Equestria : 1940

by Georg

19. Everything According to Plan

“And he took all the gold and silver, and all the vessels that were found in the house of the LORD, and in the treasures of the king's house, and hostages, and returned to Samaria.”
— 2 Kings 14:14

The echoes of the scream were still echoing around the hallway when the door fairly exploded off its hinges as Nightshade, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash bolted inside all at the same instant, stacked high, medium, and low. Jon could have sworn he was only a heartbeat behind, but by the time he had his revolver leveled, the fight was over. Two of the green-clad Germans were sprawled out unconscious to either side of the small room, each with a colorful pony on top of them, and an officer of some sort was standing with his hands up in front of Nightshade, inadvertently shielding a civilian in a rumpled suit behind him. For the lack of any other target, Jon put the sights of the revolver where the officer’s grey-green jacket opened up to show a ruffled tie, just below the throat, and spoke quietly as he could in German.

“Make a noise and you’re dead. Both of you.”

The frozen tableau only lasted for a moment until the German officer smiled, a thin gesture totally devoid of any emotion other than cold satisfaction. “Ah,” he said quietly. “Celestia has sent a rescue. Are you ponies, or disgusting creatures like—”

Moving in one fluid motion as if the civilian had planned his actions for a long, long time, the chubby civilian reached forward, slid the officer’s Luger out of its holster, and shot him in the back several times. The crack of the shots filled the room with deafening sound compared to the silence before, and the German officer’s eyes grew large as he collapsed. The civilian also dropped the automatic and lifted his hands just a fraction of a second before Jon was about to pull the trigger on his own pistol.

“Amnesty,” he blurted out in a rapid burst of German while the pistol clattered on the floor. “Sanctuary, refuge, whatever you want to call it, just get me out of here with your people. That’s SS-Sturmbannführer Stein, and he’s the one who did this to your ponies. I had nothing to do with it. I’m a physicist! They forced me to—”

Nightshade uncoiled like a striking rattlesnake and had a foreleg around the babbling man’s neck before Jon could blink. In seconds, he was snapping a set of handcuffs around the man’s chubby wrists while Nightshade held him still on the cold tile floor. “I didn’t do it,” he blubbered into the floor, reduced to a raspy whisper by a furry foreleg. “Please don’t kill me.”

The officer was most certainly beyond saving, letting out his last breath in a gurgle of blood and not even twitching on the floor while the rest of the ponies stared in shocked horror.

“Rainbow, watch the corridor,” hissed Nightshade. “Take Ember. If the Germans on the floor below heard those shots, we’ll have to run. Twilight, find the hostages now!”

“Moondancer?” Jon could hear Twilight Sparkle suck in a desperate breath while the pitch of her voice showed she was trying her best not to scream. “What did they do to you?”

In all of the chaos, Jon had not noticed the table before. He wished he could not pay attention to it now. The body of a unicorn mare lay stretched out on it, bound down by chains and disguised from his casual glance by a wool blanket thrown over the top and weighted down by a damp, bloodstained sledgehammer. There was one leg sticking out, with a bloody white piece of bone protruding from her shin, but a far worse sight drew his attention higher. Those anguished eyes held him spellbound, as well as the cruel way chains had been fastened to immobilize her head so that her horn could be…

...shattered.

The pressure of the butt end of the revolver felt good to Jon when he pressed the barrel against the civilian’s forehead. Not as good as squeezing the trigger, but since the chubby man had killed the German officer first and could have easily killed Jon if any of the bullets had passed all the way through their target, he was content to settle for second best. “Why?”

“The other room,” the man whispered. “When we arrived, the unicorns were being uncooperative, so Herr Stein ordered their horns to be chained. One of them went mad when the iron went around its horn. Attacked the guards and got shot dead. Please—”

“Stop.” The whisper from the maimed unicorn barely rose over the clinking of the chains as Twilight’s friends worked on freeing Moondancer. “Doctor Houtermans tried…”

“Stay down, Moondancer. You’re hurt.” Twilight held a hoof over her old friend’s chest, although that did not stop the battered mare from struggling around to look over the edge of the table and spitting bloody phlegm on the cooling corpse of the German officer.

“We made a breakthrough,” she rasped. “Sturmbannführer Stein… From the Sicherheitsdienst, the security services. He brought Doctor Houtermans to verify…”

At that, the maimed unicorn sagged into unconsciousness.

“Buggerit.” Nightshade pointed with a wingtip at the other door in the room. “Pinkie. You’re with me. Twilight and Rarity, get your friend out of those chains. Jon—”

“Handcuffs,” he growled, putting away the unfired revolver and getting into his knapsack. The fat man made no attempt to resist his brusk cuffing, nor did the two unconscious green-clad guards. Both submachine guns and the pistol were put on the other empty table for now, and Jon moved over behind the two ponies getting ready to storm the room next door.

The storm provided to be more of a drizzle, thankfully, with far too many ponies chained together inside the limited space, and the distinct scent of urine in the air. Five ponies were huddled together, with both adult unicorns wearing some sort of cast-iron cone wired around their heads, a pegasus mare with a poorly bandaged head wound, an earth pony stallion who had been viciously chained with all four hooves together, and a tiny little unicorn foal who huddled up against the wounded pegasus. Her oversized metal horn cover had been wriggled out from underneath, and some tiny sparks shot from the stubby bare horn as she pointed it at Jon and squeaked, “Stay back! Don’t hurt Mommy!”

Something about her fierce demeanor struck Jon as bizarrely humorous, but before he could muster a tense laugh, Pinkie Pie gasped.

When Jon looked at the body sprawled out across the desk on the far side of the room, with a stake hammered into its chest and bloody bullet holes across its sides, he could not help but gasp in horror at what he saw also. Sharp bared teeth, coagulated green blood, and a chitinous skin instead of pony fur made for a gruesome sight. Whatever the creature was, it certainly had been killed by excessive gunfire, and the splintered chunk of wood driven into its chest was only from paranoia. Hopefully. This was not turning out to be nearly the hostage rescue mission he had hoped for.

“W-what is it, Pinkie?” he managed. “Nightshade? Have you ever seen any… thing like that?”

“No idea.” Nightshade swallowed hard and looked around the room. “We’ve got extras, and we’re missing Lemon Hearts. You don’t think…”

Jon swung his revolver to point at the terrified ponies trembling in their chains, then holstered his gun and bent down to see if he could start freeing the hostages with the key he had gotten from the officer’s pockets. “No, they’re not. The doctor said that thing went crazy when it was chained, like a Fey creature when confronted with cold iron. It’s dead, and not important right now. We need to get these ponies out of here, quietly.”

“Do you mind if I carry your Mommy?” asked Pinkie Pie once Jon had gotten the injured pegasus unchained. She bent down and wiped a tear off the little foal, who had not moved one step away. “What’s her name?”

