//------------------------------//
// Chapter 32: Even the Best Laid Plans..... 
// Story: Of Men and Insects 
// by VeganSpyro97 
//------------------------------//

Allan stared at the young man inside the room behind the glass, happy that it was underground and had no identifying features. Yesterday's supplies were already being put to use, and he was glad to sense a definite rise in good feelings all around. His friends were scattered about the complex, helping in any way they could. Allan himself was fast proving just how useful a Changeling could be when siding with humans. 
“Clean.” He stated, the glow around his horn fading. “You can let him in.” 
Trust had been established with the supply run yesterday, begrudging, but enough to allow Allan and his friends to be useful. Screening returning scavengers was Allan's new job, seeing as he could sense Changeling magic, since it was so similar to his own. 
“Well?” Richard asked, as the young man was let inside. 
“The Changelings are staying close to their hives right now, just the few usual patrols here and there. I checked the tripwires in the sewers, and none of them have been sabotaged. We’re still in the clear.”
“Good. We’ve had to relocate too many times already. We’re running out of places to run to.” Richard sighed, waving the young man away. “Go rest Toby, you’ve earned it.”
“Thank you, sir.” Toby hurried away, no doubt eager to find his hammock.
“How many times has Chrysalis almost found you?” Allan asked, concerned.
“Too many. Half a dozen at least.” His father replied, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “We started with almost two hundred people hiding out in the old hockey arena. Now there’s just over a quarter of that.”
Allan said nothing, eyes downcast. 
The door was knocked on again, for the third time that day. Connor opened the door, just like he had when Allan had brought Katie back, and brought the new person into the screening room.
Allan bit back a gulp. He had been dreading this reunion. “She’s clean.”
Anna Rois stepped inside, her clothes hugging her body, the outfit hastily put together to muffle sound and emphasize stealthy movement, as with all the scouts. She stared at Allan as Richard moved to talk with her, before dragging her eyes back to Richard. “The bugs are still watching the old hideouts. There’s far too many to try sneaking in for the stuff we left behind.”
“Thank you Anna. Allan, that’s everyone who was out today. You two go and….talk.”


