//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 - Rebellion // Story: Shattered Worlds: The Cataclysm // by Puppeteer //------------------------------// Twilight was left standing in disbelief. Her brain couldn't quite come to terms with just how significant the last few seconds were, but nevertheless she broke out of her trance; fueled with nothing more than logic and willpower. Twilight glanced over the other ponies in the room to see expressions that perfectly mimicked how she felt inside. Nopony had actually expected this to come down to open fighting. Times were getting desperate and each day held new horrors that seemed even more hellish than the last, but nopony had considered the possibility of turning on each-other. True, they had been preparing for the worst, but that was only out of caution. No matter how horrid the world was, nopony was the least bit desensitized to it. Twilight knew that if anything was going to be done she would have to be the one to take charge of it. She couldn't let anypony, including herself, think too hard about what was going on. It was time to take action. Twilight hardened her expression to a determined glare, and wasted no time in addressing the ponies around her. ''There is no time to waste! You!'' she called out, gesturing to a strong looking, chocolate brown earth pony. ''Grab one of those sections of steel plating in the corner, and get out there!'' The sections of steel plating in the corner were mostly used to put behind targets, and occasionally to be used in the fortification of an important structure. They looked kind of like short steel walls held up by supports, with large handles on the back for moving them around. They weren't normally all that useful in combat, considering that the Cyv didn't use firearms, but by the looks of things, most of them had already been taken by squad 4 through the back entrance to what was now a battlefield. The group of ponies departed from the armory with the brown earth pony hefting the steel wall along behind them and an assortment of weaponry. They crisscrossed behind the armory, and took a final left turn down another short alley. What lay outside of the alley, however, was a horrific sight, even by the standards of Ponyville. Several of the steel walls had already been set up on the street, parallel to the unremarkable storage room, which was just a small building with a wide entrance that lead down to a large hollowed out room. The rebels had set up a number of wooden tables on their side of the battlefield, which were facing the steel walls as temporary cover. The sets of cover were remarkably similar. Both the tables and the walls were tall enough to peek over, and wide enough to protect about three ponies, but the wooden tables wouldn't hold up for long against the entourage of bullets they were being hammered with. The tables had been set up well, but the bodies littering the ground outside of the building betrayed the amount of sacrifice required to get them in position. The ground itself was littered with more than just bodies. There were discarded magazines of ammunition, rubble, and gore sprayed across the ground. Near the alley adjacent to the one that she was peeking out of, Twilight noticed both the guards from the armory sitting behind cover with their backs against the steel wall. The Pegasus was reloading with her head close to the side, while the unicorn was gritting his teeth and muttering something to her. Without warning, a bullet came in from an angle, and hit the Pegasus in the back of the head. Her eye exploded from her face, and sprayed the ground front of her with the color red. She collapsed to the ground, and a pool of blood began to spread around her. The unicorn’s eyes widened, and even from where Twilight was standing, the utter disbelief in his expression was plainly visible. Disbelief quickly turned to shock, shock to anger, and anger to pure rage. He picked up her gun with telekinesis, stood straight up, and began firing one round after another. Two rebels poked their heads up from the same table to take him out, but neither of them even got a round off before dropping dead. the unicorn turned to kill another one, but he had pushed his luck too far. A volley of gunshots from various places along the street rang out and tore him to shreds. He fell down next to his partner and lay still. Twilight wanted to look away but she couldn't. His head was ripped apart, and bits of flesh hung off, revealing the bone of his shattered skull. Unable to look away from the gruesome scene, Twilight finally scrunched her eyes shut altogether and waited for her head to clear. After having to go through so many terrible things, Twilight had eventually just shut herself off. She just went through her days without thinking about it or feeling anything and moved on. It was the only way she could stay sane. She had been getting pretty good at it, but this was pushing it. No amount of logical reasoning or apathetic facades could hold her together. The only way she could stop herself from falling apart right there and then was to keep going. Twilight opened her eyes to see that their steel wall had been shoved out into the battlefield, with the brown earth pony behind it. Twilight took a deep breath, and dove out of the alley, and behind the barrier. She heard a few gunshots hit the wall, and a couple whizzed by overhead, but fortunately she had moved fast enough not to be hit. The brown earth pony to her right spoke in a strong, but shaky voice. ''Alright. We need to free up some more space over here, so I'm gonna try to get to the cover in the center with that orange feller.'' he said: gesturing to an orange earth pony behind cover in the center of the street, who was reloading his gun over the corpse of a former ally. Twilight nodded, and the pony next to her nodded back, but despite this confirmation, no action was taken. There was a long pause. He swallowed, clenched his jaw shut, and darted towards the nearby shield with the orange pony, only to be shot in the stomach within a second. Twilight flicked her head to the right with the idea to put up a magical barrier and pulling the earth pony back, but it was already too late. Several more shots hit his body, and sprayed even more of his guts across the battlefield. The orange earth pony saw a window of opportunity, and stood up to take out the ponies that had just fired, but he was only able to get a single round off before he was hit in the shoulder, and fell back