//------------------------------// // 09 - Entering and Breaking // Story: The GATE // by scifipony //------------------------------// I trotted quickly behind the giant house. With better, more protected but open, vistas, I was able to reconnoiter the location most efficiently by flying and leapt into the sky. The bipeds, these bipeds anyway, lived in a very wide, immensely long valley. In the far distance, I saw a blue and gray mountain range to the the east. Closer hills and mountains lay to the west beyond the garage. A few peaks rose high enough to gather snow. Exposed rocks and browned grass swathed what in the lower reaches of the closer slopes probably amounted to pleasing pastures. In the near distance, none of the sort of sedge trees I had hidden in grew. Instead I saw tumble weeds, scraggly skeletal plants, and strange thin-trunked trees that ended in a whorl of gray-green pointy blades easily each the length of a sword. Very few clouds decorated the sky or cast shadows on what I deduced was some sort of high desert region. From the height of a second story window, I saw no settlements at all up to a distant road. It appeared paved, and was wide enough for fast two-way intermittent traffic. I saw but couldn't hear cars and trucks, both big and small. A currently vacant dirt road wound out east from the truck park. I took advantage of the practice range and garage being hidden from my vantage to listen for occupants in the house, then hover and peer through as many windows as I could. After a minute, I teleported inside. I smelled a faint scent of perspiration and cedar planking and it was warmer inside. Every chair, every table, every bed, and every lamp was giant-sized. Most were fashioned from wood, some fixtures out of badly tarnished brass, and though some chairs were made of fabric, at least one sofa I suspected was made out of animal hide. I really tried not to think about that. I couldn't judge, yet. I didn't know enough, and unlike AJ, I really worked hard not to let my gut lead me. Thought of AJ, who I'd last seen probably about 15 minutes ago, returned my sense of urgency. I found myself dancing nervously on hoof tips—luckily upon a muffling dense woven woolen rug, considering I might not be alone. If ponies disobeyed my orders to quarantine Sweet Apple Acres, ponies would be hurt. I really disliked not being in better control, but I needed to understand the bipeds better. If I could just find a forgotten barking arrow and some of the "arrows" they cast, I'd know exactly how to tune a shield spell. I wasn't deluding myself that I might find a map with invasion plans marked all over it. This really didn't feel like more than a well-used farm house, one that could have been better maintained. Upstairs was all vacant bedrooms, except for a sewing room filled with corrugated brown boxes. All had pale manilla-colored sheets and dirty-brown crochet-style blankets. Even the wall paper was pale white with drab olive stripes. Again, Rarity would have been mortified. The stairway down creaked. That stopped me repeatedly, ears swiveling, really straining to keep my tail from swishing nervously. Downstairs I found an almost industrial-sized kitchen and a huge long dining table. That got me to thinking about the large number of upstairs bedrooms and somewhat institutional decor. Could this be some sort of wilderness hotel? One with a practice range? If that was true, I guess I was lucky there wasn't a concierge and a cook... Both of who might be one of the flannel bipeds now invading Equestria! Right... Not military. Plenty of enticing books and magazines lay around over-stuffed chairs and sofas, which boosted my hotel theory. I tore my eyes away and took my time to gaze through the open windows at the garage and the practice range. I could hear the barking arrows off and on, somewhat muffled. I continued exploring. Until I found a single locked door, with a brass plate. I looked up at the engraving. I huffed. Not a clue. Probably read, Authorized Ponies Only. I teleported to the other side. When I slightly opened a heavy fabric drapery, I found a large oaken desk with unmistakable ledgers atop it. Business notebooks lined the shelves behind it, with hardbound books beside them. On one high shelf lay a stack of small, cardboard boxes with curlicue writing and what I felt confident I identified as digits. Under that shelf and extending down to the floor, I saw something that, despite the lack of any smell of magic, could only be a safe. I chuckled, trotting closer. I sniffed and waved my horn. Indeed, no magic. It looked tough enough. I tapped it. By the plinks, I deduced it was iron or steel, probably the latter, under black paint with chrome details and an orange logo in florid cursive. With a dial and a lever. Entirely and