Chapter 6: Crusading and Explosions
"So, we can go and explore?" Scootaloo asked Cherry with a devious smile, the earthpony soldier was sitting on a terrace alongside Applejack. The other members of their group were once again training with the earthpony army at the Colosseum in the middle ring of the city like they had been doing for the last few days.
"So long you two stay near to the park." Cherry told the filly with a smile, "And if you think you're in trouble you come straight back here. Got that?" Scootaloo and Applebloom readily nodded, Cherry made a motion with her hoof that the two fillies could go and the two didn't waste any time waiting around. Leaving a cloud of dust behind them Applebloom and Scootaloo ran into one of the larger parks of the city, Scootaloo had a small cloak, with its hood down, which they had bought in the city tied to her barrel to hide her wings.
"So what are we gonna do?" Applebloom asked the pegasus in disguise after they had stopped in the middle of the park in a bush,
"We should try to get our sky-marks!" Scootaloo said with a grin, Applebloom just looked confused.
"Sky what?" She asked, which confused Scootaloo in turn.
The pegasus pointed at her flank, "You know the think on your flank that shows what you're good at?"
Applebloom suddenly realized what Scootaloo was talking about, "Ooh, ya mean your earth talent? Would make sense if ya called it differently with ya'll being able to fly."
Scootaloo nodded, "Yea, anyway. What should we do? I can't try and fly in the city without Cherry watching us so we should do something you want to do." She told the earthpony, Applebloom thought for a moment but then heard a group of other fillies running through the park.
"How 'bout we go play with them while ah think up something we can do?"
Scootaloo nodded, "Beat you to them!" She shouted as she started sprinting to the group of earthpony fillies,
"Oh no ya don't!" Applebloom shouted back as she started chasing but even as she pushed herself to the brink she couldn't catch up to the pegasus who had the advantage of a lighter body. "Hey! What are you guys doing?" Scootaloo asked one of the fillies who were running around, the group stopped to look at her and the one she had spoken to started grinning.
"Tag, you're it!" She shouted as she booped the pegasus on the nose before running away from her. Applebloom came to a skidding stop just in front of Scootaloo who shot a devilish grin to her friend,
"Tag!" She said her as she bolted.
"Oh no, ya don't!" Applebloom said as she ran after the other fillies and eventually cornered a brown colt with a green mane, "End of the line." She said as she closed in on him, "Tag, you're it!" She said as she ran off again, the colt looked around for a target and saw Scootaloo walking by. By the look on his face the pegasus could see herself becoming a target. Bolting for a section of the park that had a lot of trees she expertly weaved herself between them, she might not be able to fly but pegasi training started when you reached the age of six and it featured a lot of obstacle courses. Behind her she could hear the colt falling further behind as she left the trees again at the edge of the park, the two other fillies and Applebloom were already there sitting in a bush.
"He's just behind me you girls should probably start running," Scootaloo said, Applebloom looked over her shoulder and pulled the pegasus into the bush with the others. "What's going on?" The pegasus whispered, the colt that was chasing her appeared from the trees and was also pulled into the bush.
"Don't talk, Chestnut." One of the two fillies told the colt while pointing at an alleyway, any memory of the game of tag disappeared as she looked into the alley. A mare was driven into a corner by a stallion who had a knife in his mouth,
"That's my mom!" One of the fillies squeaked, clearly panicking.
"Mah sister and a soldier are sittin' outside the inn of the prancing pony. Jus' tell them Applebloom sent ya." Applebloom whispered to the colt, Chestnut, he nodded and sprinted back into the park. Meanwhile, the stallion was pawing at the mare who was already down on the ground.
"They're not going to come in time." Scootaloo growled as the other had started filly was crying,
"What are we gonna do 'bout it? He's twice our size!" Applebloom asked the pegasus who just narrowed her eyes,
"You? you're going to wait here. I am going to give that lowlife a taste of pegasi warrior culture." She responded and then smirked, "Might even get my sky mark for it."
"Horseapples." Applebloom cussed as the two other fillies stared wide-eyed at Scootaloo as she charged the stallion without her cloak.