“I don’t know,” whispered the foal, who was still clinging to the groggy pegasus like a life vest in an ocean of violence. “The b-bad men tried to catch us on the road and she attacked them. They shot her. They shot at her a lot, but she didn’t fly away. Then they threw us both in the car trunk. Then they shot the crazy bug unicorn. Don’t let them shoot me. Please.”

“She’s my sister, Dinky,” said the next prisoner Jon unlocked, a purple on purple unicorn who could have passed for Twilight Sparkle’s scrawny little sister except for the unkempt mane. “I’m Sparkler, that’s Quantum, Rutabaga, and I gotta use the bathroom now.” With that, she darted into the nearby room and hurtled herself onto the human toilet, not even bothering to close the door behind her.

“Quantum?” asked Jon as he bent to unlock the earth pony’s heavy shackles.

“Rutabaga,” he responded, moving the first hoof that had been unlocked to the side so Jon had better access to the rest. “How many of the Royal Guard did Celestia send for us?”

“One.” Nightshade was still working with Fluttershy on unwrapping the last unicorn’s bindings, which included a great amount of thick copper wire around his head. “Once we get you all free—”

“And pottied,” said Dinky.

“Um, yes. And go to the bathroom, we have to get out of here.”

It was the first international hostage rescue mission to have an intermission in the middle so everypony could pee and take inventory. And a strange inventory it was.

The two extra unicorns had been hiking in the Norwegian countryside during the German invasion with their father, who as far as Jon could tell abandoned them to flee when the first parachutes blossomed over the town. Sparkler and her little sister Dinky had spent most of the intervening months scavenging out of gardens and yards, being shuttled from home to home by sympathetic locals. That is until last night when they had been nearly run over in the middle of the road by Sturmbannführer Stein and captured, with the addition of a grey pegasus who had flown to their rescue and been downed in a hail of gunfire. Strangely enough for all the bullets that supposedly had been flying around, the only wound she had was a graze to the head, but the littlest unicorn in the hostage group had glommed onto her like the mother she did not have, and Derpy, which is what they called her, seemed to appreciate the attention.

That left Rutabaga, a stubborn older earth pony and long-term resident of Hovin who had been swept up by the German occupation and tossed in with the three-unicorn research group for lack of anywhere else to keep him.

Then, of course, the Canterlot research group of Quantum, Moondancer, and Lemon Hearts. Quantum was nearly useless, lost in some speculative space between his ears, Moondancer was being carried despite her protests about being able to walk, with her head wrapped up in extensive bandages and the fragments of her horn collected just in case anything could be done with them, and Lemon Hearts…

Jon was stuffing the dead insectoid creature into a military body bag when Nightshade slipped up to him, intentionally ignoring the nauseating sight. “We’ve just about got them all ready to go. Fluttershy and her rats are scouting the exit route ahead of us, Applejack is carrying Moondancer, Sparkler is carrying Dinky, Pinkie is carrying Derpy, and Rutabaga is going to carry your bagged bug, although why in hellfire you want it is beyond me.”

“She was Lemon Hearts,” hissed Jon through clenched teeth. He really did not like blood, red or green, and the creature felt cold and stiff under his slick fingers, which did not help. “She’s one of Celestia’s subjects, or at least was pretending to be one, and I don’t want to have to explain to Celestia about leaving her when we get home,” hissed Jon while lashing the opening closed. “Nopony deserves this.”

“Well, that makes sense, I suppose. Still, it’s the first thing to get dumped if we have problems. Any last orders before we go?”

“No. Wait, yes.” After wiping his hands, Jon dug one of the thermos bottles out of his knapsack, made sure it had a green top, and tucked it under his arm. “I’m going to break one of those over anything that looks like paper here when we go. It’s supposed to be transport fire, and will carry anything it burns back to Celestia.”

“We should do that for the file cabinets in the lab in the basement,” said Quantum suddenly, his pale blue eyes looking a little less spaced out for a moment. “Too bad we can’t take the isotopic filter when we go.”

“Isotope filter?” echoed Jon.

“Oh, yes. It’s a breakthrough in isotopic separation.” The peach-colored unicorn smiled, looking off into the distance. “The Germans were very interested in it. That’s why Sturmbannführer Stein was sent here. It’s only a prototype now, but they should be able to expand Lemon Hearts’ work in Forschungslaboratoriums für Elektronenphysik inside of a year. Where is Lemony anyway? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“Eee…” Jon gritted his teeth hard enough that he could taste iron. “Nightshade, take the hostages and the team. Send Ember back here, and we’ll catch up with you in the stairwell.”

“But—”

“Or I’ll have Pinkie lead them out of here,” he added.

Nightshade’s lips were so thin they were barely lines. She gave him an icy look that promised the conversation was not over yet, then turned and began to chivy the small herd out into the hallway. The German officer had quite a bit of paperwork scattered around tables, which had gotten mixed in with the older hydroelectric plant papers from the office’s original purpose. The broken green tubes of dragonfire treated them all the same, licking them up in hungry cold flames and launching the smoke out of the nearby window that had been opened for just that purpose. Somebody at Celestia’s end of the process was going to wind up hip-deep in scrambled papers from all of the rescue teams tossing green tubes into random file cabinets, but that really did not bother him at all right now. He was just emptying the dead officer’s pockets when Ember came strolling through the door behind him.

“Hey, I didn’t think we were supposed to loot.” The fairly small dragon cocked her head to one side and regarded the last wisps of smoke departing the room. “And you’re supposed to loot before you burn. Even hatchlings know that.”

“Help me put these guys into the other room.” Jon gave a grunt, hefted the officer’s corpse, and began to drag. The Luger along with the submachine guns of the guards had vanished off the table, although he knew exactly where they were. As they were leaving the room, Rarity had converted her mobster-ish outfit into one for a ferocious gun moll, with all of the firearms floating around her. Jon really did not know if she could fire them all at once but at least she knew how not to fire them, and he had no desire to ask what kind of experience she had with guns. Underestimating ponies was a bad habit. Underestimating dragons too, which became obvious when Ember almost casually hefted one of the unconscious guards and carried him into the other room, despite him being nearly twice her size.

“Why drag them in here?” she asked while headed back for a second load.

“The last thing we need is somebody stumbling on them while we’re leaving,” explained Jon. He grabbed the remainder of the military identification papers from the tunics of the passing passengers and tossed them on the last pile of papers. “I’ll send this to Celestia, you weld the steel door closed, and even if somebody wanders up here, they’ll never know. All they’ll see is an empty room.”

“Yeah, right.” Ember closed the steel door to the pony’s former prison and breathed a quick line of fire down the doorframe, spitting into the lock just to be sure. “They’ll never notice the big pool of blood right there.”

