding it open. Rainbow Dash yelped in pain. Retslaf pointed the pistol at Rainbow Dash’s wing and pulled the trigger.

The bullet passed cleanly through Rainbow Dash’s wing, causing Rainbow Dash to scream in pain. The ponies released her and she fell to the floor.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight cried out.

“Fix the console,” Retslaf said.

Twilight nodded in understanding, and quickly went to work replacing the broken thermionic valves. Tears were forming in her eyes, as she worked. She hoped to Celestia that they were going to be okay.

Twilight quickly replaced most of the valves, she had only one to put in when the large radio unit at that one of Retslaf’s ponies was carrying on their backs began to bark.

“Retslaf! We got trouble! There’s a Pegasus that’s coming right towards us!”

Retslaf fumbled with the receiver on the radio and picked it up to yell into it. He didn’t get a chance to say anything.

“Hey! No! Stop!” one of the ponies over the radio yelled. There was a loud crashing sound, followed by screaming, then nothing but static.

Twilight’s spirits soared; she assumed that Surprise and Vinyl Scratch were coming to rescue them.

She turned around to look, there was more screaming from down the hall, Vinyl and Surprise were closing in on them!

That was when their saviours came into view.

To Twilight’s horror, it was not two ponies, but one.

It was a grey coated Pegasus, his mane an equally grey. His eyes were blood red.

It wasn’t Surprise. It was Legion.

Comments

[KaijinZero]

well......so much fucked theres no place to put it.

[Apocalypse Pony]

I love how you went "here's Trixie, but she's drunk and plot irrelevant"

[DreadedCandiru2]

Great. Derpy is heading towards becoming even more of an outcast than she already is, Legion is planning on something horrible with the valves he had her deliver and Surprise has herself a new toy. This just keeps getting better and better.

So much for the world getting a second chance...

[Kamineigh]

WAIT. WAT.

Wouldn't Twilight just be able to rip their weapons from them and end them all? I mean it makes sense, considering what she's done to the Ursa Minor.

[oblivion2k]

29730
Couldn't have said it better myself. Of course, knowing wheller, I'll probably be surprised to see her accidentally save the day in one of her drunken rampages.
...or, knowing wheller, the world will explode again. Who knows.

[Wolfren]

I love the smell of bloodshed in the morning!