Man, this place has really gone to the dogs.
When Spike and I emerged onto the street, the first and only thing I saw was rubble. Rubble here, rubble there- there was rubble everywhere! I haven’t seen this much destruction since... well, since the last time I saw a city under siege by the Combine.
“This is what it was like in the other world,” Spike said to me, “wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I admitted as he helped me over a dumpster, “but by that time everyone had just about fought themselves out, and the place was getting close to blowing up.”
“I remember,” said Spike, “you told us.”
That’s true. Twi and I had recounted everything upon our return to the library, but I guess if you have a lifespan in excess of several millennia you tend to develop a good memory.
The strange thing is that Twilight explained to me that she’d learned (complicated sentence) that when a dragon hoards things it grows bigger, and as it gets bigger its appetite does as well. So what exactly had Spike been hoarding to grow so big?
Up ahead, I could see a huge group of Overwatch and CPs complete with tanks and armoured cars, and I drew a couple of guns to take them down, but Spike pushed me back.
“Just let me take care of this one,” he said.
I looked him up and down. I could swear he’s got bigger since I last saw him – smeg; he’s got to be twice my height now – and he was absolutely terrifying. Plus he was wearing a smug, fang-filled grin which appeared nothing short of evil.
“Fair enough,” I replied, although to be honest it sounded more like a whimper.
As I sat back and watched, Spike completely went to town on those Combine bitches. They tried to shoot at him and he just swatted them away into the nearby buildings, and then when they tried to run him over he jumped over the tanks and they crashed quite spectacularly. When it was over, he gave me a claw up and I ran out into the now cleared street.
“That,” I told him, “was terrifying.”
“Thanks,” said Spike, apparently flattered.
“Um,” I said, to try to dispel the tension, “if you don’t mind me asking, have you gotten bigger since I last saw you?”
“Yes,” Spike replied, “yes I have.”
“How is that possible? I thought dragons could only grow when they were hoarding things.”
“I am hoarding things!”
“So... what is it you’re hoarding?”
A drop ship took off and drowned out Spike’s answer, if ever he gave one. He jumped into the air, flapped his wings twice, latched onto the underside of the drop ship and started tearing it to pieces.
Hang on... I recognise this street! This is the street I came down when I first left the station, when I arrived in City 17. I know that if I carry on in this direction, I’ll find myself back in that plaza, with that huge screen displaying Trixie’s obnoxious face for everypony to see.
And it’s still there. She looks and sounds considerably more desperate than she was the last time I saw her – even a little panicked, to tell the truth – and I thought this: if ever I met her, I would definitely NOT tell her that Braeburn, Big Macintosh and Apple Bloom pulled her screen right off that column by the wires and then practically danced in the broken glass. They didn’t seem to notice me, but I hid behind a hunk of rubble just in case.
“YEE-HAW!” Braeburn yelled triumphantly. “Six down, another eighty five more to go! Stick THAT up yer flank an’ chew on it, Trixie!”
“Cutie Mark Crusader Freedom Fighters YEAH!” shouted Apple Bloom.
“Eeyup,” said Big Macintosh simply.
Heh. I wonder if they enjoyed that. I notice Braeburn’s switched his vest for a suit of Overwatch armour; that should give him about the same amount of protection as that thin... was it leather? Do they actually wear leather in Equestria? That’s... a bit sick.
Still got his hat with him, though. Plus he’s got a great big rifle hanging around his neck. And- and he’s turned in my direction.
“Ah know somepony’s there!” he shouted. “Come outta there before we blow you out!”
“We gotta great big stack o’ grenades over here, so don’t think mah cousin’s bluffin’!” yelled Apple Bloom.
“And Ah gotta grenade launcher on this here machine gun!” came the deep boom of Big Mac. “Y’all come out now and we might go easy on you!”
Right. Well, I could just sit here like a mook with a 95% possibility of getting blown up by angry Apple ponies, run out really quickly with a 90% chance of getting blown up by angry Apple ponies, or walk out slowly with a slightly lower chance of getting blown up by angry Apple ponies. Call me smeg-for-brains, but I think the third option seems like the best bet.