It isn’t polite to curse in front of a lady. Particularly one who could gut me with one claw.

He sent the papers to Equestria with one stick of green dragonfire, breaking it over them and dropping it before the flames erupted and engulfed the entire pile. Once they stepped outside, Ember wordlessly welded the office door closed, and Jon picked up the only sign they had been in the corridor, a black military cap that had rolled out of the room when Doctor Houtermans had been so impolite as to shoot the former owner in the back.

“Step eight, done. Now for step let’s get the hell out of here.” He put the cap on just so he would not have to carry it and hurried to the stairwell, which echoed with the sound of ponies down below even though it sounded as if they were being as quiet as possible.

“Weld?” asked Ember once they were in the stairwell.

“Damned right.” Jon waited until the draconic spot welding was finished, then followed Ember down the stairs, with his pistol drawn just in case. It was probably too much to expect everything to continue as planned when so much had gone wrong already.

They passed the door on the second floor of the stairwell, with Ember giving it a solid welding into the frame just in case, but he held her back on the first floor door for fear that the soldiers moving around on the other side might smell the smoke.

His position on the tail end of the evacuation left Jon waiting nervously in the basement elevator lobby while Ember welded the staircase door closed. Behind him, he could hear the muffled noises the hostages made while working their way down the narrow corridor back to the other building, the one that Jimmy had wired for a getaway fireworks display.

Which perfectly explained how Jimmy and Spike were coming back through the tunnel doorway. Not.

“The chemical towers in the other building are cast iron,” said Jimmy. “They’re built like safes, so we had to double up on the demolition charges. We’ve got the pencil detonators stuck in the blocks all ready to have the acid capsules crushed on the way out. If you’ve still got your charges, we’ll just follow the wee lasses and—”

“Got something that needs to be blown up here,” said Jon quietly, taking a look over his shoulder at the open elevator cage. They had not been talking very loud, but with that many Germans from the anti-aircraft battalion sleeping upstairs, he really did not want to take any chances.

“Quantum said they were developing some sort of isotopic separation system down here in the basement. He’s one of the science unicorns. Not really all there, as far as I could tell. More than most unicorns, I suppose.” Jon unslung his knapsack and checked the contents, which seemed to be explody enough to take out whatever kind of laboratory was hidden down here in the basement.

The two humans and two dragons were all that was left of the rescue mission in the basement, with the clattering sounds of the ponies growing quieter in the tunnel. Whatever they were going to do would need to be fast if they were going to catch their ride. Then again, the cloud would most probably take two trips to get the hostages and the ground-bound ponies up to Ruby, so they had more time than Jon really wanted.

“You’ve got a German officer’s hat,” said Jimmy. “If there’s a guard inside the room, you knock on the door and he’s just going to see the face and the hat. We can force the door when he opens it, secure him, toss him into a closet while we rig the place to blow, and make tracks.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Jon pulled out his revolver and checked to make sure he had replaced any expended shells. “The door that Ember sniffed out is over there—”

Jon followed the direction he was pointing, only to see the hind end of the peach-colored unicorn sticking out of the doorway, and the face of a startled German guard attempting to work the action on his submachine gun. Apparently while the humans had been discussing their plan, Quantum had simply walked up to the door to his laboratory and opened it, to the shock of the guard and the baffled consternation of the clueless egghead pony.

There was no demand to stop from the guard when he saw the loose dragons and unidentified humans, just the stuttering explosions of his submachine gun and the whining of slugs ricocheting around the concrete walls of the basement. Jon and Jimmy went flat, although they both sprinted in the direction of the door once the first burst of slugs stopped and Quantum could be heard to say in a most aggrieved voice, “Now that wasn’t very nice.”

The guard’s submachine gun was being held in Quantum’s almost colorless magic field, which prevented it from firing any more. Rather than try to force himself past the unicorn and into the half-open door, Jon shot the guard twice in the chest, then twice more for good measure when Quantum recoiled away in apparent horror. The revolver’s sound-damping spell was still working, even though it would have been difficult to hear anyway with the stentorian echoes from the German’s brief attempt at putting an end to their lives.

“Aye, we made a right bags of that,” said Jimmy as he skidded to a halt. “Ah, shit!”

“Room’s clear,” said Jon, taking a quick look around the open laboratory area and not seeing any more Germans or doors. “Set your charges, grab Quantum, and let’s get out of here before they come storming down the elevator.”

“That’s a problem.” Jimmy had his hand clutched between his legs and blood was making a mess of things rapidly. “Ricochet shot my fucking finger off, I think. Doesn’t hurt much yet.”

“Got it,” declared Spike, producing a roll of bandages and scurrying over. “Twilight made me learn all about human— That’s an awful lot of blood.”

It had to have only been a few seconds, but Jon was feeling like hours had already passed since the first burst of gunfire. “Ember. Quantum. There’s an electrical distribution panel down here in the basement somewhere.”

“Next door down the hall,” said Quantum, who looked up from the guard’s body with what could have been a spark of self-awareness penetrating through his foggy brain. “We needed access to the full output of the hydroelectric generator in order—’

“Go put it out of action. Fire or magic, I don’t care, then get back here fast. No juice to the building means no elevator.”

“Means no more bullets,” said Ember, grabbing Quantum and pushing him down the hallway. It was more than a little disturbing that she had acquired a limp during the short gunfight. One teal leg had a bright patch much like a bruise across her scaled skin, which he simply did not have enough time to worry about at the moment as long as she could still walk.

Jon darted back into the laboratory, taking just enough time to dig his flashlight out and put it on a table before pulling out the wrapped blocks of explosive. There were a half-dozen short steel cylinders connected by piping and thick electrical cables against one wall, which made good spots to stick the charges and jab in the detonators, two per location as Boom Boom had lectured. He almost did not notice when the lights to the building went out with a solid ‘whump’ and a sharp hissing noise that followed because he was so intent on getting the plastic blocks and detonators set with tubes of glowing red dragonfire tied on for extra credit points.

He had just gotten the last block of explosive set when Spike called out behind him. “Hey, Mister Walthers. Quantum got shocked by the electrical panel, so Ember’s carrying him back to the other building. Jimmy says the elevator’s jammed and we should get the f— That is we should leave the second you’re done.”

“No argument here. I just wish we could take this with us.” Jon patted a silvery donut packed with wires and tied into a short maze of piping. “Let me get the capsules crushed on the fuses and you can weld the door closed behind us, so nobody disturbs our work.”

Use pliers to crush the capsule. Tug out the stiff plastic tab. Move to the next detonator, trying not to move fast. If one of the acid capsules broke their wire early and released the spring-loaded firing pin, yanking out the plastic tab that blocked it from the impact fuse would be a terrible mistake that he would not live to regret. Any kind of resistance and the tab was to stay.