*******************


“So it’s really you.” Anna said, simply. Her lack of joy betrayed her lack of belief, and Allan had to force his body to stop trembling. She’d hate him for sure. “You came back.”
“Yes…..” Alan's voice quivered just as much as his body as he sat on his chair, nursing his mug of coffee. “Yes it’s me.”
“Yeah, right.” Anna snapped, eyes burning. “You aren’t him. You’re just a bug sent here to fool us. You all are.” 
Allan winced. Her disgust burned on his tongue. “Please, Anna, I-” 
“You’re not him, so don’t fucking call me Anna like that!” She snapped, slamming her mug down, hard enough to dent the plastic table between them. “I don’t care who you are, but you listen to me, and ‘you listen good. I am going to find your stupid bitch of a Queen, I’m going to blast her face off with a shotgun, and then I’ll tear her heart out and eat it in front of all of you little drones! I don’t give a damn that you’ve got everyone else fooled. I see you for what you are, and the only reason I haven’t shot your face off is because everyone else seems to think you’re the four-legged Jesus!” Her cup shattered against the wall behind him, drenching him with scalding coffee that he barely felt. “You so much as put one hoof in the wrong direction, your little friends will be picking you off the wall in pieces, got it?”
Allan just nodded, ears flat against his head as he watched his oldest friend leave, hands balled into fists. 
“And when the real Allan comes back, I’m gonna enjoy watching you squirm!” She threw back over her shoulder. 
Great talk. “Anna….” His voice was a whimper as he said her name, feeling his colours dull nearly to grey as he considered her words in silence. They hurt. Deeper than he cared to admit. His oldest friend had just screamed in his face and accused him of being a monster. He stared down at his hooves, trying to see if, just maybe, she might be right. Was he really a good person? All this suffering had been going on while he pranced around Equestria like a stupid dick, marveling over every little thing, when he should have been focusing on getting back home. 
His mouth was filled with a taste of offal and bile, thanks to the deep feelings of hatred that Anna had 
“So, the prodigal son returns.” 
Alan's head jerked up, colours immediately returning at the familiar voice from the doorway.
“Joshua!?” 
“Long time no see, bug brain.” Josh’s grin was looking a little worse for wear, since it was missing a tooth that it hadn’t been before, but the young African-American man was still grinning like a Cheshire cat nonetheless. He was dressed in grubby, grimy clothes like everyone else, but he seemed to be in much better spirits. “Whole hideout’s been talking about you, ya know? Lot of fear mongering about you being a spy, but I don’t believe a word of it.”
“You don’t think I’m a spy?” Allan could hardly contain his joy at the idea that someone still trusted him here. “Really?”
“Really. Spies don’t just walk in through the front door with a target on their back. Looking like you do, that’s pretty much what you did.” Josh moved up to give Allan a hand-to-hoof shake, before settling himself in Anna’s empty chair. “Your dad gave me the lowdown on what happened to you while you were gone. Crazy shit. But I’m ready to believe a lot of crazy things these days.”
“You have no idea how happy I am to hear someone say that.” Allan gave a grin of his own. “How’d you guys avoid Chrysalis for so long? Dad told me some of the more recent stuff, but I don’t think he ever told me how you guys originally slipped under her radar.”
“Your sister figured Chrysalis out early on, then she warned us. We immediately started using the sewers to get around, since we figured it’d be safer. Very next day, the bitch started her more public reign of terror, and we went and got your parents. She’d left them alone, still pretending to be you. Said she wanted stuff from your apartment. When she first started appearing in public, we made the connection real quick. After that, we just started hiding where we could, and eventually, found this lot hiding out too. After that, we just kinda….stuck together.”
Allan nodded, thinking through what he had just been told. “Guess it wouldn’t matter much to Chrysalis what my family did after she’d revealed herself. She’d be free to do whatever she liked.” He shuffled his hooves on the table, his eyes moving across to stare out of the door where Anna had stormed off. “I take it you heard my last visitor?”
Josh nodded, sighing. His shoulders slumped and his smile vanished. “Oh, I heard her alright. So did most of the damn building, she was so loud...guess she just can’t accept the idea that you’ve changed so much. Not that denying it helps at all.”
The room fell silent as the two friends thought about Anna. 
“Must be weird. Being back.” Josh broke the silence. 
Allan didn’t respond with words, at least, not immediately. The silence prompted Joshua to redirect his attention from where he had been idly tracing random lines on the table with his finger. What he saw wasn’t what he expected. Allan was the one who had deflated now. “....Do you...do you blame me for not coming back sooner?” The Changeling asked. “If I’d focused more on training, and spent less time goofing off….you wouldn’t be in such a bad position now.”
“Come off it.” Josh’s voice was waspish, it’s owner directing a glare at Allan. “You aren’t the be all and end all of this stupid scenario. You coming back later or earlier would do next to nothing to improve our odds against that bitch.” Josh slapped his palm down on the table, eyes flinty. “So stop wasting time and energy shouldering the blame, and get busy doing something about it! You want to improve our odds? Tell us more about her! Her strategies, her way of thinking, anything!” 
Allan stared right back at Josh for what felt like an eternity. That eternity only lasted the space of seven quick heartbeats, and struck Allan to the core.
Do something about it. Those had been Josh’s words. Do something about it. Allan narrowed his eyes, furrowed his brow, and let out a breath, before hopping off of his chair and onto the floor, wings buzzing excitedly. 
“You know what? You’re right.” Allan grimaced, shoving thoughts of self doubt and self-demeanment to the back of his mind. “I am wasting time just sitting here. Let’s change that.”
Josh grinned. “Now that’s the Allan I used to know.” The young man stood up, grinning. “So what’s the plan?” 
Allan smiled.


