“Quick, hide behind the desk!”
Night scurried to do as he was told, taking cover underneath the wooden table. Jasmine went behind one of the tanks instead, whilst Bolt followed him under the desk. Meanwhile, Sid was —
Wait, where’d Sid go?
Night poked his head out of under the table, scouring the area for the purple unicorn.
“Night, what are you doing???” Bolt whispered.
“Looking for Sid!” Night replied, his eyes still darting around the lab. “Where’d he go?”
“He’s probably behind a tank or something — he’ll be fine! Get back under the table before we get caught!”
A voice boomed out like thunder through the lab, a voice that Night hoped he’d never have to hear again.
“My little Lucid Dreamers! Though I have thoroughly enjoyed our little game of hide and seek, it’s time for you all to come out now.”
Night and Bolt kept their mouths shut, not even daring to breathe.
“Oh, come on now, children. Fun’s over, it’s time to get back to your tanks. It’s way past your bedtime!”
“Sir, perhaps they’re not here —”
“Oh, they’re here alright,” Night heard Dr. Hawk take in a sharp whiff. “I can just smell their fear!” The doctor exhaled, then chuckled.
“Guards, continue searching every single nook and cranny of the lab. The Lucid Dreamers want to play hide and seek? Well then, ready or not, here I come.”
Peeking out of the side of the gunk-filled tank, Jasmine Skies held her breath, watching helplessly as the scene unfolded before her like the climax of an action movie.
Except, of course, one where she and her companions were the prisoners, and the bad guy was winning.
She turned and leant onto the glass surface of the tank, adrenaline coursing through her veins as she felt her heart pounding furiously beneath her chest.
Okay, okay, okay… gotta think of a plan…
Without knowing for sure exactly what Dr. Hawk and his guards were capable of, trying to attack them now was out of the question. No, they needed a different plan. Something easier, but still able to keep them alive.
Well, if it’s not fight… then I guess it’s flight…
Fumbling for the zipper on her utility belt, she carefully unzipped one of the pouches, making sure not to make any noise. Let’s see… throwing stars, high-power laser pointer — uh… empty candy wrappers… aha!
She retrieved the smoke bomb from the pouch and turned back to the scene, where the lab teemed with guards like parasprites in a café.
Come to think of it, how is it that these ‘highly-trained and elite’ guards haven’t searched under the main table yet? Dr. Hawk really needs to rethink who he hires as security.
Then again, I ain’t complaining.
Squeezing one eye shut, she pulled the gadget behind her head, aimed carefully, then threw. The smoke bomb hurtled into the swarm of armed ponies, who all, rather comically, simply stared at the device in bewilderment. By the time they realised what it was, it was too late.
It would have been quite an amusing sight to see, Jasmine noted, if only the laboratory wasn’t completely enveloped in her signature bright pink smoke. Covering her muzzle with one hoof, she dived into the chaos, heading towards where Night and Bolt were hiding, while all around her, she could hear the guards crashing into one another, helmets ramming painfully into each other as Dr. Hawk bellowed pointless orders at his bumbling guards, trying to regain control of the situation.
“Yeeow!!!” She stubbed her hoof on the side of the table. “Bolt, Night, Sid… you guys there?”
“Just the first two!” she heard Bolt reply, finding one of his hooves in the smoke and pulling it close to her. “We don’t know where Sid went!”
“We’ll catch up with him outside, then,” she hurriedly decided, grabbing one of Night’s wings from beside her, then dragged them towards the exit, coughing and spluttering in the process.
They rushed out of the lab, Jasmine finally letting go of Night and Bolt once they were safely outside. “You know, I was perfectly capable of using my own hooves,” Night muttered, gritting his teeth as he rubbed his aching wing.
“Right, right, sorry,” Jasmine quickly apologised. “I’m going back in to find Sid.”
“What?! How’re you gonna find him in all that smoke?”
“I don’t know — but I can’t just leave him in there with Dr. Hawk! Just wait here till I come back.”
“No need for that,” came a voice from behind them. Sid stepped back into the group, choking pink smoke out of his nostrils.
“Sid?! Where in Equestria have you been?” Jasmine demanded.
“Managed to hide in one of the vents before the guards began searching,” Sid explained. “Crawled through them to get out of the lab. Come on, we need to get out of here!”