From the sounds he heard behind him, Spike was using his own fire to send the contents of the filing cabinets on to Celestia, which was probably better than letting Twilight Sparkle’s baby dragon play with explosives. The last pencil detonator seemed slightly reluctant to allow the plastic tab out, so he left it there and stood up.

“Come on, Spike. Time to go.”

“Just a second.” Spike had climbed up on the equipment and squinted at the dinner plate sized silver donut of the isotope widget. “I think I can get this out.”

“Do it now or never,” said Jon. He dumped the cylinder on his revolver regardless of the mix of fired and unfired shells that rattled down on the floor and stuffed six new .38 shells in. The sharp hissing of focused dragonfire lit up the room, and a few seconds later, the little dragon headed for the door with his trophy in hand, sliced out of the wires and pipes just as neatly as if Jon had taken a whole day with a cutting torch. In fact, Jon had to hustle to scoop up his knapsack and get out of the door before Spike reached it, giving him only a moment to look back with the light of his flashlight playing across the rows of smoke-stained filing cabinets before the door closed.

I hope Celestia isn’t standing right under all that paper when it shows, or it could knock her flat.

“Done,” declared Spike, giving one quick pat against the line of molten steel tracking down the doorframe before grabbing the silvery donut of the isotopic whatzit. They all headed out of the basement tunnel, which got slammed closed behind them and both steel latches slid closed to hinder the pursuit that would inevitably follow.

Both humans hustled along behind the dragon, Jon with his knapsack clanking to the tune of glass bottle souvenirs that somedragon had stuffed inside and Jimmy with one bandaged hand stuck in his armpit and the .45 held awkwardly in his left hand. By the time they got about halfway down the pitch black tunnel, a bouncing source of violet unicorn light could be coming up the other direction. In moments, Twilight skidded to a halt in front of them and reversed course to trot along with the rag-tag bunch of saboteurs.

“Nightshade’s taking the first group up now,” she panted. “What took you so long? How did Quantum get injured? What happened to you?” Twilight Sparkle’s magic reached out as they ran and re-wrapped Jimmy’s bloodsoaked bandage, and although she winced at the blood, she did not slow her brisk pace while Jon spoke.

“Made an unexpected stop at Moondancer’s lab. Spike brought back the widget she was so worried about. We’re clear, although I’m not sure how long it will take for the Germans to recognize what happened and break through the doors.”

“So we’re still in Option A, set to transition to B at any time, with Option C held in reserve,” said Twilight, giving a brief nod as if putting an imaginary checkmark on a mental checklist.

“The fuses aren’t crimped on the main building,” said Jimmy. “Jon and I will get them started, but the first gunshot we hear, we’re headed back to the staircase, just like the plan.”

“What’s left of it.” Jon scooped up the silvery gadget out of Spike’s claws, stuffed it into the knapsack, and passed the clunking bundle over. “Twilight, take the isotope thing and go back to the roof. If we’re not back by the time the cloud lands—”

“Take off without you?” Twilight Sparkle’s eyes were huge and white in her violet hornglow.

“No. Wait for us.” He gave out a sharp sigh and stopped at the tunnel’s far doors, giving a quick look inside the cavernous dark building filled with pipes and shadowed machinery before gesturing the unicorn on. “Sheesh, you’ve been watching too many movies.”

Haste makes waste. Waste in this regard was an Equestrian friendship specialist turned into a thin red smear and distributed around a bunch of nitrogen fixation equipment in a Norwegian chemical plant in the middle of the night. Jon tried his best not to ‘haste’ anything. The absence of any howling sirens or gunfire outside helped.

“Next to last one is around this corner.” Spike had taken point in their chemical plant tour, holding Jimmy’s flashlight and keeping alert for any disturbances while Jon crimped the fuses on each of the explosive charges. Jimmy’s job was far simpler. If he saw anything out of the ordinary, he was to shoot up in the air, and the resulting concussion from the .45 would bring batponies Two A and B to provide cover for their immediate retreat.

One shot - Run.

Emptying the magazine - Run faster.

“Charge nine, fuse one and fuse two, crimped,” said Jon, easing the little red plastic safety tags out and sticking them in his pocket out of some misguided instinct in the back of his mind to avoid littering. “Head to the last charge and we’re out of here.”

The grinding noise of a side door being opened up ahead caught Jon by surprise, made only more dramatic when the German patrol flipped on the light switch inside the door frame and the whole area lit up. Jimmy flattened up against the bulk of a machine while Spike was too short to be seen over it, but Jon could see both Germans about twenty feet away at the door looking straight at him, although also blinking.

“<Sir!>” said the first one with a brisk salute. “<I didn’t know anybody else was searching inside the building. Have you found any sign of the intruders?>”

“<Not in here,>” responded Jon in his best German, giving a quick prayer of thanks to God that he was still wearing the dead officer’s hat, and that construction equipment blocked their view of anything below his neck. “<Check around outside the building. And turn off that light!>”

“<Yes, sir!>” The soldier turned off the light switch and the patrol went back outside, leaving Jon to blink in the darker darkness, trying to figure out where that burst of inspiration had come from and just how long the patrol would be distracted.

Jimmy popped up with the .45 automatic in his left hand and the flashlight clumsily gripped in his bandaged hand. He scanned the empty doorway, then turned to Jon with a whispered, “Run like a rabbit and to hell with the last charge?”

“Since it’s on the way out, get it as fast as we can without tripping over something and breaking our neck, and we’re gone,” said Jon. “Come on, Spike.”

“Jawohl, mein Kapitän, said Spike with an unseen smirk.

While they hurried along, the insides of the building passed in a red-tinged blur from the flashlight’s filtered lenses, giving Jon a terrible sense that they had missed the door to the stairs and were going to wander around the industrial construction zone for hours. The last charge took only a quick moment to set by crushing the capsules on the pencil detonators, hardly even a pause, then they kept moving. When they finally reached the stairwell door with two worried batponies peering out, it was a complete shock to his senses.

He hustled Jimmy and Spike inside first, giving one last look around the empty building before closing the door and climbing. The stairwell guard batponies, Two A and B, were just about as nervous about the whole production as he was, seeming to jump with every clang of their hooves on the steel steps as they ascended, with their tails frantically swishing from side to side.

The roof was not empty as Jon had feared, but held the last two batponies, Twilight Sparkle, and a jittery Rarity.

“Thank God,” said Jon, taking a long look at the distant anti-aircraft packed ridge and the glimmer of flashlights in the surrounding buildings. “I didn’t even want to think about running back down the stairs and trying the go-to-hell escape option. The roads will be covered in checkpoints shortly, and the only terrain around here is either up or down.”

