I stared at the abandoned strip mall. It was about what you’d expect. Grass grew through the cracked pavement, and a few light posts were knocked over. The windows and doors were all haphazardly boarded over with plywood and particleboard. A for-real tumbleweed danced lazily around the parking lot in the wind.
“This has got to be a henchman level bad guy,” I said from my vantage point in the cloudline. “Top tier bad guys are in posh hotels and sweet castles. Henchmen level bad guys always go to abandoned whatever sites and seedy motels.”
We parked Suzy about a mile away with a sign that read, “This cloud already claimed by Blossom Jane and Cloud Kicker. Sign the guestbook if you drop by.”
Jess had given me a sour look at the joke, which I responded to with a crooked smile. Since getting the address from Diana, my heart had gone into my throat and was beating pretty intensely. A bit from hope, mostly from the stress of what we were about to do. When I got stressed in the past, I had a few coping mechanisms, but it appeared I’d mostly taken January’s habit of making bad jokes in dire times.
My comment on the location earned another slight glare from Jess.
“You have a plan?” she asked, bringing us back to the task at hoof.
I nodded. “Recon,” I said, encompassing the place with my hoof. “Look for points of entry, sneak in, locate pony, get pony out, fly like hell.”
“How about resistance?”
I chewed on my lip, thinking through everything I’d seen. It was harder than I liked. I kept going to this sound in my head that sounded like, “Nononononono...” and the fact that I really needed to go to the bathroom. The mention of “resistance” showed that as much as my heart hammered, it could go faster.
“Um. Deal with it on a case by case basis?” I said.
Jess rolled her eyes and glared through the thin cloud cover. That had been her idea. Putting a full hole in a cloud with pegasus heads poking through occasionally would probably unnerve whoever had Rhea and make them do something drastic. So, we merely thinned the cloud enough that we could see and anyone thinking to look up would just see indistinct shadows.
“Pick-up truck,” she said.
I followed the wing she pointed with and yup, there was a blue pick-up that looked like it needed a wash and a new coat of paint.
“One, two at most,” I said, my voice sounding distant in my ears.
Jess nodded in agreement.
“Here’s the new plan,” she said. “Your recon idea is good, but you’re not accounting for resistance, which means we need more recon. We’re almost totally blind here.”
She tapped a hoof to her chin.
“I’m taking over this.”
“What? Why?” I said.
“You’re good at spotting things and intuitive leaps. I’m good at figuring things out and planning. Cloud’s good at strategy and tactics. I have the better skill set here.” Jess looked at me. “We treat this military. I’m lead, you’re back up.”
I briefly, very briefly thought of protesting, but I was barely keeping myself together. I knew when I was vastly out of my element.
I nodded. My heart eased back a few miles per hour.
Jess smiled. It was... Different from her usual smile. More Cloud-like. Yet, I could still see Jess was in charge. Weird.
“We go in quiet,” she said. “No nervous mouth. Can you give me silence?”
I nodded.
“Good.” She looked through the cloud and indicated a spot with her hoof. “We’ll fly in over there. Follow my lead and even if there’s an opening, nopony will see us clearly with the angle I have in mind.”
I nodded again.
Jess looked at me carefully, up and down. “You with me on this? You’re not gonna spaz?”
I looked down at the strip mall. I thought about Rhea.
I turned my gaze to Jess and dipped my head affirmatively. Once.
She liked what she saw and gestured with her head. She dropped through the cloud and I followed close behind, copying her wing beats and descent angle. We landed in brush right up against the building and squatted down. Jess moved quieter than I’d have thought possible on hooves and checked around the corner. She nodded and beckoned me along.
We flew low, almost scraping our knees along the ground, but it kept us quiet.
We located the entry point pretty quick.
Definitely henchman. Big bad guys don’t park their cars in front of boards that have been obviously popped loose by the crowbar laying on the ground. To the henchman’s credit, the board was propped against the wall so that from a distance, it didn’t look that different from the rest of the strip mall’s blocked up windows and such. Up close, though, you could see how it leaned.
Jess examined it and gestured me to the top of the board. I caught her meaning and flapped up. Easing the board back on its pivot point, I let Jess fly in, silent as an owl. Once she was through, I flapped over the board, holding it steady with my hoof. Once I’d crossed over, I gave a little tug and it started tipping back to follow me. I felt Jess’s hoof as she caught the wood and helped me ease it close.
We were in.
The interior was empty shelves, dust-covered desks and bits of paper everywhere. Shafts of light poked through the boards and we could make out the outline of doorways and such. It smelled of time and dirt and heat.
I wanted to throw up so badly.
Glancing at Jess in the semi-dark, I saw her face was impassive, searching. How was she staying so calm? Maybe Cloud was actually working with her? Luna, I hoped so. We needed all the help we could get.
She landed and crept along. I mimicked her movements with only a little more sound. I saw why she’d gone on hoof. Our flapping had disturbed some of the dust and strewn papers. Couldn’t do that if we wanted to stay all stealthy.
Wow, did I want to throw up.
Jess sniffed at the air, which I did as well and I... Oh. Hey.
There was another pony in here. And- *sniff* -somebody else too. Just the one. Oh thank Luna, Celestia and all the stars in the sky.
We moved quietly, following our noses until we came around a corner and noticed a dull light that didn’t match the scant outside light we’d had before. We followed the glow and in a room almost in the middle of the abandoned strip mall, we found them.