Very slowly, I stepped out and slowly approached the three former farmers. And my cockiness instinct kicked into overdrive when Braeburn said “Hex? Is that you? We thought you were dead!”
How could I resist?
“Rumours of my death,” I said, “were greatly exaggerated.”
And I waited.
“No laugh?” I asked. “That usually gets a laugh or two. Mind you, that’s with the other guys back in dimension 1, so never mind.”
“Huh?”
“I said never mind.”
“Well,” said Braeburn once the confused expression on his face had faded, “in any case, it’s good to have y’all back.”
At that moment, a gate behind me opened and Overwatch started shooting at us.
“I’ll say,” I commented, and the four of us returned fire.
After the soldiers had been gunned down, the four of us ran on in silence. Well, near silence: there was gunfire in the distance, and the occasional moan of a Strider in operation. Somehow the eerie quiet gave the situation a sense of urgency, as if the fate of the world was depending on me.
Chances are it probably was, but that was beside the point.
So anyway, we continued on – somewhere along the line Apple Bloom and Big Mac got separated, so it was only me and Braeburn cantering through the city – until we came to a sort of alleyway thing where I could tell I’d have to drop down through the raised floor to the ground in order to continue. There was a sheet of corrugated iron over a hole, and another freedom fighter apparently guarding it, with a chain link fence on the direct right.
“Don’t come any closer!” he commanded. “The Combine are dropping hopper mines all over the place, and they’ve been shelling us like crazy-”
“Listen,” I interrupted him, “we’ll take care of things over here; chances are you’re needed in some other part of the city. Smeg knows there’s some Strider that needs obliterating someplace.”
Without another word, the stallion nodded and galloped away. Smegging hell, am I really that intimidating?
I pulled aside the sheet of metal and would most likely have died had Braeburn not grabbed me by the mane (OW) and pulled me back, because as it turned out there were about 6 or 7 hopper mines underneath.
I remember these things from dimension 33. They wait until you’re right up close, and then leap into the air and explode on contact with the nearest... well, anything, really. The little lights on top switched from green to orange, signifying that they were alerted to our presence, and they blipped and beeped in anticipation.
“What now, science guy?” asked Braeburn.
Okay, let me look at this properly...
They don’t look as if they’ve been attached to the ground properly. If I yank them hard enough they’ll come loose, but considering how small this hole is, if I bring them up past Braeburn and I they’ll activate and blow us to smeggereens (which are like smithereens, but generally leave you feeling a bit more smegged off).
Well, there’s no ceiling on the other side of this fence, only sky. I could levitate them off the ground and up into the air without any danger – except to myself of course, when my energy runs out.
Here goes...
One by one, I encased each of the hopped mines in a jade coloured glow, and motioned for Braeburn to stand back as I too withdrew from the hole. I heard several small clanks as they were wrenched from the ground, and I levitated the mines into the air on the other side of the fence.
“Heh,” said Braeburn behind me. “Coulda used a fella with your skills back in ol’ Appleloosa.”
“Bit late for that now, isn’t it?” I asked him, having avoided drowning in his accent.
We jumped down into the whole and continued on our way, and encountered some flying robot things which were dropping hopper mines. I threw a hopper mine at one and it exploded into smeggereens, but the mine it was carrying started to fall and would have activated itself if Braeburn hadn’t dived forward and caught it.
“Nice catch,” I commented, and he just smiled at me in that cocky way that guys smile when they know they’ve done something cool.
We moved onward, shooting and fighting all the way. Sometimes other resistance ponies would join us in our moving battle and either departed to fight someplace else or got gunned down in a hail of alien-controlled bullets.
“Y’know,” said Braeburn about fifteen minutes in, “I really wish the Blue Demon was here.”
Blue what now?!
My ears informed me I had just said that out loud unintentionally.
“Y’all ain’t heard o’ the Blue Demon?” asked Braeburn. Goddamn he makes confusion look cute. I hope he isn’t gonna be one of those guys who are so unreasonably attractive they make me question my sexuality.
“Well,” I said, “seeing as I’ve not only been absent for seventeen years, but also only returned a few hours ago by my count, you can take that as a massive ‘no I haven’t’.”