“We’ve each got a Peter Pan if we have to fly,” said One A. “Four of you, four of us, and Spike can hitch a ride with Twilight Sparkle since she’s so skinny.”

Rarity ever so slightly turned away from the chatty batponies and looked off into the cloud-strewn darkness, as if she were hoping to shoot something with the four guns she still was keeping near her. Thankfully for Jon’s fraying nerves and their concealment, her arsenal had been placed on the gravel surface of the roof instead of floating in her glowing magic. The distant sound of a siren prevented Jon from making a futile attempt at peacekeeping, and he could feel his heart sink as lights began to illuminate areas on the distant rocky ridge where the anti-aircraft units were sited.

“They’re sounding an air raid,” said Jimmy. He checked his watch awkwardly, wincing when he bumped his bandaged hand, and nodded. “An’ we still have ten minutes or so until the first charges go off. What’s takin’ that bloody cloud so long?”

“Rainbow Dash took the prisoners too,” said Rarity in a rather terse voice. “The rather chubby one, and the three guards that Nightshade knocked out. Since the building we are standing on is going to blow up, that is.”

“I agreed with her decision,” said Twilight Sparkle. “I didn’t want anypony… that is anybody else hurt.” She eyed Jon with more than a little suspicion. “You didn’t leave a bomb with the other prisoners, did you?”

“No,” said Jon quickly. “Ember welded them into their room. Although I had to shoot another guard when we raided Moondancer’s lab. Wearing green, so he must have been one of the Sicherheitsdienst also. I’ll bet Sturmbannführer Stein—” Jon tapped his officer’s black cap “—brought them with him as his own private policing force when he was notified of Moondancer’s technical breakthrough. That means he probably radioed the local anti-aircraft units to deploy here first, a day or two ago. They’re regular army and wear field grey.”

“A ghastly color,” said Rarity, settling her dark fedora more firmly on her head and adjusting a loose seam on her greatcoat so she looked a little less obvious on the rooftop. “For humans, of course,” she added, giving the four attentive batponies a long, contemplative look, which they pretended not to notice. “For ponies, it goes with simply everything in subdued shades, and can be quite sensual. When this distasteful episode is all over, bring your marefriend by my shop and we’ll see what we can do. Perhaps something with silver chasing, and seed pearls.”

“When this is over, I expect to be explaining myself to an angry court martial board,” said Jon. “Provided they can find my enlistment paperwork. But for now, M’lady, it seems our chariot has arrived, and none too soon.”

All of the batponies had looked up at the same moment, so it was a fair guess that the transportation cloud had just emerged out of the drizzle.

“And a cloudwalking spell for you,” said Twilight Sparkle, moving past Spike to Jon. “And a cloudwalking spell for you, and for Mister Jimmy.”

“I’ll take it, but I’m hoping you got a wee bit of brandy for the trip home,” said Jimmy, still cradling his bandaged hand. “That finger I’m missing is hurtin’ a great deal, wherever it is.”

The cloud sat down on the rooftop with a soft not-noise, allowing Ember and Nightshade to be the first and only ones off. Ember went straight over to the four batpony mares and began directing them to the best places under the cloud to lift, while Nightshade cornered Jon and Jimmy.

“Charges set?” she asked.

Before either of them could answer, a deep rumbling sounded in the distance, and dust could be seen blowing out of several dark windows in the other building, followed by flames. Several other muffled explosions followed, and the shrill sounds of alarms pierced the night, adding to the wail of the air raid sirens. Jimmy started, and found himself in the awkward position of trying to hold a flashlight in his left hand to look at his watch. When Jon took the light and held it, the Canadian gave a low whistle.

“The red ones are less than half-hour fuses. No wonder Boom Boom said to not trust their timing.”

“With that being said, ladies, under the cloud with the descent team, please,” said Nightshade. “Let’s get it stable before our passengers climb on. Rarity, make sure—”

“To hunch down under the coat, because I’m a colorful beacon as we ascend,” she said while fiddling with the collar on her dark brown gun moll outfit. “It’s a burden I must bear.” She arranged herself at the cloud ramp behind Twilight Sparkle, looking only a little like a soggy marshmallow in the drizzle.

“The cloud’s a little unstable.” Nightshade gave it a poke and frowned at the water that poured out. “I’m going to need each of you to carry your Peter Pan devices, just in case somepony drops through.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to tie us all together?” asked Jimmy. “If the cloud breaks, and I never thought I’d ever say that, we wouldn’t be separated.”

Jon was not paying the process of loading much attention. As designated tail of the combat train, he was scanning the distant rocky ridge to the north and counting the number of anti-aircraft units from the flashlights darting around. Far worse, a beam of brilliant light shot up from a previously unseen spotlight and began to probe the soggy clouds. If it happened to sweep over Stone, lurking in reserve on a nearby cloud, or worse, swept down into the valley to where the last of his team was loading…

“Get your ass in here, Jon,” called out Nightshade quietly. “I think if we’re very quiet, and drift up and to the south—”

A piercing childish scream sounded, “Look out!”

Nightshade was a coiled spring of darkness leaping for him just about the same time Jon noticed that the distant searchlight probing up into the sky also scattered enough light that he was quite obviously visible on the building roof. Far worse, the two German soldiers who were in the process of coming through the stairwell door onto the roof could see him too, and one of them was raising his gun.

There was a stuttering burst of explosions and light that slammed Jon to the gravel roof just as hard as Nightshade’s impact, punching him in awkward places but not dislodging the revolver from his hand. In the glow of the distant searchlight, it was difficult to see the sights on the gun, but he lined them up as well as he could on the doorway and began to squeeze the trigger. It was a horrible mismatch with one sharp flash of light on his regard in exchange for what seemed like a thousand shots from the Germans, whizzing overhead and kicking up gravel.

Then Rarity used her magic to pick up the guns on the roof where she had carefully placed them, and the disparity in the exchange of fire rapidly shifted.

“I’m supposed to shout something while shooting,” she shouted over the sound of automatic weapons fire, “but I don’t know what it is!”

Although the two green-clad Germans had fallen back inside the stairwell, there were others behind them. A grenade bounced out onto the roof, only to reverse course rapidly in Twilight Sparkle’s magic and vanish into the stairwell fast enough that it most probably would explode on the other end of the metal catwalk. Quantity of fire did not necessitate quality, so Rarity’s bullets were making pockmarks all over the front of the cinder block building while the return fire was going high, since the guards were all on the stairs below line of sight. Jon was still fumbling shells into his revolver when Rarity’s machine-gun barrage abruptly stopped with a set of short clicking noises.

“Rarity!” Spike leapt off the cloud and scurried over to the door before letting out a blast of dragonfire that made the guards on the stairwell scramble for cover.

“That’s no way to breathe fire!” called out Ember, who swooped off the cloud and landed next to Spike. “Watch this!”

