//------------------------------// // Chapter Twenty-Six: Back to the mall and a sketchy plan // Story: Gleaner Chronicles: American Monsters // by sevenofeleven //------------------------------// Vision Margot was floating in a warm and comforting darkness. No Gleaners or pushy ponies just nothing on her mind. Then a voice whispered,the cup of woe is not yet finished for you. She found herself in a building with a large parking lot. It took just a moment to realize where she was. It was the Mall of America, the place where the changelings did their attack. Margot started to hear voices like from a distance then a gunshot and cries of dismay. All of that faded away and two men walked into the room. She thought they would say something. It was like they couldn’t see her. One was balding, Margot recognized as her ex FBI partner. The other person was Jerome except he was human. The curly brown hair and the too bright smile helped to identify him. She moved closer. Even though their eyes were pointed right at her, they didn’t act like they saw her. Margot figured that this was what a ghost felt. A chill raced down her back. She wondered if she died in her sleep. It would have been a great release considering all the terrible things Margot lived through. A quiet voice said,No. Watch. She felt like there was a threat in the area. Margot looked around and saw nothing. Then she looked up and then the feeling intensified. Glowing green figures slid through the ceiling. Mark shot one and it blew up into bits that faded away. He shot at another creature and the bullet just went through it. Margot noticed that the creatures ignored her. Mark turned and left the room as the creatures surrounded Jerome. Before they could touch him, he was grasped by sky blue hooves and carried away. Margot felt herself being pulled out of the building into the early evening sky. The mall below her was covered in a green glow that spread from the main building to other areas in the neighborhood. It didn’t take long for the green glow to travel along the roads into the nearby city. She felt something grab her and move her higher into the sky. Now Margot could see the curve of the Earth and the bright lights of the cities below. The lights faded into green. She heard sorrowful voices then her vision blurred. Now, she was floating above a city of towers built into the side of a mountain. The same green glow she saw earlier was now slowly crawling along the edges of the city. The glow would try to go into the center but bright flashes of gold and blue would push it back. Drawn by the bright lights, Margot floated closer. In the center of the doomed city, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were gathering surviving ponies to lead out of the city. A voice whispered, “Proud but gentle Canterlot falls to darkness, but the princesses will save many.” Margot watched as the last group of ponies reached the safe area made by the princesses. A golden horn sounded a mournful retreat and the ponies galloped for the street that led to the stairs. The princesses stayed in the rear to keep the encroaching armies of Remnants and Gleaners at bay. “The cup is full for you and you will drink. Be of good cheer and the day might still be won!” the unknown voice said then Margot woke up. Warehouse Pre dawn Margot yawned, it seemed like she didn’t get any rest. Now she was up. Instead of just Rarity and Scootaloo, the room was full of whispering ponies. Far’s group had survived and there were few new voices. She had a feeling that the briefing meeting was going to have a lot of bad news. Mackie stepped through the door. “Okay, let’s settle down. There’s a lot to go through.” Far gave Margot a nod then sat next to her. Skybreeze sat next to Far. The rest of the group took positions on the blanket. Margot looked at Mackie and Emily, the fur around their eyes looked wet. Mackie looked down then raised his head. “Well, let’s get to it. Heston and Nina are dead. Their sacrifice allowed a lot of us to escape.” Brick stepped into the doorway. “How did they get info on our safehouses? They’ve hit us hard before, but the safehouses were safe.” Mackie grimaced. “General Trample got help this time and also did interrogations onsite. Instead of taking ponies to bases and getting info from them, Trample got Geist to do his interrogation for him. The turnaround was faster.  With Trample, the torture was mostly physical and ponies could fight that. I’ve been hearing vague rumors that Dr. Geist can get inside ponies heads. If that’s true then all he has to do is find one person who has been in touch with the resistance to get the others. ” Brick sighed. “Now what?” The conversation stopped as a small female changeling with black hair and green eyes started sobbing loudly. “They g-got Nina!” Mackie faced the changeling. “I’m sorry for your loss, Kiya.” Kiya just nodded and faced the floor. Mackie faced the group. “As soon as the meeting is over. Emily and I are leaving DC. We’re going to a red zone. It’s too dangerous here with Trample and Geist working together.” Far stood up. “Wait. We need your help to free Twilight Sparkle from the Pentagon.” Mackie shrugged. “I wish I could help, but my hooves are tied. The DA took out most of the resistance’s leaders. We had to destroy the gauss rifles. I’m sorry, DA soldiers were all over me. I didn’t have enough time to hide the guns, or pass them to somepony else. So I had to destroy them so the DA wouldn’t use them against us. I have more bad news. Leethoof is dead, the DA came for him and he blew up his building. I don’t know exactly how they traced him, he was so careful about that. The DA has been sending squads to all of the abandoned neighborhoods and searching them. I bet they started auditing the power grid. Leet’s equipment needs a lot of juice. That’s probably how they found him or that’s why they decided to check out his building.” Kiya narrowed her eyes. “I hope many of those DA bastards died!” Margot