“Ah can’t believe nopony told ya yet!” cried Braeburn as he finished unloading his rounds into the chest of a particularly large Overwatch soldier. “Cover me while Ah reload and Ah’ll tell ya.”
“Fair enough.”
He crouched down and struggled to slide fresh rounds into his rifle while I shot every approaching Combine soldier dead between the eyes – I am getting good at this – I only have to fire three or four bullets at a time if I aim correctly. And usually, this ‘correctly’ is somewhere between the eyes and below the horn if there were any unicorns in this seemingly never-ending army.
I don’t know whether to be annoyed or worried, to tell the truth. It’s been ages, and I’ve seen soldier after soldier after smegging homicidal soldier, and yet I haven’t seen a single smegging unicorn outside the resistance!
“You done yet?” I asked.
A blast just far enough from my ears to avoid damaging my hearing told me that yes, he was in fact finished.
“The Blue Demon is legendary,” he fangasmed. “Ponies say he roams ‘round Central Equestria, destroyin’ every sign of the Combine he comes across: that’s radio stations, train stations, hoof soldier conversion centres... you name it, he totals it by the next day! Some say he took out a whole ponyhack arcade just by pressin’ a single button!”
Wow. I haven’t seen anypony this excited since I met Pinkie. Whoever this ‘Blue Demon’ is, his reputation definitely precedes him.
“The last known sightin’ of him was someplace round Canterlot,” Braeburn continued, and paused with a thoughtful expression on his face. “Come to think of it, that was ‘round ‘bout the time Soarin’ and Dash left.”
“Do you think one of them might be the Blue Demon?” I asked.
It’d certainly fit, wouldn’t it? Seeing as they’re both blue and all. And who knows what kind of horrors they’ve been put through in the past decade and a half. That’s what war does to innocent civilians, ponies or otherwise: it turns them into soldiers, forces them to fight, and eventually they die knowing what they did would have almost no impact on what was happening.
“Nah,” said Braeburn, contradictory to my expectations. “The stories started at least ten years before they left. ‘Bout the time they were captured by Commabies, actually. Mah guess is this fella is the reason we still have them alive in the first place.”
“Well, um...” I was a little lost for words, actually. They didn’t have anypony like this in dimension 33, that’s for sure. “Are there any clues as to who he actually is?”
“Not one,” said Braeburn. “Last Ah heard he was givin’ them Canterlot bastards a real run for their money. And Ah tell ya this... if he’s out there, Ah sure hope he saves mah Rarity.”
I almost stopped in my tracks at that last sentence.
He... didn’t he know?
I-I guess Rarity being captured by the Combine is easier to take than her actively collaborating with Trixie, and this poor guy already looks hurt enough as it is. But there is one question that’s been bugging me ever since I first laid eyes on the CPs:
“Do you know why there aren’t any unicorns in the Civil Protection or the Overwatch?”
There was no almost about this: the Apple pony really did halt for a moment, and gave me a look which said “You really shouldn’t have asked that.” I was relieved when he started walking and talking again.
“That’s why Ah’m so worried ‘bout mah Rarity,” he explained. “They take the unicorns to Canterlot, but nopony ever sees ‘em again. Ah’ve heard nasty things ‘bout that place: ponies go in there and they come back changed. Mah half-cousin Apple Fritter got shipped there, and when Ah saw her again, it was like she was empty. Like they’d taken the spirit and emotion clean right outta her.”
He turned to me again, the faintest tinges of hope sparkling in his eyes which weren’t quite as intensely green as mine.
“Equestria needs heroes like you an’ the Blue Demon,” he told me. “Maybe then we could get back to the way things were.”
I wouldn’t have put it past Soarin’ or Rainbow Dash to invent the Blue Demon persona. Maybe they were never actually captured by Commabies in the first place: maybe they faked it so that they could create this heroic figure.
But then again, why do that? Why abandon their little colt, nowhere near old enough to take care of himself, just to become Equestria’s resident Dark Knight? It’s highly unlikely, seeing as Rainbow Dash is the bearer of Loyalty and all, and knowing her she’d never abandon her son if she could help it.