***************************

`Allan crouched low, waiting for the right moment. He was hidden among the rubble of what had once been an old comic book store near the edge of the dome, and he was searching for something. He had a plan, and he was going to do his damnedest to find a way to use it if it meant fighting off the entire Changeling swarm alone. Not that he was alone. 	
Not far away, just a few feet, in fact, Josh, his father, and Twilight were waiting for him to give the signal to get up and run, once the Changeling patrol they were hiding from had moved on. His sensitive eyes picked out the Changeling’s dark carapace’s easily in the dark streets. 
It was the early night, the kind of night that sent the sky spinning with the glittering of a billion stars. With a huge swathe of the valley no longer lighting up the sky with their electric lights, Vancouver’s night sky had become riddled with the diamond glittering of a trillion points of light, stretched out across the sky in the familiar band of pale, wispy, cloud-like shapes that made up the entire Milky Way Galaxy, it’s soft reds and pinks streaking through the velvet blues like a highway through a prairie, or a great ship through a vast ocean. 
Unfortunately, they could not revel in the unintended beauty that Chrysalis had delivered to them, and instead, they waited for the Changelings to leave.  They slipped away almost silently, the only noise that gave them away being the low buzz of their wings as they flew to the next street. 
Allan turned to his companions and waved his hoof, before vaulting over the crest of the rubble pile and flying quickly across the street to the oddly open and intact building that stood their. 
The blocky, concrete structure opened into a wide corridor that soon doubled back on itself, before descending down beneath the street level, where it hid a secret from prying eyes. 
While Chrysalis had been busy making sure that the sewers couldn’t offer the humans an escape, by sealing all the tunnels leading out of the dome, Allan was certain that she had missed something that most Vancouverites also took for granted. The Sky-Train. 
While the public transit system was s almost entirely above ground, there was one line that passed underneath the ground for a time, before emerging on the other side of the Fraser River. The station there was far beyond the scope of the Queen’s dome, and if his hypothesis was correct…
The others quietly sprinted over to join him, before coming to a halt on the edge of the stairwell that lead down. 
“You know she could have already figured this out, right?” Kathy panted heavily. Sneaking and sprinting across half the city had started to get to her, as well as Richard and Josh. “We could be walking into the most heavily guarded demolition camp on Earth.”
“We have to try.” Allan replied. “Celestia arrives in five days. We have to make sure we get anyone who can’t fight out of here. We can’t be effective if we’re constantly trying to protect them as well. We get them out, and at the very least, Earth’s governments will find out what’s going on in here.”
“So…..after that, then what? Five days of dodging the bullets and spells until miss Sunny comes and saves us?” Josh quipped, earning a glare from Twilight. Josh blanched at the sight of the death stare and tried to block the pony out of his sight as Allan answered.
“With civilians out of the way, we can focus on observing Chrysalis’s defenses, attack patterns, anything that could be of use.” Allan explained. “And besides, it’ll take us time to get the vehicles to transport everyone out of home-base. Moving that many people that quickly would be too slow to chance it on foot. That’ll take a day or two to find something big enough, and fast enough. We drive them here, and Twilight will send them flying down those tunnels in a Sky-train car….if there aren’t a bajillion Changeling’s down here.”
“Let’s stop wasting time and find out, then.” Richard growled, hefting his melee weapon, a sledgehammer he’d picked up from a hardware store at some point in his adventures. The elder man trudged off down the stairs, and with a shrug, Allan followed. Kate and Josh went down next, before Twilight did a quick visual and magical scan of the surrounding area to make sure they weren’t being watched, and then glided down on silent wings. 
The darkness was overwhelming, the beams of the group’s flashlights and the aura’s of their light spells the only source of light without the electrical systems running. The subterranean station was dirty and smelled of something awful without the constant supervision of janitors, security guards and pest controls, and it’s bright white walls were now a grimy yellow, and a thin layer of dust carpeted the floor Thankfully, they weren’t leaving any tracks for the changelings could follow, as Twilight kept beating her wings gently as she walked, sending small gusts of wind to rearrange the dust and erase their trail. 
The climbed over the now stiff and unresponsive entry gates, getting a decent scare when Josh accidentally kicked one of the plastic surfaces, emitting a dull but loud *THUNK* sound that had them all waiting with baited breath for the sound of buzzing wings. 
None came, much to everyone’s relief. 
Following the station  down, they finally reached the platform, a Sky-Train just barely in sight of the platform, pointing in the right direction. 
“Great! No Changelings, a Sky-Train just over there to use, and, if I’m right…..” Allan took to the air again and flew down the tunnel, for quite a long distance, before his voice drifted back to them. “.....I’m where the barrier should be! But there’s nothing! And the track and tunnel look intact! I can see a bit of moonlight at the far end! This is it!” He came zipping back along the tunnel to them, eyes wide and an excited grin on his face. “There’s even a ladder out we can use to escape if things go bad! It’s perfect!”
“Uh, dumb question.” Josh started. “Why aren’t we all just leaving? Screw finding out about Bitch-Queen’s plans! Let’s just get everyone out and let Princess Sunny bring her army in to kick Chrysalis’s ass!”
Allan's joy quickly turned into a frown of disappointment, ears flat against his head. “You honestly think that’s the best plan of action?”
“Yes!”
“Then perhaps I should inform you that my teacher has actually lost to Chrysalis before.” Twilight interjected, moving between the two. “And Chrysalis was weaker then.” 
Josh stared at her. “You’re joking.”
“Does this look like my joking face?” Twilight retorted, almost jabbing Josh in the face with her horn as she drew herself up to her full height, eyes narrowed dangerously. “She almost beat us twice. And both times, we only won because she overlooked minor details or ignored people because they were “too weak to pose a threat”. She isn’t stupid. She won’t make the same mistake a third time. Oh, and did you forget that she’s had eight month’s and several thousand human minds to think about how best to beat us?” Twilight looked at him pointedly. “I’m a prodigy back home. Quite possibly the smartest pony in all of Equus. Not even I can beat her now. The only chance we have is to band together. Humans, ponies, and good Changelings alike. Together, we might just be able to pull this off. But not if you leave.”
Josh stayed silent. Twilight nodded in satisfaction, before flying off to start pulling the Sky-Train up to the platform. Better to do it while they weren’t holding off an army, after all. 
“Alright, so that’s part one.” Allan grinned. “Now for part two.” 