A unicorn with a light blue coat and a dark blue mane sat on a dirty, twin mattress in the corner. Her fur was going in a few directions and she looked like she could use a bath. The light didn’t reach far enough so I could see her cutie mark. I could see her gold eyes though. They were cast down and looked dull.
Across from her and sitting on an overturned plastic drum was her kidnapper. He looked about average human height, wearing blue jeans, combat boots and a blue shirt with a graphic I couldn’t see from where I crouched next to Jess. He was thick across the shoulders and had his arms folded as he leaned back, staring hard at the pony I assumed was Rhea. His hair was cropped close to his head and brown.
“Break’s over,” he said, standing up.
The pony flinched when he rose.
My hammering, fear-fueled heart suddenly slowed as ice entered my veins. I narrowed my eyes and my breathing got steadier.
This didn’t go unnoticed by Jess, who motioned me to crouch lower.
The guy walked over to the pony and slammed a can of what looked like beans on the ground.
“Two feet, fifteen minutes. Do it.”
The pony shuddered, nodded.
Her horn lit with a white-blue aura that soon wrapped around the tin can. She grunted and the can lifted up, floating wobbily. When it reached what I guessed was two feet in the air, it held.
The pony stared at the can. She was focused intently, desperately. She swallowed like the act was the worst distraction in the world.
The man stood resolute, patient. I could smell the anger coming off him though.
The wait was agonizing. I wanted to go in, tackle him and swoop up that pony in one motion. Jess had a hoof on my back though, anticipating my boiling anger.
The can wobbled after a bit, tipped and dropped from the unicorn’s magical grip. She gasped, breathing hard.
The man was shaking.
“Four? Four minutes! We’ve been at this a day and that’s the best you’ve got?!”
He reeled back and backhanded her across the muzzle. The noise was like a cracked whip and if Jess hadn’t bodily got atop me, I would have rushed in, ready to clobber the bum.
The pony, who had to be Rhea, she just had to, coughed.
“I’m- I’m sorry. I’m still new. I can- I only can hold things-”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” he roared.
He turned and through Jess’s mane, which was all in my face with her on top of me, I saw his shirt. Stenciled in bright yellow letters was: P.A.P.A.
People Against Ponies Association.
Shit.
I pointed at the shirt and Jess nodded. She understood. We’d talked about them when preparing Suzy. Unfortunately, we hadn’t talked about this particular situation.
“You’re going to do it again,” the man said in a hard, firm voice. “And you’re going to do it right. Or I will kill you and go find some other little magic freak.”
Rhea nodded. It had to be Rhea. Blue mane hair and I noticed a purse in the corner of the room with a Luna pin reflecting the light. The light, which I finally noticed was from a big, electric camping lamp.
Her horn lit again and the PAPA man turned to focus on her efforts as much as Rhea.
Jess tapped my shoulder and gave me a look that translated as, “You’re not going to lose it now, are you?”
I nodded my calmness and she got off me.
She swept her gaze quickly around the space and pointed to an empty archway on the other side of the room. It was actually kind of close to Rhea. She then pointed at me, then made a curving sweep with her hoof.
I nodded my understanding: she wanted me to go around to that portal.
She then pointed from herself to the PAPA man. She tapped a hoof against her head and made googily eyes at me. If it wasn’t so direly serious, I would have laughed at the expression.
I nodded again, mouthing, “You first?”
She nodded this time. I got the plan then. She was going to tackle and bean the guy, and I was going to swoop in and get Rhea out of there. Simple.
I looked at her and I couldn’t hold it in any more. I hugged her. Desperately and with the implication of good luck, I hugged her. She was stiff for a moment, then reached up her forelegs to clutch me close.
Once we separated, I nodded intensely and circled around the rooms, keeping the electric lamp out of the corner of my eye. I reoriented on the passage Jess had wanted me at and settled in close.
Peaking around the corner, I could make out the PAPA man clearer. He was in his late twenties and his nose looked like it had been broken before. His eyes were hard little coals in the dim light from the lamp.
I saw Jess waiting across the room, which gave her a direct line to the PAPA man. She held up a wing with five feathers.
I nodded my understanding and readied myself.
She ticked down to four feathers.
I wiggled my rump, ready to hop, skip and jump right through here and get Rhea.
Three feathers.
Focus on your goal. Aim for her center of mass and kind of... Swoop up on the way out. I hoped she wasn’t heavy.
Two feathers.
I licked my lips and took more deep, steadying breaths. I needed all the oxygen I could get.
One feather.
My heart had finally settled and I was locked entirely on Rhea.
Go.
“RAAAAAAAH!” Jess yelled, causing the PAPA man to turn as I took off in a flight sprint, grabbing Rhea around her trunk and rocketing out the other door.
I heard rather than saw the noise of Jess’s hoof colliding with the guy’s head and a noise like a strangled cough before he hit the ground. I was already hauling tail through the abandoned rooms, Rhea gasping in my grip.
“It’s okay! Carlisle sent us!” I yelled.
I glanced back to check and there was Jess, flapping hard and easily catching me up.
“Go!” she commanded. “Go go go go go!”
“Help!” I yelled back.
She got under Rhea’s other side and my listing speed improved as we rocketed through the rooms to the front door.
“Just a little farther...” I said through gritted teeth.
Then there was the gunshot.
All of a sudden, we dragged on my side and tumbled in a heap on the dirty, carpet floor just in front of the board. I lay upside down and felt when my back hoof knocked on the wood and tipped the board open. Light poured in and I became aware that my left hindleg hurt. A lot.
I then realized the truth. I’d been shot.