This time, the fire that roared down the staircase was much stronger, leaving screams of panic in its wake from the soldiers scattered across the metal catwalks below. Jon could feel the backwash of heat that lit up the entire rooftop, with a light that did not go away. It cast the red splatters of blood across his arms into terrifying highlights, and was made only worse by the way his right leg did not want to move when he tried to roll, and the growing numbness in his left shoulder.

Still, all of those paled into near-insignificance when he realized that the inert weight of Nightshade on top of him was not moving.

“Spotlight!” called out Twilight Sparkle. “Move the cloud to cover the wounded before they see us. Spike and Ember, keep that doorway covered in fire. Ruby will be down in a few moments since we gathered so much attention!”

“So sorry, darling,” said Rarity while using her magic to jab a replacement magazine in the vague vicinity of the bottom of her expended submachine gun. “I do believe they shot first!”

Twilight took cover behind a corner of the cinder block elevator machinery room and peered around it, looking at the blinding light coming from the rocky ridge above her. “It’s not going to matter if they keep that spotlight on us, and I don’t have enough magic to hit it from here.”

There was a short flicker of light from the ridge and glowing balls of fire seemed to float down at them, vanishing overhead and crashing into the rocky darkness instead of turning the rooftop into a exploding hell. Before the anti-aircraft gun could adjust its trajectory, a massive dark shadow dropped out of the sky, and fire erupted up from the ridge in a long line, leaving burning vehicles and an exploding spotlight in its wake.

“MENSCHEN!” bellowed a terrifying voice that fairly exploded down from the darkened sky. “<The King under the Mountain is dead and where are his kin that dare seek revenge?>”

Even with his night vision ruined by the spotlight, Jon knew it had to be Stone. He sounded absolutely furious, and his German could have been taken from Martin Luther himself, if the old priest had railed from the pulpit on Revelations, with text from Tolkien. While Jon held himself over Nightshade’s motionless body, trying to stuff his kerchief into a bloody hole in her chest, he could feel the ground shake as Stone swept down out of the sky between bellowed phrases. Gunfire filled the night with blazing streaks of light and explosions, thankfully away from their building, as the other batponies crowded in with medical kits and bandages.

“No,” croaked Nightshade when Jon tried to take off her punctured back-and-breast. “Stuff bandages beneath it. Armor will hold pressure. Medical enchantments.”

They pulled him away from Nightshade at the same time Ruby landed on the roof so hard that her clawed feet sank into the concrete to her ankles. She shoved her face forward into the stairwell and breathed once, a titanic blast that warmed the roof under Jon’s skinned knees and cut off the gunfire below like a razor, although there was one last blast of a grenade far too close for comfort.

“They’re both hurt, Twilight!” Fluttershy had almost teleported to Jon’s side where the batpony bandaging his shoulder had effortlessly sliced the greatcoat and his tweed jacket away with an unseen blade attached to her wingtip, as well as his pants where the other bullet had struck. “We need clotting spells over here, now!”

Twilight snapped a response without a pause. “Spike and Ember, onto our transport! Rarity, help Fluttershy bandage! We need to get them stable before we take off. Everypony else, stay on Ruby!”

“How’s Nightshade?” gasped Jon through the pain of having a wad of gauze jammed into the hole in his hip and other cloth strips being wrapped around it until Fluttershy tied them together into an ornate bow knot.

“She’s alive, darling. The guard armor stopped most of the bullets, but…” The way Rarity cut off left a cold weight of dread in his heart, distracting him away from the agonizing pain of a spell as his wounds burned with blue light. Instead, he tried his best to focus on the sound of Stone, battling the German anti-aircraft units in their own language.

“<Girion Lord of Dale is dead, and I have eaten his people like a wolf among sheep, and where are his sons’ sons that dare approach me? I kill where I wish and none dare resist. I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today.>”

“Put pressure here, here and here,” ordered Twilight Sparkle. “We’re going to put you in the same bag so I can maintain the clotting spell easier. And… lift.” Magic surrounded Jon, floating him helplessly up into the air and stuffing him into one of the transportation bags strapped to Ruby’s side. A heartbeat later, Nightshade also was nestled into the same bag, along with his flashlight and the German officer’s hat, now with a ragged bullet hole in the top.

“Dragons loaded,” called out Jimmy from up in front somewhere. “Humans secured. Unicorns getting into their bags now. Spike, relay that to Ruby.”

“I understand English,” snarled the reddish dragon, seeming almost black in the damp night. “That last blasted grenade blew up in my face. I think I’ve got metal splinters in my eyes.”

“Scoot over, Jimmy. Ember, can you sit on Ruby’s neck and guide her out of here?” asked Twilight in more of a command than a question as she climbed into the transport bag with the other human. “And not you, Rainbow!” she added with what Jon was fairly sure included a magical lock on Rainbow Dash’s transportation bag.

“On it!”

“My armour is like tenfold shields,” bellowed Stone somewhere in the distance. “My teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!” The declaration was topped by the distinct sound of dragonfire, and several subsequent explosions as ammunition cooked off in the blaze.

“We’re leaving! Everybody, sound off!” continued Twilight Sparkle. “Puff and Thistle.”

“Here! You stepped on me!” sounded from inside Jon’s crowded transportation bag. Two little wriggling balls of fluff and trouble squirmed their way up until they were nearly eye-level, looking oddly flat in the ruddy red light of his filtered flashlight. “Is… she going to die?” asked Puff so quietly that Jon could barely hear her over the distant thunder of anti-aircraft fire and Twilight’s continued counting of the rescue team and hostages.

“Not as long as I’m here,” managed Jon, despite one of the little troublemakers putting a hind hoof into his bandaged hip during her climb.

“Darned right,” said Nightshade. She opened one golden eye a crack to look at Puff and Thistle. “Do you two think you can turn your backs for a few minutes. I’d like to do some kissing without your comments.”

“Ewww!” declared Thistle while sticking his orange tongue out.

“Gross!” added Puff.

Nightshade smiled, but gave a worrying cough too.

Then Ruby launched straight up into the damp air, guided by Ember holding onto her neck like some sort of barbarian, lacking only a spear or a pennant to make the scene complete. In relatively few minutes, they were above the cloud cover and still climbing as their course shifted in a long ascending spiral. Jon kept light pressure on the bandages where he had been ordered, trying to ignore the warm dampness under his fingers while looking around. All of the bags on his side of the dragon were full, including the one with the three tied-up German sentries, one of whom was peering out the top with wide eyes. The rest of the ponies and Jimmy were likewise peering out of their bags, while Rarity was covering their rear with her reloaded submachine gun like some sort of draconic tailgunner.