************************************


Sneaking back to the hideout was simple enough, and so Allan laid out the groundwork of his plan, with Twilight taking stock of supplies and munitions, weapons, vehicles, vehicle fuel, and of course, people. Once she had finished that, she went to work creating Changeling detection devices, taking over an entire room to use as a workshop as she tinkered. 
The plan required the resistance to get two buses, which were in short supply across town. They finally managed to find two by going back to Allan's old school, where several damaged buses lay around. With some magical assistance and engineering know-how, they were able to use parts from nearly all the buses to get two of them in working order. 
It took several hours to finally figure things out. “Alright, Agent Grey, you’ll be going with the escapees, to deliver this information to your superiors, but only once you use one of these to verify the identities of the people you entrust it to. It should glow green if they’re Changelings.” Allan presented him with a amulet that was softly glowing green in his presence. Twilight quickly cast a spell to mask Allan's magical signature, and the amulet turned purple. 
“What’s to stop Chrysalis from doing that?” Richard asked, from where he stood close by. 
“She’s a Changeling. I can hide Allan from the detection spell because I’m not a Changeling. If she tried, it would just detect her magic and light up anyway. Also, I did just create that blocking spell, took me three goes, but I did it, so she shouldn’t know how to cast it.” Twilight’s explanation fell out of her mouth at a mile a minute, and a faint call from the Armoury got a chuckle out of everyone. 
“Egghead!!” 
Twilight’s blush ran deep. 
“Doc.” Once he had finished laughing at his friend’s expense, Allan turned to Doctor Hooper. “I need you to use that big brain of yours to come up with a way to toughen up the buses, and make them run faster. Think you can handle that?”
“That, I can manage.” Hooper nodded, before setting off on his appointed task.
“Dad, I need you to get everyone up to speed on what’s happening. The only way this goes off without a hitch is if we’re all on the same page. Then, I need you to help Rainbow and Twilight modify the weapons and protective gear to be more effective. Show her what parts she can’t change, and which ones she can. Twi, you and  Rainbow come back here when you’re done.”
“I’ll get to it.” 
“See you in a little while, Allan.”
“What about us, Sugarcube?” Applejack asked, prompting Allan to join the other four ponies. “It seems that everybody else has a job to do except us.” 
Allan smiled. “The five of us? We’re going to train.” His sword burst free of his gauntlet in a shower of shadowy particles. “Hit me with your best shot.”