mundanely standard, except that no ward glowed under my query spell, not even a simple cantrip! And the the handsome metal box stood much taller than wide. I puzzled at that as I reached my magic to grab one of the small boxes that was maybe the size of two hooves side by side. And heavy. Unexpectedly. Heavy. It made a crunchy, jangly sound, not unlike bits but not coin-shaped or -sized, either. I ripped apart the packaging and cylinders, each the size of the end of a stubby overused pencil, spilled out. All were tipped with a dull brown modern arrow head clad in a trailing sheath of brass. "Not arrows at all," I breathed. I bet if Pinkie Pie had heard Apple Bloom's description, or seen the barking arrows herself, she would have recognized a cannon. Portable, powerful cannons that would be wielded by hoof or wing, or hand in this case, but certainly soon by hoof and wing. I bounced the miniature warheads, or shells, I wasn't sure of the correct terminology. The tips were... By the weight... Yes. Lead. Dozens of physics equations solved simultaneously in my head with the aid of my horn. (Watching Princess Celestia raise the sun that first time, I'd discovered a horn, my horn, could solve any math, not just spell equations—when I pushed it.) The brass part undoubtedly held phosphor fireworks powder of some sort, which explained the ferric disk at the center of the bottom. Ignition in a right-sized hoof-canon would explosively expel the warhead at supersonic velocity, with devastating results. The recoil would be substantial, but I could think of engineering and magical solutions for that when ponies designed their own. I couldn't absolutely determine the terminal velocity until I actually analyzed the propellant, but I had a really good guess. Looking, I found a purse or pouch, which, with some deft tying of knots, I turned into a messenger style saddlebag. I ripped open all the boxes and selected samples of each size of ammunition. I then looked out the window. Still no creatures near the house. Good. Because I had figured out what was inside the safe. It turned out to be bolted to the floorboards. Made sense. Timed against a large burst of practice barks, my force spell splintered the wood. Whilst it proved a heavy load, I struggled the safe out the back door of the house and used Measure Mostly to analyze the thing's weak points. I glanced once around the side of the building and during a loud cacophony, I gathered my strength and threw the safe 14.62 pony-lengths straight up. When it reached its maximum height, I oriented it slightly skewed making allowances for drag and cross-winds, grabbed it again in my magic, and shoved down while dodging around the edge of the house. The bang may have been louder than I expected. Bits of heavy metal thundered into the wood-siding of the house and though the walls, while the rest rolled away like chunks of an accidentally dropped watermelon as the safe spilled its contents. Amongst a mess of scattered gray-green leaflets fluttering in the breeze, I found the half-dozen weapons formerly within. One long barking arrow survived mostly intact but for cracked wood fletching. I strapped on one hefty compact model in a handy holster that had cushioned it, alongside my messenger bag. I didn't even give a second thought to the animal skin leather I'd laid against my skin. I found an exquisite wide-bladed knife with an array of notches along one side to act as tools for prying and tying, also in a belted holster. I tied it on and quickly wedged the barking arrow between all the straps I now wore. I used force spells to break apart anything left faintly intact, then scattered the blackened metal and wood into the brush. My heart raced. Had I miscalculated, I didn't have much time. With nary a glance, I glided so low to the ground that I scuffed the tips of my horseshoes as I shot toward the garage below the level of the sedges. AJ would have said the cowpony in me had come out, but not entirely. I took the moments the flight afforded me to reorient my understanding of my position in space, to imagine the location of the spherical gate relative the garage I approached at a dangerous velocity, and to properly cast a spell with well calculated vectors. I teleported a pony-length from the corrugated metal wall. I hit the gossamer membrane of the gate at full speed on the other side, and a half-heartbeat later flew back into Equestrian airspace. I banked instantly right, away from the makeshift road and into the forest. Had any creature been waiting, they'd have seen a flying purple pony armed with two barking arrows flash by. From their context of horses being earthbound and unintelligent, they likely wouldn't be able to fathom what they'd seen. I told myself that my flight instructor, Rainbow Dash, would be proud.