As soon as Cherry had finished her terms the two fillies ran off to play in the park. Applejack was fiddling with the new suit of armor she had bought in the city, Rainbow, Twilight, and Moonlight had insisted that she get a set of armor of her own. Twilight had the pegasus armor altered so that the wing holes were closed, Rainbow was comfortable in her own set and Moonlight said she was fine with her leather tunic she had in which she could hide a large amount of what she had told to be throwing knives. So with the other's approval, she was able to get an earthpony warplate that had a custom gauntlet to allow the extendable blade to be attached.
"Does one of you want anything to drink?" A waiter asked the two, Applejack nodded.
"An apple cider, please," She said.
"Hard or soft?" The waiter in turn asked,
"Hard," Applejack replied while Cherry ordered a regular one, not willing to drink while on duty.
The soldier saw Applejack screwing with her armor again and chuckled, "You'll get used to it, I'm just surprised that you didn't get a helmet with the rest of the suit. It's not like you didn't have the coins for it." Applejack huffed, she had used up most of the money they had gotten from the batponies but since they were living in the barracks they got mostly free food and Twilight and the others were even getting paid small amounts of money for the help with the training,
"Ah wasn't gonna switch mah hat out fer a helmet, Ah've already lost everythin' when mah barn burned down so it's the only thing connectin'me to mah ma and pa." Applejack reasoned.
The waiter came back with the drinks and the two payed the nessecary coins for them. "So I've been meaning to ask, how did you end up with the peculiar group you did?" Cherry asked as she took a gulp from her mug.
"Rainbow showed up in Ponyville and initially we thought she was a unicorn so we got in a bit of a brawl, which Rainbow won, so if it weren't fer Twilight I'd be a goner right now." Applejack told her as she drank from her own mug.
"And you still went with them?" Cherry questioned, Applejack chuckled a bit.
"Yeah, at the time they were trying to travel through Ponyville unnoticed and me attackin' her blew their cover, which also meant me and mah sister became a target since the stickheads were pretty set on capturing those two."
"Damn, it ended quite well though, since you're not in Ponyville anymore," Cherry commented, Applejack couldn't disagree. Over the next fifteen minutes they finished their drinks and shared some banther before they saw a colt running at them. "Ma'am! you've got to come with me!" He shouted in a panic, "A stallion is attacking the mom of one of my friends, Applebloom said you two would help!"
Before the colt fully realized it Cherry had scooped him up and deposited him on her back, running into the park, Applejack on her tail. "Where!" She asked the little pony that was clinging to her back.
"Other side of the park behind those trees over there!" He told the soldier, as they reached the edge of the trees they heard a loud, high pitched, screech. Putting on another burst of speed the two mares charged through the patch of trees to where the sound had come from. Bursting from the treeline on the other side they came to a sight which neither Applejack or Cherry had expected,
Scootaloo was standing on her hind-legs with her front legs in a ready stance while a mare lay on the ground with a filly between her legs and another one that seemed to be conflicted about if she should be cheering for the pegasus or being scared of her. But the most noteworthy thing was the stallion that lay crying on the ground while holding onto his private parts. "PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE, JERK!" She thundered at the stallion. Cherry didn't waste any time in letting the stallion get up and held him down,
"What's going on here!" She asked, the stallion grunted in pain.
"The chicken attacked me," he said, Applejack had to hold back Scootaloo from attacking the stallion again.
"Only because you were attacking that mare!" She responded, Cherry looked at the mare who was holding what presumably was her little filly.
"Ma'am, is that true?" Cherry asked.
"Y-Yeah, the pegasus stepped in just before he could go any further." She said, a couple of other soldiers who had heard the scream earlier came running to the scene,
"Take this stallion away for assault, guys. He assaulted that mare." The two stallions nodded but stopped when they saw Scootaloo.
"What about the pegasus?" one of them grumbled.
"The pegasus is here with the Kings' approval and is my responsibility, you two get the stallion I'll take care of my charge," Cherry said, the two new guards nodded and picked up the stallion, putting the knife in a saddlebag, and led him away.