***************************


The museum was quiet. Night had fallen quite some time ago, and other than a few night guards, everyone else was asleep, or trying to sleep, before the big plan in the morning. 
One of those guards, was Connor Murphy. 
Sitting in his chair, watching the world outside the window he’d been assigned, he gritted his teeth and brought his cigarette to his lips. Fuck bug boy. Fuck his Dad, too. Fuck everyone. They were going to lose. Connor had realized that pretty early on, and regretted just how much his conscience was holding him back from doing what he wanted to do. 
He pulled out his knife and started using the sharp tip to dig the dirt out from under his nails, when a voice spoke to him. 
“Hey there, big boy.”
He jumped up, bringing his knife to bear on the intruder, ready to stab them in the face for- oh. “Katherine. Sorry. You scared me.” His lack of genuine concern for almost killing her would have made anyone else look at him in contempt or horror. 
In fact, once he actually took in her appearance properly, he was the one who reared back in horror.
Katherine didn’t look right. There was a thick bile dribbling from her mouth, and her eyes were glowing a soft, putrid green, in a bizarre way that made her pupils look like the slit eyes of a cat, or a lizard…..or a Changeling Queen. 
Connor was not unintelligent. He put two and two together and fell to his knees, eyes wide as he stared up at her. “C-Chrysalis?”
“So they told you my name, did they?” Katherine’s face twisted into a sneer. “Oh well, not that that actually matters.” She sneered down at his grovelling form in amusement. “Begging for your life already? I must say, that is a record. They usually squeal for a bit first about how life isn’t fair. Again, not an issue. Being prompt and candid is refreshingly different.” Chrysalis waltzed herself over to his chair and sat herself down in it, taking his knife from where he had dropped it as she went. 
“Stand up.” She commanded. 
Connor stood, not daring to make her angry by disobeying. 
“Incredible. And I thought the ones I controlled were quick to obey.” Chrysalis chuckled, idly tracing designs into the chair’s arm with the knife blade. “Here’s the deal,  meat-head. I know you hate Ryder. Both the boy, and his father. Tell me why, and I may just consider letting you live as my pet.”
Connor stared at her for a moment, unable to comprehend what he had just heard.
The knife stopped, and a sudden tightness developed in her jaw muscle. “Well?”
Connor gulped, before launching into his tale. “Allan used to go to my school! I was three grades ahead of him! I always hated how Anna Rois liked him and his friends and not me! I always hated him for telling his sister not to go out with me! I hate him for always stopping my fun! I hate his father because he locked me up for getting drunk and for confiscating my Dad’s old knife! He never gave it back and it was all had of him!”
Chrysalis smiled, leaning forwards. “You mean, the knife in the evidence lockup at the police station?” 
Connors face couldn’t have been more priceless, covered in sweat and grime, and gawking in awe at her. 
“I’m looking at it right now, actually.” Chrysalis smiled, leaning back in the chair, folding her fingers over each other in a pyramid shape while holding the knife between them. “If you were to help me do something, then I would be most grateful.” She unclasped her hands and leveled the knife at him. “I might even consider returning your precious heirloom to you, to remember your dear old daddy by as you serve me in the new world.” 
Connor didn’t have to think twice. “I’m listening.” 
Chrysalis was suddenly in his face, knife pressed against his throat.
Connor wanted to run in terror, but instead, he held perfectly still. “I’m listening intently.”
Chrysalis grinned, before slowly pulling the blade away from his skin. “I think I like you, Mr Murphy. Perhaps I’ll even let you be my right hand man.” She drew back, her upper face obscured by shadows, leaving her eyes glowing and her mouth as her only visible feature. “Trust me when I say that this will destroy Ryder, in all the ways that matter most. This is what you’re going to do for me, Connor…..”


***************************


The sun rose on the third day since Allan's return, and the plan had started to hit snags already. Doctor Hooper lacked the necessary materials and parts to beef up their transports, and Twilight was behind on her modifications on the weapons, since the guns had too many vital and moving parts that her magic kept interfering with, even at the most benign levels. Richard was struggling to maintain order, as people were starting to realize just how risky the plan was. Her best guess as to when they would be ready left only hours between their success and Celestia’s arrival. 
Allan sighed, trying to figure those problems out as an arrow came streaking towards him. He vaulted over it, before throwing a stun spell back at Fluttershy, forcing her to dive aside with a squeak of surprise, before she drew her bow up again and fired, this time ducking immediately behind cover once the arrow was loose. 
Allan knocked it aside with a thought, horn flashing once, before he blasted the box Fluttershy was hiding behind. It didn’t break the box, like it would have if Twilight had been the one to hit it, but it did draw out another scared squeak from Shy. 
“Sorry!” He called, before losing another spell. “And again!” Even as Fluttershy squeaked again, he quietly chided himself. “I am far too Canadian…”
An arrow bounced off his head. Being a dulled, practice arrow, it just stung a bit. But that wasn’t the surprising bit. The surprising bit was that the arrow had hit him in the side of his head, and not the front. 
Allan frowned, before trotting over to where he had thought Fluttershy was. A pair of adorable mice gazed back up at him before squeaking loudly. 
She’d tricked him…..
“Clever girl.” Allan grinned in approval. Maybe this morning wasn’t all that bad.