And then of course, there was Soarin’. In the time I’d had to get to know him, he’d been plenty protective of Rainbow Dash – you should’ve seen his face when the Gabby Gums column about the three of them came out, he was horrified ponies were treating Dash like some cheap floozy left, right and centre, and when Lightning was born he was fawning over the little guy like crazy.
It was cute, but at the same time a little annoying.
“Ah buck, ponyhacks!”
Braeburn started shooting at the ponyhacks while I sucked them out of the air and whacked them to smeggereens with my crowbar. We had found our way to a rather ruined concrete tunnel, and by ruined I mean there was almost no ceiling and it had collapsed up ahead. Because of this, there was room for an almost continuous stream of ponyhacks to swarm into the tunnel and slice us up into nothing.
Then I saw an opening in the collapsed concrete up ahead, but closer inspection revealed that it was covered in twisted spokes of rusted wire and supports.
“Hello?” I shouted. “Anypony through there?”
No answer.
“Is anypony there?” asked Braeburn in between electrical explosions.
“Not as far as I can tell,” I shouted back.
“Of course there’s somepony through here, how could there not be? But I suppose we could all be dead, or does that not count? I don’t think it counts, unless we were turned into zombies! That would be nasty! They’re dead, but they’re still awake, and they’re screaming and screaming and it’s so horrible and scary and I just want to scream with them and-”
“Okay, okay, I get it!” I shouted.
“Hexie?” asked Pinkie. “Oh my gosh, it is you! I thought you were dead; I’m so glad you’re alive and okay!”
“Well, Braeburn and I won’t be okay for much longer unless you help us get through this thing!”
“Hold on then, I’ll get some charges set and blow this to smeggereens!”
What? How does she know about that word? I only just made it up! What the... how did...
“Ah could use a li’l help over here!”
At the Apple pony’s request, I ran back into the fray and started attacking the whirring floaters of death. It would have made one awesome movie if anypony had been around to film it. There was one particularly awesome moment when there was one that was buzzing around just above our heads, and I noticed that Braeburn really wanted to get it, so I crouched down and launched him off my back, and the guy somersaulted through the air, blew the ponyhack to pieces and landed even more softly than a ninja cat.
“Cool,” I commented.
I know, I know, that was kinda lame, but what the smeg.
BOOM.
The explosion and clattering of metal alerted me to the fact that Pinkie had successfully blown a hole in the rubble, and Braeburn and I darted through to safety before it could collapse again.
“Thank smeg you’re okay,” I said. Or at least, that’s what I would have said if Pinkie hadn’t glomped me the moment I emerged from the tunnel, which led me to say “Whoa, watch it!”
“Sorry,” said Pinkie as she got off me. “I’m just so glad to see you again!”
Why does she have a chamber pot on her head?
Well, I guess she could use it as a helmet, for obvious reasons, but... why does it have a rubber chicken sticky-taped to it?
“What’re you doing here, Pinkie?” I asked. This was the last place I would have expected to find Equestria’s weirdest pony.
“He he, silly!” Pinkie giggled. “I had to wait here because otherwise who would have helped you get through to the other side? Plus that door over there-” she pointed at a door behind her “-is locked from the other side. Not even I can walk through walls. Well, Pumpkin could when she was a baby...”
“Ah think this is gonna take a while,” Braeburn murmured to me as the peppy pink party pony performed her prattle to us patience-losing peace fighters. “Ah think Ah saw a hole in the wall back there; you think y’all could see ta helpin’ us through?”
Smeg, dat accent...
“I’ll see what I can do,” I told him.
I left the way we had come in, and saw that there was a hole in the wall which I had somehow missed. I shot down a couple of ponyhacks as they tried to pursue me, leapt through the hole...
...and immediately voided my stomach via my mouth.
Dear sweet smeg, the STENCH. It smells like a used nappy full of Indian food, next to a turd covered in burnt hair, combined with Bigfoot’s dick and-and carrots in throw-up. Seriously, this could gag a maggot! It smells like hot sick arse in a dead carcass. Even stink would say this stinks! You know when you go into an apartment building and you smell the other people's cooking on each floor and you go ‘What are they cooking?’ That, plus dung!