At first, Jon did not expect Stone to appear, but in due time the immense dark bulk of the dragon appeared out of a cloud and climbed up to their altitude. Although the anti-aircraft fire below was thin and scattered, with none of the shells ascending to their level, the fight had not been totally one-sided. There were gaping holes in the giant dragon’s wings, moonlit silver trails of blood traveling down his torso, and far too many charred holes in his armored chest that still smoldered with the explosive residue that caused them.

“Twilight Sparkle,” he called out much weaker than normal as he closed to fly by their sides. “Are the ponies safe?”

“All hostages are safe,” she declared. “Everypony and everybody made it out, thanks to you.”

“Good.” Those huge wings faltered for a moment, and his voice tightened to a shadow of its previous power, forced out between laborious strokes. “Tell Celestia. And Luna. They will always. Be my friends. Remember me, Twilight.”

With that, the huge dragon simply folded his wings and dropped.

“No!” shouted Twilight Sparkle, climbing almost out of her bag with her horn lit up as if she were about to leap after him. “Don’t die!”

“Oh, no you don’t, lassie!” snapped Jimmy with both arms around Twilight’s slender waist and his legs braced inside the bag to keep them from both falling. He wrestled the unicorn back into the bag regardless of his injured hand and held onto her, preventing an avalanche of batponies who had tensed up in preparation for leaping after her. Jimmy held onto Twilight until she stopped struggling and just looked over the edge of the transport bag at the falling dragon. She was still wrapped up in the human’s powerful embrace and crying nearly as much as he was. “You can’t save him,” rasped Jimmy. “He’s dead already.”

The immense form of the dragon vanished into the cloud layer as Ruby continued to circle, only turning her course to the west when the thunderous sound of explosions bellowed up from below and lit up the clouds in sheets of crimson fire.

“It’s my fault.” Nightshade leaned her head up against Jon’s unbandaged shoulder and trembled, although she continued in quiet English. “I should have heard the Germans coming up the metal staircase.”

The slipstream of Ruby’s rapid flight made the thick canvas of their bag thump against them, aggravating their covered wounds and making them huddle together much like affectionate porcupines, just close enough to stay warm and far enough apart not to bump sensitive bandages. The situation was made even more uncomfortable since Puff and Thistle were snuggled up to them for warmth, which warranted speaking in English to avoid unwanted curiosity.

“I should have watched the staircase,” countered Jon. “Or had Spike weld it closed.”

“That would have blocked the emergency escape route for anybody without wings.” Nightshade put her sharp chin on his shoulder and whispered, “Mission’s over. We lived. Since we’re getting court martialed and thrown out of the service anyway, wanna get busy?”

“You’ve got both of your wings bandaged up with more holes in them than a colander,” said Jon, feeling significantly uncomfortable even if Puff and Thistle had not been snuggled up to them. “You’ve got a couple of holes in your back, and one in your chest. Between the two of us, we must have lost a gallon of blood, and you want to… no.”

“We’re going to wind up civilians anyway,” said Nightshade, feeling along his leg with her entirely too curious tail. “Why not go out on a high note?”

“We can go out when we’re healed up,” said Jon. “And on the ground.”

“Finally!” huffed Nightshade. “I’m going to hold you to that. But first, something more important.” She lowered her voice and put her nose practically into his ear. “I don’t want to die a virgin,” said Nightshade with a giggle.

“You should have thought about that a few months ago,” responded Jon. “Besides, Ruby will eat me if we have sex.”

“What’s a virgin?” asked Puff in accented English with both of her furry ears perked straight up.

“What’s sex?” asked Thistle right on her heels with a similar alert pose.

Jon looked down into the dark bag at the four glittering golden eyes staring back, then over at Nightshade, who had moved up to nose-rubbing distance. “You better not die, because I’m not explaining the birds and the bees to your big-eared little siblings,” he murmured.

“Ngmph,” murmured Nightshade, shifting positions and giving out a wince. “I think Twilight Sparkle gave me a shot of morphine. Nothing hurts as much as it should.”

“Probably shock. I’m not feeling it as much—” Jon winced. “Wrong hip,” he added.

“Sorry. Was trying for the buttons.” The inquisitive hoof stopped poking around Jon’s waist, Nightshade coughed slightly, then added, “Which one of you two little troublemakers called out that warning when the soldiers came out of the stairwell?”

There was a brief silence before Puff quietly squeaked, “Me.”

“I saw them first,” said Thistle.

“But I yelled first,” countered Puff.

“But you wouldn’t have yelled if I hadn’t pointed,” said Thistle.

“And we both would be dead if you had not called out a warning,” said Nightshade. Her voice was not projected nearly as forcefully as before, which worried Jon. If it kept getting weaker, she was getting weaker too, and he tried his best to turn the focus to something he could control instead.

“I don’t think either of you were supposed to be on that cloud, either,” said Jon.

“We’re not supposed to ask about sex either,” said Puff in such a matter-of-fact way that Jon almost snorted with laughter. “Mama’s got a whole ‘Later’ list for us.”

“Later’s no fun,” said Thistle. “Nightshade will be back later, little ones. You can have candied apples for dessert later, after your broccoli. You’ll get your cutie marks later, so don’t be impatient.”

“I’m going to have to be patient, Mister Later,” whispered Nightshade as she nestled up to his warm neck. “Oh, I’m so tired. Wish I could sleep. Hurt too bad.”

Jon carefully touched her on the forehead, then peered into her eyes with the red filter on the flashlight. There was a groove on her helmet, and although the bullet had not penetrated, it made one of her golden eyes slightly larger than the other. “Headache?” he asked.

“Two of them.” She laboriously shifted positions to get one foreleg around Puff, who had started to slip down the bag, although she gave up trying to boost the little filly any higher after one weak grunt. “Seriously, I’ve never been this tired before. Or frightened. I’m just glad you’re here.”

“I hate to admit it, but I’m glad you’re here too. Anyway, we’re on flight option three, then?” said Jon as he mentally paged through the plans for their hostage rescue mission. The first option had been to simply fly straight through the night along an ocean route between Britain and France, across the Bay of Biscay, and land in Portugal at dawn. The second was to land at Dover to rest, then go on from there. The third, he had not liked very much.

“We’ve got injured ponies and people,” said Nightshade through clenched teeth. “Edinburgh is our best option. Oh God that hurts.”

“Sorry,” said Thistle, and stopped touching her on the chest bandages.

Jon cracked the flap on the pony transport bag and peered out into the windy darkness. “Ember! We’re going to the hospital in Edinburgh, right?”

“Go tell your grandmother how to suck geodes!” snapped Ember. “We’ve been headed there since we left.”

It set Jon back a step, even in his quad-occupied ponybag, and made him look at the violet glowing ponybag directly in front of him where the other human was stored in close proximity to Twilight Sparkle. Hopefully, whatever they were doing in there was friendship related, although there was a lot of wriggling going on from the moving bumps and lumps showing on the moonlit canvas surface. It probably did not involve sex. Probably. Although Twilight had snuck into his own bed that once, and he had read strange things about surges of emotions following near death experiences...