"Are you okay ma'am?" Scootaloo asked the mare who nodded,
"Thanks to you that is." She said with a small smile.
"Ah think we should end this day prematurely before ya'll get into more trouble." Applejack sighed, Applebloom ran to her,
"We only just started! Can we go and play with them some more? Please?" Applebloom asked with the largest puppy dog eyes she could manage, Applejack looked to Cherry who sighed and nodded. The fillies cheered and ran back into the park, the filly who was hugging her mom was also pushed along with the group with the reassurance that the mare would be okay with Applejack and Cherry.
After letting the kids play for another hour Cherry finally decided that it was time for them to head back to the barracks and they said their goodbyes to the other fillies who had accepted Scootaloo as one of their own which the older ponies were thankful for. When the two had returned to them they had proudly proclaimed that they were going to go on a 'Crusade' to get their flank marks, Applejack almost said 'What could possibly go wrong' out loud but then remembered the incident earlier that day. After the trip back to the Barracks Cherry left for the Colosseum to pick up the others.
"She did WHAT!" Twilight Shouted as they walked back from practice with Cherry, Rainbow meanwhile was having a fit of laughter.
"She attacked that stallion and hit him in the nuts," Cherry said again, Twilight still seemed baffled.
"How can you be laughing, Rainbow!" She asked the rainbow maned pegasus.
Rainbow wiped a tear from her eye, "The first thing pegasi learn the younglings is how to fight as an underdog against a larger opponent since, you know, that's a good lesson to learn when you're still small." She said with a smirk.
Twilight looked at her friend with a blank expression, "So you're not going to punish her or anything for doing something that crazy?!" That was when Moonlight cut into the conversation,
"Punishing her for something she learned from a young age would be unfair, Twilight, and what she did might have been slightly stupid but it was also a brave and noble thing to do."
"Fine." Twilight relented as they reached the barracks, the sun having reached the horizon, inside they found the two fillies playing some games with a few of the soldiers there. "I want you and Scoots in our room with me in just a bit for some more reading lessons." She told Rainbow, Who threw a mock salute with her wing,
"We'll be there lieutenant."
Twilight rolled her eyes as she walked into the room where she and the others had been sleeping for the last days, Moonlight meanwhile lay down on one cots to get some rest. Twilight walked over to a small desk she had gotten to pick up a book she had gotten from the earthponies. She found it on the desk but before she picked it up she noticed something odd, all the writing tools on the table were re-arranged. They were still clearly organized in a way that would make it look like they hadn't been touched, something the earthponies didn't bother with. Slightly suspicious Twilight lit her horn and quickly scanned the room just to be sure, feeling a slight tug on her horn as an indication of a magic storage. Following the higher concentration of magic she found that it seemed to be coming from beneath the floorboards.
"What are you doing, Sparkle." Moonlight asked, having noticed the unicorn's strange behavior. Twilight said nothing and wrapped her telekinesis around a few loose floorboards above the magic cash and pulled them out.
"I don't think we should be... What's in that box?" Moonlight asked as Twilight pulled out a crate from the hole in the floor and opened it. Inside there were four crystals a large flat one at the bottom and three smaller ones fixed on top of it. Twilight's eyes went wide as she recognized what the construct was,
"Moonlight, go to Cherry and tell her to evacuate the building." She told the bat-pony with a level tone, "It's a bomb."
The bat-pony didn't waste time to respond and immediately ran out of the room, Twilight meanwhile inspected the device. The large crystal was the explosive itself and with the way it was charged tampering with it would just detonate the thing early. Two of the three smaller crystals seemed to be part of the detonator, one battery that was slowly charging the other crystal that would fire a pulse into the large crystal making it explode. Twilight's heart skipped a beat as she checked the amount of magic in the battery.
It was nearly empty and Twilight had no illusions about what would happen if it did empty out, in a moment of brilliance Twilight cast a stasis spell on the detonation crystal just as the battery ran out. A sort of static feeling hit Twilight's spell as the crystal fired but was frozen by the unicorn's spell, she knew that if she released the stasis now the bomb would detonate.