The point I’m trying to get across is that it smelt bad. I think a sewerage pipe must have burst and mixed with toxic waste. I can tell this tunnel is long since abandoned because of all the rotting vehicles and stuff, but I can hear zombies moaning, and there’re fires here and there which account for about 10% of the reek.
I think I’ll use my crossbow for this one.
I started hopping through the tunnel, using broken vehicles, the occasional patch of dry land and other assorted knick-knacks as stepping stones. As I had feared, zombies kept rearing up out of the disgusting ooze, the smell of which I was only just starting to get used to.
There are undamaged pipes running across the wall near the ceiling. They look strong enough to hold a pony, and if I get up onto them I can find a grate and open that door for Braeburn and Pinkie.
I wonder why nopony told Braeburn about Rarity’s betrayal. Mind you, it doesn’t take a genius to work it out: the poor guy seems so sensitive – he’s almost more like a colt than a stallion – but surely it would have been easier on him if he just knew? Maybe it’d even give him a new reason to fight. Battle through the Combine forces to confront the mare he thought loved him. Perhaps, seeing as they apparently hooked up during my absence, she might tell him why she stabbed us all in the back.
Whoa! That was a close one. That headcrab almost latched onto me.
I think I can see... yes! The pipes are bent so that if I jump off that white car, I’ll be able to hop on and make my way along the metalwork until- this is sounding an awful lot like exposition, isn’t it?
Here goes...
Easy peasy, one two threesy. I could’ve made that jump in my- oh smeg, the car’s smegging sinking! I hope those pipes aren’t slippery!
Good. They aren’t.
I must say; crawling along these pipes is a smeg of a lot easier than jumping from scrapheap to scrapheap to avoid this horrifying smooze. Makes me wonder why I had to go through all that in the first place.
There’s a grate! Great!
A couple more minutes of crawling found me opening a door and smiling at the earth ponies on the other side.
“Thanks for waiting up,” I said, along with “Sorry I took so long.”
“That’s okay!” chirruped Pinkie as she bounced past. Braeburn paused for a moment, staring after her.
“Do you know how she bounces on all four hooves at the same time?” he asked. When I shook my head, he added “And what the hay is that smell?!”
“Sorry,” I said, I guess it’s kinda contagious, but that place stank with a capital V-O-M-I-T.”
We continued on.
I don’t know when it was that I lost track of time. Maybe it was when the headcrab shell hit the ground and I set Pinkie the job of taking them out and keeping civilians safe, or maybe it was when I was about to enter a visibly-torn-up apartment building and told Braeburn to meet me down below. All I know is...
I don’t. I honestly don’t know what to think anymore. Is this what my life will be about from now on? Just endless torrents of guns, bullets, aliens and violence? I haven’t slept for what feels like a millennium, I haven’t had anything to eat in seventeen whole smegging years, I feel like I haven’t had a drink since I was three, and Celestia knows what I look like right now.
I bet I have stubble.
Wow, the floor feels really unstabl- WHA! It just collapsed right under my hooves! I’m in an old room – it generally feels like an orange in here – and there’s a turret in each corner. And wouldn’t you know it; they’ve got plenty of bullets to spare! That’s one... that’s the other...
...and then the wall exploded.
I raised my crossbow, ready to shoot this new opponent right in the eye, only to find she was doing the same with her gun, and we both lowered our weapons once we both realised who the other was.
“Hex!” cried Twilight joyfully. “I’m so glad to see you’re okay.”
She kissed me on the cheek. She kissed me right on the cheek.
“Did you...” I struggled to find the right words. “Is Applejack safe?”
“Yes,” she reported, “and I sent Pinkie to join her, plus I met Fluttershy too on the way here: we’ve got to keep the Elements of Harmony as safe as possible.”
“Makes sense,” I commented. “Does this mean we can link up with Lightning now?”
“Yeah, but there’s an Overwatch command centre downstairs and I want to see what we can learn from it,” Twilight informed me as I followed her into the narrow corridor. “There are dark energy generators dotted around the city which the Combine uses to power their machines and weaponry. If we can take them out, we’ll definitely get an edge in this battle.”
“And where would you be without my help?” I said, more as a suggestive remark than anything else, and yes, I regretted it soon afterwards.