“Already navigating there, Commander,” came Jimmy’s booming voice in response. “The wee lass here is taking star sightings and plotting our course on the map. Ow! Watch the sextant, lassie. Should be about two hours.”

“Two hours and five minutes,” called out Twilight Sparkle. “Adjusting for crosswinds, growing fatigue, migrating seabirds—”

“Two hours,” shouted Jimmy. “I’ve been there before, so I can guide Miss Ember and Miss Ruby to the hospital. You two just stay back there and enjoy the trip.”

“Thank you, Jimmy!” Jon avoided saying anything more about the hefty Canadian enjoying his own trip in such close quarters with a curious female unicorn. Besides, she was still holding the clotting spell on his own injuries, Nightshade’s bullet holes, and most likely Moondancer, wherever she had been stowed. Obviously, she would be too busy for ‘other’ explorations. He settled back down into the bag and pulled the flap shut, then gently discouraged an exploring tail. “That’s not the kind of enjoying the trip he meant.”

“Will you tell us a story?” asked Puff somewhere in the red-lit darkness of the bag. “That would be fun.”

“I bet Nightshade knows all kinds of stories” added Thistle.

“I don’t really feel like talking right now.” Nightshade stifled a short cough and wiped her mouth on his shoulder. “I’ll bet Mister Walthers has all kinds of stories about his adventures, though.”

“I’ve never really had adventures before this… week,” countered Jon weakly. “I mean I’ve been places and seen things, like the pyramids of Egypt and the Valley of the Kings.”

“And motorcars,” prompted Thistle.

“And aeroplanes,” said Puff. “And big giant buildings full of humans and the big white house that the American princess lives in and—”

“Okay, I’ve seen a lot of things that I really don’t appreciate.” Jon took a moment to consider what two small batponies who spent their entire life in a small rocky valley in northern Equestria might think of Washington D.C. with thousands of bustling humans and all the monuments and museums. “I suppose. Provided I don’t bore Nightshade. She’s not supposed to fall asleep until we get to the hospital.” Jon muffled a yawn and considered how cold he was feeling also. “There’s a wool blanket in the bottom of the bag. Ouch! Careful! Ow!”

Just like a real bat, the little batponies had the same tiny ‘thumbnail’ at the upper joint of their membranous wings, allowing them to scale rough surfaces like Jon’s slacks and most of his tweed suit. He provided a convenient ladder for the two tiny terrors to use while retrieving the warm wool blanket, which felt absolutely divine when he got it wrapped around them both. Well, them fourth, counting Thistle and Puff.

“Once upon a time, there was an ordinary young human who decided he wanted to see foreign lands, just like his father had traveled when he was young,” started Jon.

“And he came to Equestria?” Puff gave little hops of joy which turned into quiet immobility at a quelling glance from Jon.

“He went to Egypt,” said Jon. “With a bunch of elderly professors, some eager graduate students, and an Equestrian named A.K. Yearling, who specialized in artifacts.”

Jon had never thought he was much of a storyteller until the dragon tilted downward and descended through the thick cloud cover for an endless period of time. The cloying greyness lasted far too long before it swept away and the lights of the damp city began to drift into sight. Stiff muscles twinged and his hip gave out a sharp dagger of pain as he checked his watch, gave it a shake to listen to it rattle, then turned to Nightshade, who had been very quiet.

“We’re here,” he murmured in a hoarse voice, trying to keep Thistle and Puff from kicking anything sensitive as they peered over the edge of the ponybag at the growing lights of Edinburgh. “Nightshade?”

There was no response, although her chest seemed to move slightly in the reddish glow of his flashlight. There was far too much dark blood soaking the surface of her bandages for his own hammering heart, and he repeated far too loud, “Nightshade! Twilight, she’s not responding! How close are we to the hospital?”

“Close,” called out Jimmy. “Change course, twelve points to starboard, reduce speed to half, increase your descent!”

“I still can’t see anything much past my nose!” growled Ruby.

“I’ve never landed in a city!” shouted Ember.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight Sparkle came nearly all the way out of her ponybag, with Jimmy holding her around the waist again while she pointed. “Fly ahead of Ruby and guide her. We need to land in the parking lot behind the hospital, next to the doors on the north side.”

“Got it!” A colorful blur streaked in front of Ruby’s nose and began to shape her descent to a streetlight-lit building below.

“We’re almost there,” said Jon just as calmly as he could to the immobile batpony. “Hang in there, Nightshade.”

“Coming up on your landing flare,” called out Jimmy. “When we get on the ground, let me do the talking. They’re not going to take ponies seriously, and they’ll run away from the beautiful lady transporting us.”

Jon wanted to say something about the entirely too small space in the car park they were headed down toward, mostly about it being entirely too small, and partially about the number of cars about to get crushed.

And they did crunch rather dramatically when the dragon backwinged to a halt and dropped to the pavement, with only a few passers-by in the darkness taking the time to gawk at the unexpected sight.

Jimmy launched himself out of the ponybag and headed for the glass doors of the hospital, bellowing at the top of his lungs. The few nurses and patients stumbling outside were all in mute shock, partially due to the immense dragon resting in the wreckage of their expensive automobiles, and mostly because of Jimmy’s prolific profanity delivered at maximum volume and point-blank range.

“Aye, ye frightened bairns! Ah'm needin' a gurney fur General Nightshade an’ the rest o’ my soldiers, any doctor ye ken, an' Ah'm needin' them noo! Git movin’, ye gowks! My grandma cuid shift quicker than that!“

Ponies began to flow down the sides of the dragon as they popped out of the bags and helped the wounded even as a few policemen’s whistles could be heard in the background. It was a chaotic mess that faded in and out of his vision, because not all of the blood soaking the wool blanket and the ponybag was Nightshade’s, after all.

Twilight Sparkle did not even try to lift Nightshade and Jon out of the bag when the second gurney trundled up in the hands of a white-eyed orderly. A single slice of her magic opened the bag like a popped soap bubble, and she floated them both down to ground level.

“I don’t know if she’s breathing,” said Jon, who was trying his best to stand on either numb leg that several hours stuffed into the ponybag had not helped. “She’s going to need blood and surgery at the least! You have to—”

The touch of a hoof on his fly nearly made Jon jump out of his sodden boots. He looked down at Nightshade, looking so small and frail on the white sheets of the gurney, although with a tiny smile curling up the corner of her lips and letting bright white teeth glitter in the streetlights.

“Gotcha,” she whispered.

It was too much for Jon to handle between the shock and blood loss, and he let the darkness carry him away.