//------------------------------//
// 17 - Go, Go, Go! 
// Story: The GATE 
// by scifipony 
//------------------------------//


Starlight Glimmer


I wasn't ready.  I'd gotten to like the quiet life of a school counselor!

Though, really, getting stuck in the magic Cozy Glow cast using magical artifacts did annoy me—needing a bathroom being only the half of it.  "Oh, my!  The Crown of Glover just floated out of its box.  I followed it to this door into a sub-basement!  I really do think you ought to take a look, Counselor Starlight, since you understand magic."   She'd tricked me.  I'd thought I'd been devious and calculating at her age, but she left me feeling I could easier predict Discord's actions.

The bipeds were worse.  They weren't even ponies.  They weren't even native to this world. 

So, yes, I wasn't really ready, but I knew what I had to do.  I'd been in Applejack's barn enough times so that when when everything went dark except for Twilight's blinding horn light, I imagined the center of the barn and triggered one of the half-dozen spells I'd prepped in my horn.  I teleported.

After a few instants of completely dark in-between, I landed me and Trixie by the light of a dozen lanterns.  AJ shouted, "Whoah!"

Trixie screamed and dropped her tool as I quickly looked around.

I counted seven who'd been sitting, talking.  Three were at the barn doors.  Four were at the opposite end of the barn, with us ponies between the two groups who scrambled around.

Just as Twilight had expected, they realistically couldn't shoot lest they endanger one another, but she had counseled that they didn't seem well trained either so not to count on it.  "Trixie, throw the smoke bombs!"

She had already started as my last word came out.  The bipeds scrambled this way and that as I cast my shield spell and crouched down.  As I'd told Twilight, the shield spell I routinely used relied on a time component and it triggered even before I spoke the mnemonic, and since it progressed on its own, I had time to grab a hammer off a workbench, a hoe, and a few boards.  I tossed them towards either end of the building to add to the confusion.  What I didn't know was if my re-tuned spell would stop supersonic lead.

The thin glassy flasks Trixie had thrown—blown-sugar Hearthswarming Eve tree ornaments filled with separated ingredients—were light enough that they had air-resistance.  The stuff I threw first landed as the bipeds dodged before the smoke bombs detonated with rapid cracks and puffs.  

Coughing and hacking ensued as Trixie whirled around the bolt cutters.  It had handles the length of her entire body and easily snipped the first wire grounding AJ with a loud ka-chunk.  I heard yells as I heard a grunt as I heard the snap of the second cable.  As AJ pulled the third cable taunt for Trixie, I heard one of the creatures screaming one long determined yell.  The thump of his long legs made it easy to tell he ran through the smoke at me.

Snap!  The third cable separated.

I hoped the shield spell would hold if he used a hoof-cannon, though I suspected I'd use my queued force spell if he got too close.

The biped, wearing a gray flannel shirt, his brownish mane in his face, hand-cannon drawn, had judged my position pretty well passing through the curtain of smoke.

And Trixie had judged well, too.  The bolt cutters spun at him.  Just in-time, he dodged, but tripped, and went diving.

I grabbed his hoof-cannon from his claws as he slid toward me, then pushed into my shield as if it were taffy.

The bolt cutters whizzed past in a blue aura.  I heard a final ka-chunk.

Trixie's muzzle scrunched up as her horn lit with her magic.  Two seconds later, AJ disappeared in a pop.

It was too much for the bipeds at the door.  Maybe they thought the teleport pop was a shot, so they began firing.