However, contrary to my expectations, she smiled and winked at me. Winked...
“Follow me,” she commanded.
“Aye-aye, captain,” I replied.
And so we charged down the stairs, through the corridors, past the peeling walls and over the increasingly flimsy wooden floors, shooting Combine smegheads all the way, until true to Twilight’s word we found a basement room filled with monitors, control panels and Overwatch.
More like Underwatch, since the only thing they’ll be watching now is underneath six feet of earth and a gravestone. Bazinga!
Once we’d grabbed some extra ammo, Twilight set to work with one of the computers, tapping away with her hooves, her eyes fixed firmly on the screen before her. As she stood there on her hind hooves, propping herself up by her forelegs punching in the buttons, I got the sudden impulse to wrap my forelegs around her – pull her into a hug, sort of thing – and see what happened from there...
“We’re in luck,” she stated, snapping me from my stupor. “There’s a generator in the square just outside. You wanna help take it out?”
“How can I do that?”
“Once I drop the shields surrounding it, you’ll have to give it a really solid burst of telekinesis. I’d do it myself, but I’m afraid I exhausted all my magic teleporting Applejack, Pinkie and Fluttershy all the way to Ponyville. It’s at least two hundred miles away.”
“Fair enough.”
Yes, I know there’s not a lot of conversation happening right now, but bear in mind that this had been an increasingly dangerous situation from the moment I arrived in the hellhole formerly known as Equestria.
Speaking of which, when we got outside the square was practically empty. Streets led off to the left and right, and they were all littered with dead bodies of Overwatch and even a few apparently idiotic CPs here and there. Up ahead the generator with a sheltered CPU nearby, and a gate behind the generator. I think the piles of dead bodies may have something to do with the traumatised cowpony standing over an observantly still warm carcass.
“Braeburn?” Twilight seemed just as surprised to see him as he was to see her. “What’re you doing here?”
“Ah... was...” He was still collecting himself by the looks of things. “Ah was followin’ Hex, an’ he told me to hold the fort down here ‘til he ‘rived... they came from everywhere! They came outta the walls! The BUCKIN’ WALLS!”
Um... well, there’s a lot of windows around, so I suppose to the non-concentrated eye it could look like there were ponies coming out of the walls, but all the same, poor Braeburn.
“I’m sorry,” I said, although it didn’t feel like anything near enough. “If I’d known how many-”
“Weren’t your fault, partner,” said Braeburn shakily. “Weren’t your fault.”
“I’m glad you’re here, Braeburn,” said Twilight. “You can help Hex give me some cover. I don’t think the shields will take as long as that teleporter did, but it’ll still be a pretty long time and I won’t be able to defend myself.”
“You got it, Twi.”
At the shortening of her name, a small blush crept up her cheeks. I swear; if she gets any more adorable I might have a heart attack.
As she started tapping at the buttons, something must have clicked in the minds of every Overwatch soldier in the city, because the moment her hooves touched that panel they appeared at the end of each of the streets. Braeburn and I got to work, shooting and shooting like there was no tomorrow, while very slowly the outer shield around the generator started to withdraw into the ground.
“Why the smeg are these things always so slow?” I asked. “It’s like there’s some outside force that wants us to die!”
“There IS an outside force that wants us ta die!” Braeburn pointed out.
“Yeah, but you know what I mean!” I shouted in reply over the deafening gunfire. “You try to get an elevator, and it takes ages to come down! You try to activate a teleporter, and it takes years to charge! You try to open up a generator, and it takes ABSOLUTELY SMEGGING EONS FOR-”
“The outer shields have come down!” Twilight reported, thereby making what I just said almost redundant. A little annoying to say the least. But there was still an inner shield to come down, so I was right in a way.
Whoops, out of ammo. If I can just get close enough to that fallen clip...
What the smeg am I talking about? I can just pull it over telekinetically! Maybe I’ve taken too many bashes to the head.
“How’s it going, Twi?” I asked.
“The shield’s about halfway down!” she told me.
“Well, can’t I just shoot it now?”
“No! The energy ball powering it might rebound off the shield and go back into the generator core! We can’t risk damaging it or we might never get this thing shut down!”