Rainbow and Cherry burst into the room, "Twilight the building has been evacuated, you got to go! And Rainbow here didn't want to go as long as you were still in here!" The earthpony said as Rainbow was hovering beside her. Twilight shook her head,
"I can't, you two get out." She told them before she gasped, the third small crystal had turned black and was eating at Twilight's stasis spell, making it increasingly harder to maintain.
"I'm NOT leaving without you!" Rainbow shouted at the unicorn who was straining herself to stop the bomb from detonating,
"If I leave, this thing blows up, Rainbow." Twilight grunted, "I'm not going to try and get away while there are still ponies in this building so get out, NOW!"
"Twi, I don't leave frie-" Rainbow started,
"This thing is going to take out half the building, Dash! What do you think will happen to Scootaloo if you're not there!" Twilight cut off the pegasus, trying to play into the feelings Rainbow had for the little filly.
Rainbow looked troubled for a moment, "That's not fair, egghead." She said as she took a few steps backward to the door, "You make sure you get out you hear me!" Rainbow said before she ran to the exit. Twilight gave a quick nod to Cherry who nodded back and ran after the pegasus.
With those two out of the building Twilight could concentrate on getting out herself, she could try and teleport but she quickly scratched the idea as teleporting without a line of sight would require her to release the stasis.
Another tug on her magic reminded her that she had to find a solution very quickly as the black crystal would completely drain her of magic in minutes, she briefly considered smashing the black crystal but realized that if she did that the energy contained within would come out and disrupt the stasis, letting it explode.
She went over a few other plans in her head but all of them would result in her blowing up. Twilight didn't notice the other pony entering until she was pushed aside by her. She panicked as she released the stasis spell she was casting but no explosion followed, "Leave, Twilight Sparkle." She said as a brilliant golden magic aura surrounded the explosive. Twilight looked at the pony who was hiding herself under a cloak but a sharp white horn stuck through the cloth,
"You're the pony we saw in Whitetail!" She said baffled.
"Yes, my little pony, I've been keeping you safe for a while now." She grunted as the black crystal was now consuming her magic at an accelerated rate.
"Keeping me safe? Why?" Twilight asked, the white unicorn chuckled.
"You were always the pony with the questions, my little star, but I'm afraid this will be the last time I'm able to help you solve your problems. Dark things are waking at the bottom of the world, things that will need to be contained," She grunted as Twilight felt the massive amount of magic being pulled out of the unicorn but she had something else on her mind as she recognized the nickname.
"P-professor Morningstar?" She stammered, as the nickname she had said was the one her former magic teacher had given her. Twilight hadn't seen the pony in a long time as the professor had been accused of treason and disappeared when Twilight was in the officers' school.
"I have set events into motion that I cannot reverse, my little star, the dragon was my first intervention and that took too much of my power already. From this point on you have to be vigilant in keeping yourself and your companions safe." The professor told Twilight as a tear fell onto the ground, "The Empress will stop at nothing when she realizes what you are doing, Twilight. Please, I've done everything I could to help you but now it fall to you to make the decisions. Lead them, Twilight, they will fall apart without you." The professor finished, golden tendrils of magic wrapped around the purple unicorn who was paralyzed by the act.
She's polycasting?! That shouldn't be possible!
The thought went through Twilight's mind as she suddenly appeared outside next to her friends, "Twilight!" Rainbow managed to shout just before the explosive went off. The shockwave knocked over a couple of ponies who hadn't been bracing themselves properly. Cherry looked at the flaming wreck that was essentially her house,
"No-one would have survived if that thing had gone off without warning." She said to no-one in particular. Ponies started running around with buckets of water trying to stop the flames as Rainbow helped Twilight up. "I have to bring you girls to the King, he has to know, and you can't stay in the city if an attack like this is warranted to kill you."
Twilight just nodded weakly and looked at the flaming wreck as Cherry called over a couple of other soldiers to help her escorted the group to the inner ring of the city.
Twilight might have been dazed but she had already decided one thing for sure:
whoever had organized this attack was going to pay for it eventually.