“Barnaby? It’s me, I’ve found Lord Copper and I’ll keep you posted,” Rainbow said into her microphone before clicking the radio off and glaring back at Lord Copper.
His guards took a step towards her but Rainbow Dash just huffed. “If you don’t want your guards to be a big pile of broken bones, I’d tell them to back off.”
At seeing just how serious Rainbow Dash was, his guards became a little uneasy and they looked back at him for any orders. Not only that, all of the other ponies on the street had stopped to look at what was happening. A huge crowd was forming around Lord Copper and Rainbow Dash. The lord swallowed a nervous gulp and coughed, trying to put on his most intimidating and confident face.
“J-Just what do you think you’re doing anyways? What reason do you have to come to me right now? Obviously you know not to bother me after last time,” Lord Copper said, projecting his voice so the civilians could hear him clearly.
“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me what I’m doing?” Rainbow Dash said.
“Excuse me?” Copper raised an eyebrow.
“I came here to stop you from doing whatever it is you’re planning. So why don’t you tell me exactly what I’m stopping?” Rainbow glared hard at him.
Her eyes made Lord Copper wilt. “R-Ridiculous... I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Then what are you doing out here with these guys?” Rainbow said as she looked back and forth at the various guards.
Lord Copper looked around at the curious ponies and swallowed. “I-If you must know, we were going to the mines.”
“To check on the bombs you planted?” Rainbow accused. Her voice was still even, she wasn’t shouting, but there was an icy ferocity in her words all the same.
That sent a rumble through the crowd and they began muttering and talking to each other while Copper’s guards sweated and Lord Copper himself looked like he was about to have an aneurysm.
“Bombs?! That I planted?! Don’t be ridiculous you... you... vomit-maned outsider!” He shouted at her. “For your information, the only reason I’m going there is to check up on things. With all that’s happened lately, I thought it would be wise if the lord of Copper Section himself came down to the mines to reassure everypony and get a first-hoof look at things. Bombs? I have no knowledge of such horrid things and I certainly hope there’s nothing so sinister down in our mines right now!”
Rainbow Dash closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I told you.” She said as she opened her eyes and glared at him once more. “I told you to stop and not do anything stupid that you couldn’t handle. I told you. So I’m giving you one more chance to tell me where the bombs you’ve planted are, this is serious and ponies are in danger. So quit lying to me and just come clean already. Barnaby is down in the mines right now and he’s going to find those bombs, but we don’t know how long it is until they go off, everypony is still in danger. I don’t want ponies to get hurt. And... I don’t think you really do either.”
Unconsciously, Lord Copper looked down at the watch on his hoof again. “I-I-I really don’t know what you’re getting at. I was almost blown up! N-Now of course I don’t want to see any ponies hurt, but if you really care about that then how about letting me through to the mines so I can conduct my own inspection!”
“No deal, I’ve got a direct radio to Barnaby right now, just tell me where the bombs are!” Rainbow Dash’s wings flared opened and she menacingly took a step forward.
“G-Guards! Stop her!” Lord Copper commanded.
The captain of this squad looked at the very dangerous looking pegasus and then back at his lord. “Um, sir-”
“What am I paying you for! Stop that pegasus!” Lord Copper spat at him.
“Y-Yes, sir!” The captain turned and faced Rainbow Dash. He swallowed his fear and took a few steps towards her. “Okay, look, you’re outnumbered and we can’t let you threaten Lord Copper. So stop all this and come quietly and we can-” He blinked and she was gone. “Uhh... where’d she-”
His sentence was cut off as a lightning fast kick from a flying pegasus knocked him into the side of the building next to the street. He smacked off the stone facade and fell limp to the ground while Rainbow Dash landed right where he had been standing just before.
“I’m not playing around here,” Rainbow said.
The rest of the guards were shaking as they seemed to weigh the odds on fighting her and disobeying Lord Copper. However, Rainbow Dash wasn’t in the mood to waste any more time and let them come to a decision on their own. She was a blur as she shot towards the next two closest guards, simultaneously throwing a punch at one and a kick at the other. Both were knocked out by the singular blows and fell over limply onto the street. The rest of the guards now jumped at Rainbow Dash on instinct, trying to overpower and wrestle her to the ground with superior numbers.
Rainbow threw that plan right into the wood chipper when she grabbed the leg of the closest guard who had jumped at her and swung him over her shoulder using his own momentum and into one of the guards coming at her from the other side. That was two momentarily taken care of. The next closest she ducked under his attempted grab and headbutted him in the chest, making him wheeze and drop his head down, where she then elbowed him in the temple and knocked him out. Another guard each came at her right and left. Rainbow just rolled her eyes and flapped up, letting them run into each other, and then landed on the both of them and smashed them into the ground. The guard she had thrown earlier finally recovered and came at her with a swinging right hook. It didn’t compare at all to some of the attacks she had had to deal with on this adventure. She deftly moved her head out of the way and punched him straight between the eyes, finishing him with a spinning kick to the side of the head.
One last guard, blinded by adrenaline most likely, came rushing at her wildly. Rainbow Dash stepped inside his reach and brought her wing up, chopping him in the throat with it. The guard sputtered and coughed and Rainbow finished him off too with a strong elbow to the back of his head.