She’s got a point there. Unfortunately, this is one of those things where if you rush it, you ruin it. Just like with almost every other thing in life.
If you know what I mean...
Nudge-nudge.
Back in the world of non-sexual-innuendo, Braeburn and I were running low on energy. The poor guy had already been worn out when this battle began, and I was borderline exhausted, but now it seemed we were both about to drop down where we stood. I could tell just by looking at the guy and listening to his gunshots: dark circles and bags were rapidly expanding around his eyes, and the gaps of time between the firing of his gun were growing larger and larger with every passing second. I hardly noticed it at first, but then I remembered how lively and energetic he had been earlier.
Particularly when he was telling me about the Blue Demon. There’s a name for what he is, and that name is “fancolt”. I bet he’d go completely spare if he ever met this guy, whoever he is.
Me? I’d rather like to meet him too. Tell him thanks for keeping Equestria safe in his own terrifyingly destructive way.
“The inner shield is down! Now, Hex!”
In a split second, I took in the core of the generator – a single ball of dark energy, identical to that which could be fired from a pulse rifle, bouncing around in an electromagnetic shield – before a blast of magic shot out of my horn and almost levelled the whole thing.
“Great shot!” shouted Twilight as the aforementioned gate (hope you didn’t forget about it) swung open and my friends and I cannoned through it, and Twilight gave a control panel on the other side a zap of what little magic she had left, which cause the gate to swing closed against the advancing forces.
Braeburn and I eyed each other, smiled...
...and, very carefully, fell over.
Twilight, with a sigh, was quick to follow, and she rolled over to rest a hoof on my armoured chest.
“Buckin’ A,” Braeburn swore (I think). “Ah ain’t ever fought like that in all mah life!”
“You’re telling me,” I commented. “I think we could all do with a breather. You okay, Braeburn?”
“Ah think Ah’ll be alright.”
“How about you, Twi?”
“I’m okay,” said Twilight. “I could use a rest, though; I’m still buzzing from adrenaline.”
She reached into her jacket (formerly my jacket) and pulled out a small canteen, the contents of which sloshed around as she unscrewed it.
“Here,” she said, and offered it to me. “There’s – there was – a purifier in New TARDIS. The Combine puts something in the water that messes with your head, but this is safe to drink.”
Holy smeg. The feeling of the cold, flavourless liquid trickling down my throat was the best feeling I have had in a long time. Almost immediately, I felt more awake and alert, but I could see that somepony else needed it too.
“Thanks,” said Braeburn as he accepted the canteen, and I passed it back to Twilight after he had taken a swig. After she had taken a pull, we all stood up, ready to press on.
“Okay,” said Twilight as we walked, “Lightning should be on the other side of this...”
She trailed off, staring in disappointment at the ruined concrete.
“...canal,” she finished rather pointlessly. “Well, there used to be bridge here.”
“What now?” I asked.
Twilight examined the surrounding buildings with inquisitive eyes.
“Aha!” she exclaimed, so suddenly I almost jumped. “You guys wait here: I’ll see if I can scout a path.”
She cantered over to a building with a sturdy-looking drainpipe attached to the outside, and started to use it, along with some windowsills and an awning, to climb up the side to the roof.
I watched her as she climbed, her tail swinging freely in the breeze, and made a conscious effort not to ogle her flank.
“You two datin’ or somethin’?” asked Braeburn.
For a moment, I considered what exactly the definition of ‘dating’ is, and settled on “Sort of.”
Up above, Twilight reached the roof.
“Not to worry!” she called. “It looks like there might be a way across over there! We just have to- oh no.”
I could feel the italics in her voice, and heard the whirr of the ship’s engines as it landed behind her, blowing her mane like crazy. She ducked out of sight, and my stomach churned at the sounds of gunshots.
Then she reappeared.
“Both of you get out of here!” she shouted. “Run! I’ll try to hold them off!”
“You go that way,” I said, pointing down one end of the canal, “and I’ll go this way!”
“Gotcha!” said Braeburn with a small salute, and we ran our separate ways.
But before I re-entered the sewers, a sight was burned into my mind forever: that of Twilight clocked around the back of the head by an Overwatch officer, and her unconscious body dragged out of sight.