behind cover. He was alive, but it didn't look like he would stay that way for long. If nopony stopped him from losing blood, he would be dead in minutes. Twilight had medical equipment in her saddlebag which she could use to patch him up temporarily, but it wouldn't easy be to get to him. If she just darted for him she would just end up like the one before her, and that wouldn't help anything. Still, she couldn't just let him die. There had to be a way for her to get to him without being shot. She could try putting up a magical barrier like she had thought of earlier, but that might not work. Magical barriers worked well for well for blocking spells and magic, but they didn't fare so well against solid objects, and when the solid object is moving at 900 m/s, a magical barrier won't stand very much abuse before being shattered. Sure it might block a couple, but after that she really wouldn't be much better off. Although… Maybe if she timed it right, the barrier would be enough to get her across. Every time a volley of gunfire from one side finished, another from the opposite side began in order to gun down the pony that had been shooting. If a pony didn't duck back behind cover fast enough after firing, they would be torn to pieces. now that Twilight was listening, she could pick out an almost rhythmic order in the gunfire. One of the rebels stopped firing. Now was her chance. Twilight poked her gun up from behind cover without actually looking, fired a couple of rounds in the general direction of the shooter, and slipped the gun back into her saddlebag just as another series of gunshots rang out. Most of the rebels would duck back behind their tables to avoid being hit. Without hesitation, Twilight darted out from behind her steel wall, put up a magical barrier, and sprinting for all she was worth. A couple of bullets bounced off of the barrier, sending tremors down Twilight's horn. The barrier shattered as a third bullet pushed it's way through and actually trimmed a couple of hairs off of Twilights mane. Twilight was defenseless, but she leaped for cover and slid behind the other steel wall just as it, and space around it, was barraged with gunfire. The injured earth pony she had been trying to get to was a dark shade of orange, and his mane should have been a slightly darker shade of the same color, but the left side of it was heavily stained with his own blood. He was laying on his back, and making no effort to move into a more comfortable position. Twilight reached into her saddlebag to pull out a small white box with a red plus sign on it. This was a standard sisterhood medical kit, which contained various types of sedatives, anesthetics, disinfectants, needles, thread, and bandages. Most of the supplies had recently been scavenged from the ponyville hospital, so medical equipment was limited, and not many ponies knew quite how to use it, but Twilight had read a book or two on medical practice. ''Alright.'' Twilight said cautiously. ''This may hurt quite a bit, but if I don't do it you may die.'' Surprisingly, the injured pony chuckled. ''Heh heh. I just got shot you know. This already hurts quite a bit. You don't have to worry about it hurting more. You can call me Jack if I survive this.'' ''Alright. I only felt it fair to warn you.'' Twilight cast a quick spell to slow the blood flow near the wound, and pulled a syringe out of the box which was already loaded with a light anesthetic. She injected it just below Jack's neck. He was going to need it, considering that he was already grimacing in pain. Twilight nudged him up on his side temporarily to check if the bullet had passed all the way through. It hadn't. She would have to remove the bullet from his shoulder before Stitching it up. Twilight pulled a clean, sharp scalpel from the box, and held it up telekinetically. Jack eyed the scalpel nervously. ''Today really isn't my day, is it?'' Jack looked to his left at the corpses of the two guards. ''Sompony always has it worse. I guess I'll just grin and bear it.'' Twilight carefully began the incision at the neck, and slowly worked her way over the wound. Suddenly there was a deafening sound. Twilight yelped, and looked around for the source of the noise. Her eyes settled on Jack pulling his gun from his hoof with his teeth, and spitting it out beside him. ''Sorry.'' he said. ''It went off by accident. Even in the middle of a fire fight, a shot that close can be startling I guess.'' Both Twilight and Jack looked down at his wound simultaneously, to find that in her panic, Twilight. had torn the scalpel down to his stomach. ''Oh just my damb luck! Can you fix it?'' ''Uh...Yes?'' ''Oh. Well with a response like that I'm just overflowing with confidence.'' Twilight took out a bottle of disinfectant. ''I'm warning you beforehand that this will sting.'' ''Oh come on, this is an open surgery on a battlefield. Do you really think a little...Ahg! Well you didn't have to use the whole bleeding bottle now!'' Despite the fact that it was completely inappropriate for the situation, Twilight grinned a little as she put the (now empty) bottle of disinfectant back in the box, and pulled out a small pair of tweezers. She carefully maneuvered the tweezers past the sensitive muscle tissue, and pulled out a small piece of metal. She put both the piece of metal and the tweezers away before taking out the last components necessary for the surgery. Bandages, a spool of black thread, and a sharp needle. Twilight carefully connected the thread to the needle, and began sewing the wound shut, starting at the stomach. Soon, she reached Jack's shoulder, and finished closing the wound to the best of her ability. Twilight examined the wound closely, and was pleased with her handy work. Blood loss was minimal, the bullet was removed, and the wound was closed neatly, but the patch up was only temporary. It wouldn't last him for more than an hour or two, but at least that would be enough to get him to a real doctor. Twilight strung the bandages over the wound several times, and then looped it around jack's leg to make a makeshift sling, which she tied in back. By this time the gunfire had slowed down, and eventually ceased altogether. The tables that were still standing had so many bullet holes in them that they were practically transparent. The rebels had been slaughtered down to the last pony, and many other ponies had been killed besides. But thanks to Twilight, at least one of them would make it into the care of actual doctors and most likely live.