//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: The Power of Power // Story: From the Ashes // by Keeper of time RD //------------------------------// “You know, you didn’t have to come with me,” Scootaloo said to her traveling companion. The yellow cowpony only shook her head. “And what else would Ah do? Sweetie’s still cleansing the fields, so it’s not like Ah have enough trees to tend to eat up my time or nothing.” The duo had made it most of the way up the western pass. Rounding a corner the old hydroelectric dam finally came into view. The old gray wall stood like a forgotten keeper of the narrow river valley below it. Yet water flowed over the spillways on the top with full force, proving that the water wasn’t flowing though the power plant anymore. The two slowed their pace to a near stand still. Before they had set out, Apple Bloom had shared a warning that the slavers had attempted to restart the dam power plant twice, both times they sent teams out there, no pony came back. The roar of the water flowing over the spillways and the gentle hush of the breeze were the only sounds. Other than the water, nothing seemed to be moving. No bones, or abandon equipment to signal the sight of an ambush either. Whatever danger lurked about, it didn’t seem to be this far from the dam. Slowly and quietly they continued up the path. When they reached the actual dam, they didn’t bother with slow anymore. With the roar of the spillways just below them it wasn’t like their hoofsteps could be heard, so they walked normally as they crossed over the top of the dam. It wasn’t until they were descending the stairs on the other side, which led down to the power station, that they returned to moving cautiously. The first thing to give Scootaloo pause was the entrance to the power plant. The door had been left wide open. The ground nearby was scuffed as if something heavy had been dragged, and bloodstains on the concrete frame and heavy steel door made it clear that somepony had died here long ago. And whoever it was had been dragged into the power plant. That was enough of a reason for Scootaloo to pull a small cloud out of her belt pouches. Continuing forward on three legs while she used one to push the small cloud with her, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Apple Bloom double-checked her harness, other than the fact that she now had a rifle on one side and shotgun on the other not much had changed. Actually, other than the second gun, the only thing that had changed was the fact that she’d retrieved the sheath for the combat dagger and now wore that on her front left leg. Unlike her attack on the slaver compound yesterday, Scootaloo had kept her saddlebags with her and wore them just bellow the belt filled with clouds. Stopping for a moment she took out a headlamp and replaced the goggles on her forehead with it. With that she stepped into the doorway. “Ah wonder if my old headlamp is still around?” Apple Bloom thought out loud. “Probably left back in the clubhouse if it is.” Despite her lament she knew her oversight was her own fault and followed her pegasus friend inside the concrete building. Inside they found a small room. Off to the side was a lone desk and char. A clipboard sat on the desk, but any paper that may have been on it had long since rotted away, so the purpose of the clipboard was lost to time. A small set of lockers sat opposite the desk, although most of the doors were long gone and the few slots that still had a door, they were clearly damaged from being forced open. Aside from the exit to a long hallway, the only other detail to catch Scootaloo’s eye was a large green feather on the floor. “Think it’s a pegasus?” Bloom asked of the feather at the center of her friend’s spotlight. “Maybe a stallion’s, seems a bit big though.” Moving on they went down the hall. The first doorway they came across was marked ‘control room’ and that seemed just as good a place as any to figure out what they’d need to do to get things up and running again, so they carefully approached the open door. The far wall was lined with consoles covered in dials, switches and lights. Although all of the indicator lights were blank as the consoles were also without power at the moment. On the left side of the room was a small window, not to the outside, but one that allowed observation of another, larger cement room. The thing that made both mares freeze in their tracks however, was large green form draped along the consoles. Its body had a circumference on par with a pony’s, but easily had four times the length. The serpent’s head clearly made it one heck of a big snake. But it also possessed a set of feathered wings. Most of the feathers were as green as the rest of the winged snake, but it also had rows of yellow and red feathers. As the creature opened its yellow eyes and took notice of the new arrivals, Apple Bloom’s first instinct was to line up her rifle. She was just about to curl her hoof to pull the firing string she’d rigged up to her combat harness, when Scootaloo put her leg out in front of her, holding her back. “Not yet,” the