They scampered away from the lab, heading towards the nearest stairwell. “Go, go, go!” Jasmine ordered, as they rushed past her down the steps. She glanced back up at the lab entrance, where guards had begun to emerge from the pink smoke, their weapons locked and loaded as they scanned their surroundings for the escapees. “That way!” One of them pointed directly at Jasmine, who gulped and immediately raced to join the others.
Hooves pounding against the stairs, they fled down, down and down, until they finally came to a halt, Night almost colliding into Bolt as they suddenly stopped. “Why are we stopping? They’re still coming for us!”
Jasmine nodded at Bolt, who tapped his hoof three times on the metal walls, triggering the opening of a secret doorway, of which Jasmine, Bolt and Sid quickly rushed inside. “Oh, just come on!” Jasmine groaned, seizing Night by the hooves and pulling him inside the dark room, his mouth gaping wide in shock. The doorway closed again, sealing together perfectly like two puzzle pieces in the wall, mere seconds before Dr. Hawk’s guards arrived.
Sid flicked on the lights, illuminating the room with the same white LED glow as the lab. Night gasped.
Racks and racks of heavy weapons and armour were mounted on the red brick walls, filled with a wide array of machine guns, flamethrowers and some futuristic-looking firearms that Night had never even seen before during his time in the army. Along one of the walls, a row of double-tiered bunk beds lined the side of the room, next to a small refrigerator with a microwave balanced on top of it.
“Y-you guys have your own secret hideout?!”
“Yeah,” Sid grinned proudly. “Built it myself, actually.”
“No you didn’t!” Bolt frowned. “We found this shelter by accident two months ago! Together!”
“Well… I found all of those weapons, so technically…”
Night decided to leave them to their argument, choosing to explore the shelter instead. Walking towards the refrigerator, he opened it to reveal an assortment of food supplies, from frozen pizzas and pies to bottles and bottles of mineral water. One of the bottles, labelled ‘Bolt’, was filled to the brim with a strange, translucent, yellowish fluid. Night made up his mind not to touch it, or even question why it was being stored in the fridge.
The bunk beds were each tidily made, with teal bedsheets and grey pillowcases set out neatly in front of him. He found his own bed, with the words ‘Night Ember’ scrawled into the head of the metal bed-frame. The other bunk beds were labelled with names too: Jasmine Skies, Silver Bolt…
As he continued his stroll around the shelter, he came to what looked like the common area, where Jasmine was leaning against an iron railing, once again sharpening her throwing knives. She seemed both calm yet troubled at the same time, as if focusing on her knives helped to distract her from her… well, whatever was troubling her.
“Hey, Jasmine?”
She looked up. “What’s up?”
“Thanks for saving me and Bolt earlier. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”
She went back to sharpening her knives, the whetstone grating rhythmically against the steel blades. “It was no big deal. As you said, we’re a team now, so it’s no pony left behind.”
Night nodded. “And, uh… speaking of which…”
Jasmine raised an eyebrow.
“Is everything okay with you? You seem… kinda depressed.”
“Depressed?”
“Yeah, depressed. What’s wrong? You can tell me.”
“It’s fine. I mean — I’m fine.”
“No you’re not… you’ve been sad and quiet for the entire —”
“Look, Night —” she interrupted, glaring directly into Night’s eyes. “I don’t know if things worked differently in your Equestria 2.0, but perhaps I need to be more clear. I don’t want to talk about it!”
She diverted her attention back to her knives, sharpening them with significantly more force.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I won’t ask about it,” Night sighed. “But… there is one other weird thing I’ve noticed. Not about you!” He added hurriedly.
“What.” Jasmine simply stated.
“Well, don’t you think Sid has been acting a little suspicious lately?”
“How so?”
“Well, he did randomly disappear while we were hiding from Dr. Hawk’s guards.”
“That’s cause he was hiding, genius,” Jasmine groaned. “He escaped into the vents.”
“Allegedly.”
“Allegedly?”
“When he met us outside the lab, he was choking on pink smoke. By the time you set off the smoke bomb, he would already be inside the vent system…”
Jasmine widened her eyes. “So the smoke wouldn’t have reached him in the first place!”
“Why would he lie?”
“I… don’t know. I’m sure there’s a good reason for it though…”
“Jasmine, what if he can’t be trusted? What if he’s been working for Dr. Hawk all this time?”
“That’s impossible. I’ve worked with Sid for months, and he’s been nothing but nice to me! I trust him, Night, so if he had to lie about how he escaped, I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation.”
They turned to Sid, who was reclining in his bunk bed, casually sipping a can of grape soda. “Well,” Night replied. “I certainly hope you’re right.”