stood up. “My condolences, but did he leave us anything useful?” Mackie nodded. “Um, yeah but how are you going to get into the Pentagon?” Skybreeze stood up. “How about using a teleportation spell?” Mackie shook his head. “They have wards against that. Without a well equipped army to breach the defenses, you can’t get in. I’m sorry.” Kiya jumped up and down. “Hey hey, I might be able to help.” Mackie sat down. “Go for it.” Kiya nodded. “Um, yeah. It’s a side project I was working on. Maybe this could work, it would be a Hail Celestia play. Anyway, I was tracing the essence deliveries to different buildings. I was planning to come up with a plan for Nina, but it never happened… I have a schedule in my saddlebags for all of the deliveries.” Mackie faced Kiya. “The minute we stop the deliveries, the DA will go nuts.” Kiya sighed like she was dealing with a slow child. “No, we don’t stop them. We sneak aboard a delivery van.” Far nodded. “If we could get past the checkpoints, we could get inside.” Mackie smiled. “Alright. Leethoof gave me a bunch of fake backgrounds and IDs. He also gave me the codes to all of the  security rings except ring four and five. If you can make yourselves look like the ponies on these fake ids, you can get through most of the security.” Kiya looked around. “Well, I’m a Pratt graduate so I think I can do some good illusions.” Margot sat back and thought about the plan. She wondered how they could get onto the truck then once they were in the truck, how would they get past security. Skybreeze looked at Kiya. “How do we get on the trucks?” Kiya shrugged. Jerome spoke up. “I can persuade the guards to give us a quick ride.” Brick snorted. “Really? A quick ride to hell! I doubt that anyone is that good.” Margot wondered why he raised his left forehoof. Jerome smiled. “Brick, what’s wrong with your left forehoof?” Brick looked down at his left forehoof. “What the?” Jerome bowed. “I rest my case.” Brick narrowed his eyes and whispered wanker under his breath. Margot checked to make sure her forehooves weren’t doing anything she didn’t want them doing. “They might scan the trucks when they reach the building. Also, they might see us too in the loading bay. How do we get past that?” Kiya took a breath. “I can scan the empty room and make an illusion. It should last long enough for us to get into the building before they know. We were also studying the scanning spells, so I think I can fool them.” The whole plan seemed sketchy as hell but as she looked at the looks on the other ponies faces, it seemed like they wanted to give it a go. Mackie nodded. “All of the info you need is on this laptop.” Emily narrowed her eyes for a second. “Wait, I need to say goodbye to Tammy.” Mackie looked at Emily. “You named your laptop?” “We’ve been through alot together even before the Gleaners.” Jerome smiled. “Maybe you want time to get rid of the porn?” Emily shot him a glare. Margot faced Mackie then looked at Kiya. “When is the next delivery?” Kiya hoofed through her saddlebags, pulling out all sorts of junk before finding a tattered notebook. Margot was somewhat amazed and somewhat creeped out at how much junk Kiya was lugging about. “Yeah, Margot, the next delivery is at four am several blocks away,” Kiya said. Mackie nodded. “I’ll help and head out of DC. Later.” Things were going fine until they hit a snag. Rarity didn’t want to be a prisoner. She waved her right forehoof dismissively. “I’m sorry but I had enough time as a prisoner. I don’t want to do it. Margot darling, can you switch places with me?” Margot frowned. “Well, if you know how to talk to military folks like you’re one of them, fine. Also the Gleaners know you as the prisoner that escaped from New York. It makes sense to them that you would show up here to free Twilight Sparkle. I doubt they know anything about me.” Margot saw Mackie and Emily exchange glances then he gave her the laptop. Emily opened it up and started typing. Rarity sighed. “Well, I don’t like being called the New York escaped prisoner.” Spike smiled. “Rarity, you’re public enemy Number One!” He pumped his left arm up and down. Rarity grimaced. “Sorry Spike, but that’s one distinction I could do without.” Emily faced Margot. “Sorry Margot, I hate to break it to you, but you’re public enemy number one. I saw a lot of advertisements showing enemies of the DA. Your face is on the top of the list.” Rarity smiled. Jerome stepped up. “I’ve seen her records. Back home she did some work for the military. So she might be the best candidate..” Margot looked at Jerome. “Really, you looked at my records. Do you have that clearance level?” Jerome just smiled wider. Mackie sighed. “Ok, Margot, you get the Staff sergeant, Emily Woods, ID. Rarity will have to be a prisoner.” Rarity sighed. “Well, if I have to be...” Jerome waved his left forehoof. “Don’t worry, Rarity, they probably won’t waterboard you.” Rarity flinched. “Waterboard?” Emily and Mackie laughed. Emily laughed again. “Waterboarding was declared to be cruel and unusual punishment. Most intelligence agencies were forbidden to use it. Also it doesn’t work. Torture is one of the worst ways to get useful info. Even the Gleaners don’t waterboard.” Mackie shook his head. “With Geist getting inside ponies head’s, he or it doesn’t need waterboarding.” Kiya looked at her watch and looked up. “Um guys, we need to get this done quickly because we need time to travel to the ambush zone.” Rarity narrowed her eyes for a moment. “Ambush zone?” Kiya sighed. “The place we’re meeting the truck! We also need to be in position before it arrives.” Rarity sighed. “Fine.” It took a bit of time to get the illusions working and for Margot to make the id cards. Somehow Leethoof had gotten enough info so Margot could make accurate copies. Of course with such a sketchy operation a lot could go wrong. She didn’t want to think about the stuff they didn’t know about the Pentagon. Margot just focused on getting everything ready. It had to work.