pegasus mare whispered. “It hasn’t proven it’s evil yet.” Bloom just blinked at her friend in disbelief. The blood, the fact that no pony else had ever come back alive from this place, what more did she need to see in order to guess that this thing probably had something to do with the low survival rate of this place? The snake began to flap its wings and started to hover in the middle of the room. That was when Scootaloo looked the creature in the eyes and spoke up, saying, “I know I’m no Fluttershy. But if you can understand any of what I’m saying, we don’t want to fight you. We just want to repair the generator. And as long as you don’t stop it from running, we don’t really care if you keep using this place as your den or not. We just want the generator back on, that’s all.” At first, the flying snake gave a curious look to the pony that had spoken to it. Then its eyes narrowed and it gave a crackling hiss. Scootaloo saw the electricity arching in the snake’s mouth as it hissed, and that was more than enough to guess what was about to happen. She quickly pushed Bloom to one side and leapt to dodge to the other side while grabbing her little cloud with a wing and dragging it with her. No sooner had she done so, lightning blasted the floor where they had been just before. As soon as she hit the floor she whipped her cloud back out and kicked off two carefully aimed shots. As she didn’t want to risk hitting the equipment in the room. Both lightning blasts struck the winged serpent. And while it hissed in pain from the hits, no pony was really that surprised to see that the snake that had lightning breath was clearly resistant to lightning. Apple Bloom was less guarded in her response to the attack. She fired off three shots from her rifle, two stuck their target, making the winged serpent recoil and howl in real agony. Blinded by it’s rage and pain, the snake shot back wildly, forcing the two ponies to scramble to avoid the arcing stream of lightning coming from the serpent’s maw. As the beam chased after her friend, Scootaloo had made it to the side, and with nothing important behind her target kicked lightning from her cloud as quickly as she could. The strikes got the snake to stop shooting for a moment and look back in the direction of the pegasus who’d just attacked it. Bloom made use of the reprieve to stop scampering and aim. Her shot rang out and struck home in the back of serpent’s head, dropping it lifelessly to the floor. The two friends relieved the stress of the last few moments with a laugh or offhand comment bout still being alive. But then a distant hiss made them snap their attention back to the serpent. Then Scootaloo’s eyes became pin pricks when she realized the sound was coming from somewhere else. She rushed to the corner of the room and looked through the window. On the other side of the glass was a large room. The most prominent objects in that room were the four generators. But what caught her attention were the nests of large eggs scattered about the generator room. Those and the half dozen flying snakes now making their way to the exit to come investigate the noise from the control room. “Apple Bloom, we need to get outside, now!” “We’re just giving up?” the former farmer asked as she followed her friend at a full gallop down the hallway. “No, but if we’re going to fight that many, I’m going to need a bigger cloud!” * * * * * * * The sun was low on the horizon at Sweet Apple Acres when the door swung open. The fact that the lights and refrigerator had come on about a half-hour earlier was instantly forgotten. The two ponies in the doorway were sopping wet, covered from head to hoof in electrical burns, and the pegasus of the duo was draped over Apple Bloom’s back like an extra set of saddlebags. “What happened to you two?!” Sweetie asked of her still conscious friend. “There were a bunch of flying snakes, at the dam. They also shoot lightning from their mouths.” “Is Scoots…?” “She’s still breathing. But if we still have any of those healing potions we scavenged from the hospital laying around, she could probably use one.” “She would need to be awake for that,” Sweetie Belle responded. “But no matter I know some healing magic. I can take it from here.” “But Sweetie Belle! You’re still spent from earlier!” Dinky objected. “Friends are worth a little magic fatigue,” Sweetie answered, as she took her pegasus friend in her magic and set her on the sofa. “So,” she continued. “How did you get soaked?” “It turned out the intakes were clogged so we had to go diving in the lake to get all the junk out’a the way.” “The snakes attacked you while you were swimming?” “No that was after we cleared out the snakes. Took her a while poking around the machines but eventually Scoots realized there was no flow, that’s when we realized we needed to clean off the intake grates.” “So Scoots almost drown?” “What? No! Nothing like that. She almost electrocuted herself jumpstarting the generator we restored the water pressure to.” Looking up and seeing the living room light on she added, “That would have been when the power came back on.”