***************************


The time had come. One last check before they risked everything. Everyone knew this attempt to get the non-combatants to safety would be almost guaranteed to be a suicide mission, but after everything that had happened, after the months of oppression and fear, they all knew and accepted the risks. 
There were a grand total of thirty people out of approximately seventy seven who were staying to fight, hence why a single bus would have been enough to get everyone out safely. But the leadership was hedging their bets. Splitting the group in two made each group an easier target on their own, but also gave them the added benefit of being able to divide attention between them by splitting up. 
Allan and his friends were divvied up into teams, three apiece, as Rainbow would be acting as an eye in the sky, via radio. As Fluttershy was limited to ranged attacks and her powerful Stare only, it was a pretty unanimous decision to place her together with Allan, so that the two could watch each others backs. Rarity was elected to go with them. That left Twilight, Applejack and Pinkie to defend the other bus. 
Everyone else was split up pretty evenly, but Kathy ended up on bus two with Allan. 
Richard, Doctor Hooper and Agent Grey, with Twilight beside them, stood up in front of the gathered fighters as the civilians crammed into the buses, taking small bags of personal belongings, food, and whatever else they couldn’t bear to part with along with them. Twilight, and all the equines, were wearing their armour again, including their helmets. 
“You all know the plan, and you all know the route, so we won’t drill it in again.” Richard managed to get a little chuckle out of the crowd with his opening statement, which Allan couldn’t help but smile at. “I just want to let you all know how proud I am that you have fought so hard to get this far. It’s been an honor, really.”
“Indeed, you are all a testament to your country, and your species.” Twilight agreed, bowing her head. She couldn’t really hide the nervous sweat that public speaking still brought her, but she masked her expressions well enough to seem in control. “I look forward to when this is all over. There’s so much we can learn about each other!  It’s going to be fantastic, just you wait and see!”
The idea that they might actually win was an encouraging one, and the crowd let out whoops of agreement. 
“Together, we’re gonna beat this bitch. I know it!” Richard crowed. “Get to your places, and get ready to show these bugs what you’re made of!”
The thirty men and women streamed onto the buses, which had been altered for safety and protection, sporting huge, welded on metal plates that covered the windows and doors, with the windscreen being the only window not covered by a plate. It was instead covered by a mesh of bars that offered protection while not hampering visibility too much. As Doctor Hooper clambered onto the bus ahead of Allan, he looked pretty pleased with his work, even if it didn’t look all that great. There was barbed wire attached to the edges of the bus, and spikes sticking out from the sides to stop the Changelings from latching on. 
Allan glanced through the small slits in the window plates that allowed for people to shoot out of them, and watched his mother and father board the second bus last. 
He quickly turned on his radio, and synced it to the correct frequency. “Hey, Twi?” 
“Yes Allan?” 
“....Look after them, will you?” 
Twilight was silent for a moment, before her crackly response came through. “Of course I will.”
Allan let one last smile play across his lips before he switched channels. “Rainbow. Come in Rainbow.”
“I hear ya.” Rainbow called back. 
“We’ve just finished loading up. How are we looking?” 
“Pretty clear for about eight blocks. The routes look pretty good too. I don’t think we’ll get a better chance than this.”
“Alright, thanks Dash. See you on the other side.”
“You too.”
Allan clicked off his radio, before moving up through the bus to the only area the ponies could really fight. He hauled himself up through the ceiling hatch and closed it behind him, using a quick blast of magic to shut it tight. He looked across to where Twilight, Pinkie and Applejack were standing on top of their bus. They were all gonna be dodging magic blasts and barbed wire. 
“Everyone’s in position. Let’s get this show on the road!”
In response, the buses roared to life, and the storage bay doors were flung open by Twilight, Allan and Rarity’s combined magic. 
The great vehicles lumbered forward at first, but once they cleared the upward slope leading out of the building, they started to build some speed. They would never reach the breakneck pace of Lil' Blue, but they could at least keep the swarm at bay for a minute or two. That would have to be enough. It was that or walk. 
Allan stared grimly at the modified hunting rifle Twilight had presented him the day before. The stock had been re-carved to fit hooves, and the trigger was less of a trigger now, and  more of a steel lever for him to squeeze. 
“You want to conserve your magic for as long as possible. You only have so much, and just blasting Changelings is going to run you through it very quickly.” Twilight had explained. “This gives you an alternative long range attack to compensate.”
He still didn’t like it. He caught a glimpse of Twilight’s evenly cut mane billowing in the breeze ahead as her bus reached the first corner and turned sharply….well, as sharply as a huge, forty-five foot long, armoured school bus could turn. 
He shot a quick glance up, trying to catch a glimpse of that familiar rainbow trail against the green sky, but he couldn’t see it. She was probably hidden in the clouds anyway. 
He felt something change in the air. A palpable sense of dread and tension. 
Something was wrong. 
He cocked his gun.  Fluttershy knocked an Arrow to her bow. Rarity hefted her blade. 
The bus turned the corner. 
All hell broke loose. 


**********************