The only guard remaining was the one she had thrown the other into. And he was doing the smart thing and staying on the ground.
Rainbow Dash cracked her neck and started stalking towards Lord Copper again. “Your turn. Unless you want to talk?”
Lord Copper didn’t fancy either of those options. His lip quivered as he took a few steps back from Rainbow Dash, hearing some of the rumblings from the crowd, and their shocked voices at what Rainbow Dash just did to the guards, he got an idea. “C-Citizens of Oreville!” He yelled, looking out across the crowd. “H-Help me! This pegasus outsider is attacking me! They’re some kind of deranged lunatic, g-go get help! Get the constables! Protect me from her! Protect your lord!”
Rainbow Dash paused as the emotion of the crowd changed in an instant. A lot of ponies angrily began to converge on her position, mostly working stallions but even some mares, emboldened by the crowd, joined in. Oreville ponies up and down the street were forming a mob around the pegasus outsider, shouting and angrily staring her down. It’s not like she was in any real danger but they could make it impossible for her to get to Copper and do what she needed to do.
“No, stop!” Rainbow Dash shouted to the crowd. “I’m not the one you should be angry at, he is!” She pointed to Lord Copper. “Lord Copper is the bad guy here!”
“Preposterous!” Copper attempted to shout her down before anypony could think about it. “I am Lord Copper, lord of the Copper Section of Oreville, and I have done nothing but work for these ponies all my life! Why would they believe you over me?! You’re nothing but a dangerous outsider stirring up trouble and attempting an attack on an esteemed public figure!”
“That’s right!” A stallion said. “What do you think you’re doing, outsider!”
“We thought you were a diplomat from another country, why are you attacking Lord Copper?” An angry mare asked Rainbow.
“Y-You attacked Oreville ponies already!”
“What were you talking about with those bombs earlier? Are you going to blow something up?”
"Get out of here!”
Rainbow Dash bit her lip, the crowd continuing to encroach on her. She looked through the mess of ponies and saw the smug face of Lord Copper smirking back at her. Rainbow Dash furrowed her brow and flexed her wings, powerfully flapping them once and sending wind through the crowd of ponies to temporarily startle them. She levitated off the ground, staying just barely at a level slightly above the heads of most ponies, and took in a deep breath.
“Listen to me!” She shouted with enough force to silence the crowd. “I know I’ve only been here for a short time, I know you’re scared, and I know you don’t really have a reason to trust me, but you need to. I’m here to help! Lord Copper is the one who’s behind all of this, all of the bombings, and he’s planning to commit even more right now!”
“That’s a lie!” Lord Copper interrupted, a frenzied scowl on his face.
Rainbow Dash ignored him. “I’m asking you all to believe in me, so I can put a stop to this and save Oreville! Look at me and look at him, and please, just put your trust in me today!”
Lord Copper clenched his jaw shut and looked around at the quieting down crowd in a panic, with some sweat dripping from his brow. To his horror, some of the ponies seemed to actually be considering her words. A lot of them still looked angry and unsure at her, but he didn’t want them thinking at all right now!
“Y-You’re not seriously thinking of believing her right now, are you?!” Lord Copper screamed at the crowd.
“I believe her!” A voice called out from deeper in the crowd.
Rainbow Dash, Lord Copper, and the rest of the ponies looked over as the crowed parted and a mare stepped forth.
“Eleanor...” Rainbow Dash whispered and came floating back to the ground.
“I believe Rainbow Dash!” Eleanor repeated for everypony to hear. “M-Most of you probably haven’t gotten to know her personally, but I have! She comforted me when my husband died, and I believe what she’s saying now!”
“So do I!” Another voice called from the crowd and Nurse Abernathy pushed her way through it. “If it wasn’t for Rainbow Dash, Chief Constable Barnaby would be dead right now. She risked her life and got hurt to save him, there’s no way she’s lying about this now!”
“Abernathy...” Rainbow smiled, the faith of the two mares warming her heart.
The attitude of the crowd shifted once again, and now most ponies were looking in Lord Copper’s direction.
He began to sweat even more. “T-This... y-you can’t...”
Rainbow Dash blew a breath of air out her nose as she narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s over, dude. Tell me where those bombs are right now so we can end this.”
“I-” Lord Copper started.
But he was immediately cut off as a blaring siren began to ring throughout the streets. It was deafening and it came from all around them, the entire Copper Section was being drowned out by the siren. Ponies looked around in confusion and fear, worried that maybe another bomb had gone off or something else had happened. Both Lord Copper and Rainbow Dash were completely surprised as well.
“The emergency alert siren... but-” Lord Copper said, his eyes then narrowed. “Lord Silver. But why?”
The siren shortly cut off but then a crackling noise like from an old speaker buzzed on and the air was filled with static.
Bzzt!
“Hello, Copper Section,” A voice spoke through the streets. “This is Administrator Darren, direct subordinate to Lord Silver. This is an emergency broadcast to inform you that lockdown of the Copper Section is commencing. The trams will be taken offline, tunnels leading to and from Copper Section are closing as I speak, and the entrances to the mines are being closed as well. Please calmly return to your homes and wait until lockdown has been lifted, thank you.”
Lord Copper’s eyes widened in shock and he once more looked at his watch, the seconds and minutes continuing to pass by.