The northern incident

by Trigger_Finger

Chapter 8: Don't let me be misunderstood

Johner stepped back, the door was mostly wood and flimsy materials. He pulled the trigger on his SPAS 12 several times. The door was blown apart by the buckshot and Johner proceeded to kick the rest away then rushed into the next room.

They were in their building, but they had never seen it like this before. “Shining… where the hay are we?” Johner asked as they rushed into another room. Shining shrugged, he too had no idea. It was like the place had just appeared out of nowhere in place of theirs.

“Shouldn’t we be in the east section of our base” Johner asked and Shining nodded. They should be but this place looked nothing like there base. It was completely frozen over, just like Chrysalis’ base.

The layout was the same but everything looked… aged, seriously aged and completely frozen. They rounded into another room where Star Dust was waiting for them, already having her MP5 directed at the doorway.

Johner and Shining immediately pointed there weapons at her but Star Dust simply laughed. “Ah-ah-aah, I don’t think so. If you kill me then there’s a very likely chance that when I fall I’ll accidentally trigger the detonator plunger, killing us all” she laughed.

Johner grunted in anger, “I’ll take that chance, as long as those things are killed in the process” he muttered and she laughed again.

“You won’t. You still have a lot to live for” she laughed. Johner was about to squeeze the trigger on his shotgun when Shining placed his hoof on the barrel and pushed Johner’s aim away from Star Dust who in turn laughed insanely. Johner gasped at Shining’s sudden motion.

“I have a wife to go home to, and on top of that she’s pregnant with twins. I need to be there so I can’t let you kill her if it risks us dying” Shining said and Johner grunted. Why all of a sudden did he need to live so badly that they couldn’t take the chance? Shining motioned with his eyes for him to look beyond Star Dust and he quickly glanced over to her then spotted what Shining was motioning for him to see.

Just behind Star Dust, a massive tentacle beast lurked in the shadows. Its drool dripped on the floor and Star Dust slowly turned around in fear then screamed as the beast lunged at her and grabbed her in its tentacles. It squeezed her tightly, breaking literally every bone in her body but also crushing the detonator into pieces.

Shining and Johner both rushed out of the room and galloped to the exterior of the building. Outside the building fared no better, the place looked like it was older than Celestia herself.

The wind howled and blew against them. Johner quickly rushed them into the storage shed and grabbed some spare arctic suits for Pippy and Shining. “What about you?” Shining asked but Johner shook his head.

“I gotta detonate that dynamite or this will have all been for nothing. Get faraway and don’t get close to the base until it goes up in a ball of fire” Johner told him as he unhooked Pippy from his back and suited him up. Shining placed a hoof on Johner’s shoulder.

“I can’t let you do that. You’ll die” Shining told him but Johner just nodded and hooked Pippy up to Shining’s back. “JOHNER! I can’t let you do this alone” Shining yelled but Johner just chuckled.

“If we all go then we’ll all die. At least this way you two can tell the story of what happened here. You have your wife and soon to be foals and Pippy has his whole life to live” Johner said as he began to load fresh shells into his shotgun.

“And you have Twilight!” Shining exclaimed and Johner chuckled.

“No I don’t… she’s her own mare. We never really clicked, you know?” Johner asked rhetorically. He pondered the thought for a moment then pulled out a small little flip open box and gave it to Shining.

Shining looked at the tiny little box and gasped as he realized what it was. Johner smiled solemnly, “Tell her something tragically romantic like… oh I don’t know, my last thoughts were of her or something” Johner chuckled sadly then pumped his shotgun.

“I’ll tell her you always loved her deeply and it broke your heart when you two separated. You know she still loves you?” he asked and Johner sighed and he looked to the ceiling as tears rolled down his face.

“Well I…” he trailed off as he got choked up with emotion. “Be seeing you Armor” Johner said sadly.

“Sparkle” Shining replied and Johner raised an eyebrow. “My last name is Sparkle. Armor is my middle name” Shining informed his friend.

“Shining Sparkle” Johner said with a chuckle. “It has a nice ring to it… Daisy” Johner said, revealing his real name, as he reached out his hoof. The two shook each other’s hooves, for the first time ever realizing one another’s true names.

Shining nodded as Johner smiled. Johner grabbed a large battery and placed it in his packsack then trotted back towards the base complex. Shining quickly rushed out into the blizzard to get away from the imminent explosion.

Johner kicked down the door to the base entrance and entered. He walked over to his old room then busted open the door to his room and grabbed his iPod. He cranked the tunes to his favourite song, the song he had listened to when he first fell in love with Twilight.

Johner entered the hallway just as three tentacle creatures burst into the hallway. Johner pulled the trigger three times on his shotgun. Each shot reporting the death of a tentacle beast as the 12gauge buckshot riddled their bodies.
But don’t you know that no one alive can always be an angel
When things go wrong I seem to be bad…

A tentacle monster lurked out of Bear’s room and Johner swung his SPAS 12 towards it then triggered another shell. The shotgun boomed in the hallway and sent the creature crashing back against the wall. Its body slumped just as Johner walked past it, the smoking 12guage combat shotgun in his hooves.

Johner slowly walked down the hallways as a musical solo began and several creatures burst from Golden’s old room. As Johner began to trigger off the remaining rounds in the shotgun, the creatures fell to the ground as they were struck down by Johner’s shotgun. Johner’s shotgun receiver locked open, signalling that it was empty.

Johner began loading fresh rounds into the gun then pumped it. As he pumped the eighth shell into the chamber he shoved one more into the tubular magazine to give him an extra shot in case he needed it.

Johner entered the middle hallway where several tentacle beasts swarmed, some even clinging to the roof. Johner filled the hallway with a relentless stream of hot lead that ripped apart the horrid things.

Johner loaded fresh rounds into the shotgun so that he wouldn’t run dry at a bad time. He continued down the middle hallway then a larger beast burst from Pippy’s old room. Johner triggered his shotgun and again the base was echoed with the iconic gunshot from the mighty shotgun. The creature’s head tentacle was blown clean off and Johner simply walked past it as he loaded another fresh shell into his shotgun.

Johner turned right at the end of the hall and entered another hallway. There were several of the nightmarish creatures in this corridor which Johner quickly dispatched. Red 12guage shells bounced off the frosty floor and smoke emulated from the ends of each one.

Johner booted down the door to the room with the ladder leading down to the subterranean caverns. He unfolded the SPAS 12’s folding stock and used the arm hook to effectively hold it with one hoof as he descended down the ladder to the depths below.

As Johner descended a hellish creature began to scurry up the ladder towards him but Johner simply pointed the shotgun barrel downwards and squeezed the trigger, filling the shaft with a wall of buckshot that knocked the creature down.

Johner reached the midlevel floor and looked upwards. Several of the creatures looked down at him and he pointed his shotgun barrel straight up and triggered it several times. The blasts blew off several of the creatures’ heads and also managed to chip away at the ice in the shaft way. Johner reloaded his shotgun then began to descend the second ladder.

As Johner reached the bottom of the ladder he lept down and quickly acquired his first target. He began to relentlessly trigger the shotgun, cutting down several of the terrifying creatures.

Johner walked along on his hindlegs as he reloaded the shotgun. Tentacle beasts swarmed down the hallways but
Johner would quickly dispatch them with a blast from his SPAS 12.

A musical solo began again as he reached the tunnel way were they had placed all the explosives. He could hear the screeches of the horrid nightmare creatures as they tried to find him.

He pulled out the battery from his packsack and placed it on the ground near a large cluster of dynamite sticks. The musical notes began again.

Several of the creatures entered the hallway and Johner began to hip fire the shotgun, spraying deadly pellets of buckshot into the creatures, killing them and knocking them back into the others. He quickly ran out of ammo but that was fine, they were dead but he could hear more coming his way.

He quickly cut the detonator cords and peeled back the plastic cover to reveal the inner wires. Johner, or Daisy, let out one final defeated sigh of regret then smiled as tears flowed from his eyes. “I love you Twilight” he whispered then pressed the wires to the terminals on the batteries just as the final notes of the song played.

Outside, a little further away, sat Shining and Pippy. The explosion was massive and rocked the ground around them. Shining let out a saddened sigh.

Pippy looked to his commander. “How do we get home?” Pippy asked and Shining’s face became expressionless as he watched their camp go up in flames. He looked back to Pippy.

“Maybe we shouldn’t” he said with no expression whatsoever.

“So… what do we do?” Pippy asked with a mixture of concern and curiosity in his voice.

Shining looked back to the flame engulfed camp. He looked back to Pippy. “Why don’t we just wait here for a little while… see what happens” Shining offered tiredly as exhaustion began to set in, that and the temperature rise given off from the flames got his body cozy but it wouldn’t be wise to fall asleep here, not with the climate the way it was.

Pippy nodded solemnly, saddened that they had given up after all they had been through. Even after they had technically succeeded and lived through it, they would still perish in the end.

Shining pulled out a bottle of wine and offered it to Pippy but he shook his head. “I don’t drink” Pippy informed Shining who chuckled then brought the bottle back to himself.

He popped open the cork top and raised it to his sticky wet lips. “Neither do I” he whispered as he took a drink from the bottle. He took the bottle away and once again offered it to Pippy who this time accepted the offer and took a large drink from the bottle. Shining gave a faint smile as he slowly leaned his head back against a pile of snow and closed his eyes.

The ever fading warmth of the flame engulfed camp put him at ease as he settled down and closed his eyes. He held Johner’s proposal ring box in his hooves, inside the box he had written on a piece of paper ‘For Twilight Sparkle, from Johner. He always loved you.’ Shining had written it in case some-pony one day found their bodies.

The fire from the base continued to flicker and illuminated the cold dark winter plains of the arctic. Pippy continued to have a drink from the bottle as Shining let out one final, defeated chuckle and then allowed himself to be consumed by fatigue