Leon, the gray-maned leader of the outpost near Ravenholm, lent us one of his scout carriages. Or, at least, I though it was a carriage. Both him and Trixie called it a 'car' and showed me some sort of oil-fed contraption that controlled its movement. Since I had no idea how it worked, let alone drive it, Trixie told me she'd do it. Then, we got into the car, drove up to the pier and waited for further instructions. A loudspeaker started broadcasting and the nearby crane started using its magnet on the car.
"I'll lower you down to the beach, okay?" Said a soft, feminine voice. Unfortunately, the magnet failed and the crane dropped us upside down on the beach. I am not a racist or someone who preffers stereotypes, but mares and machinery should never cooperate. Never. If they do, bad stuff happens. That, or I'm on a streak of bad luck.
Trixie kept her cool and instead of giving blame to someone, she crawled out of the car, grabbed my gravity gun and pressed the first trigger whilst aiming at the at it. The car did a flip, became upright again and Trixie went back in. She handed me the gravity gun back and before I could congratulate her on her impressive feat, large bugs appeared. out of nowhere. Apparently, they were called antlions, since that was the first thing Trixie shouted after seeing them. Frankly, she was the last thing they saw and instead of driving around them, she ran over the abominations.
"Haha!" she laughed. "This will never get old." She drove up a hill and to my terror, was driving straight ahead of a gap between a high road, possibly created by some explosives. Needless to say, we weren't going fast enough.
"Are you crazy?!" I shouted. "We're not gonna make it!" She didn't listen and instead turned some lever, causing the car to speed up. It then flew swiftly over the gap and onto the high road. Afterwards, she stopped for a few seconds to let me catch my breath and then continued driving.
"You think I don't know what I'm doing?" she asked. "Just because you didn't see that in any of your geeky books, doesn't mean it can't work. That's physics. You should have become a physicist instead." I opened my mouth but then closed it again, since I had no smart counter-argument to use in my defence. Trixie giggled.
"Just kidding," she said. "You were just afraid, right?" Afraid? I would scream my lungs out if we fell! Some ponies are just insane.
"Yeah, let's leave it at that," I answered, hoping she would keep my answer to herself."This thing looks as if it's gonna break if you bump into something." The last thing the rebels needed to know was that the guy who's prophetized to have some part in saving the world, is scared of heights.
Following the highway that made up most of the high road, we reached an old, metallic bridge. A dense fog was settling in and for the sake of safety, Trixie slowed down.
"See anything out of the ordinary?" Asked Trixie. In the midst of the fog, I looked behind me, but saw nothing 'out of the ordinary'. Before I set my sight back on the road, Trixie violently stopped the car. I soon saw why — a massive wreckage was in our way. Not only it didn't look natural, it appeared to be arranged to serve as a barricade. To prove that I'm of some use, I got out of the car and tried pushing it out of the way. Unfortunately, I lacked the muscle to and my plan didn't work.
"Umm... got any ideas?" I asked her, scratching my head.
"Hop on back, I'll try to go around," she said. "This bridge is not the only way to NLO." I got back in the car, Trixie turned reverse on but much to our suprise, something blocked our car from leaving the bridge.
"Damn it!" she said. "Their vehicle sensors must have set up a forcefield." Both of us got out of the car and started thinking of a way to get past it. Suddenly, Trixie gave me a crazy, mischievous look.
"I got a plan but you're not gonna like it."
"Another one?" I asked, hoping her plan to be absolutely within the boundaries of safe and sane. Trixie proved me wrong when she took a grappling hook out of the toolbox and an excessively lengthy rope attached to it.
"This bridge is a combine-controlled outpost, but thanks to the fog, we got an advantage." She explained and tied the grappling hook to the car. Afterwards, she took out a simple harness, put it on and connected it to the rope.
"The advantage being?" I asked, still not catching on what was she on about.
"The element of suprise." She tossed me a harness and I hesitantly put it on, connecting it to the rope. Even though I've put my life in her hooves multiple times throughout our 'adventure', I was still hoping she knew what she was doing.
"My plan consists of us grappling onto the bridge's metallic frame, shooting our way to the command centre and clearing away the rubble." Well, as far as my aim goes, I'd say that sounds easy as long as she does the shooting. I reluctantly nodded in approval and then walked to the edge of the bridge. Upon seeing the rocks and water below, I gulped.
"I dunno Trixie," I said worringly. "You sure this is the only way to get the rubble out of the way?"
"Of course not," she responded, laughing. "We could have gone the upward path, but I'm a lousy grappling hook thrower. Besides, doesn't this sound more fun and unexpected?" I sighed, wondering how can she even think of 'fun' in times like these. There's nothing fun about it, at all.
"If I die, you're gonna get a very annoying, stalking ghost." I threatened her, only causing her to smile. Afterwards, she nodded, signalling that's she ready to jump. I sighed once and then nodded slowly, portions of my life flashing before my eyes.
"On three, okay?" she said. "One, two, three!" Both of us jumped down the from the bridge, our only breaker being the barely-working car at the top of it. By what could be only described as blind luck, we were slinged into a small room on the bridge's frame, unharmed. I exhaled and the both of us discarded our harnesses.
The frame was quiet, too quiet. It almost seemed as if someone was here before us and did the house cleaning. Then, we saw a small number of soldiers guarding the remains of the various catwalks. Even though we could barely see them, their visibility of us was far worse, since we had a height advantage and the fog was slightly thinner. I noticed a few crates laying around and decided to put them to good use to conserve ammo. Poor sods didn't even know what hit 'em and they all fell down to their doom. With the soldiers out of the way, we carefuly walked along the catwalks and into some sort of building built into the bridge itself.
The few ponies who were guarding it were quickly dispatched by Trixie and soon later, we reached the command centre. Judging by the blood, it was now more than obvious that someone was here recently and did an impressive job clearing it out for us. Yet as if wanting other rebels off their track, they forgot to shut down the security systems. Trixie promply turned them off and used the radio to call someone to clear the way.
"Overwatch Sector 17, Identification symbol E380."
"Commander?" A raspy voice responded. "We're getting all sorts of reports from the bridge. Is everthing in order?"
"Almost alright." responded Trixie, mimicking a stallion's voice. "Two drunken pilots played chicken with their hunter-choppers and their debris is blocking the bridge. Can you please do something about it?"
"They crashed and played chicken?!" responded the voice, confused. "Dispatching a high-profile cleaner right away. Don't tell anyone about what happened or we'll get into trouble. Luna's already angered as we speak."
"You have my promise." The radio went silent and we waited for this 'high-profile cleaner'. Minutes later, a large, fish-like creature, interwoven with machine parts, appeared in the sky above the debris and channeled some sort of beam from it's abdomen. Seconds later, the area around the beam exploded, creating a way big enough for our car. Then, the creature flied away.
Subsequently, we silently returned to the top of the bridge via the comm centre's stairs, got back in our car and continued along the highway. A few kilometers later, we finally reached New Little Odessa — a small, rebel-controlled town — with it's most prominent feature being the lighhouse.
"I expected it to be... bigger." I said.
"We all did," she replied. "Not all plans can get realized, you know." The rebels welcomed us with open arms and told us about those three heroic agents who made their way here before and protected their town from destruction. They appeared to be ahead of us by two hours and since it would be good to catch up with them, we didn't stay too long and followed the same route they took.
It wasn't a very difficult path. Jumping from one rock to another while avoiding stepping on a rock may sound hard but in practice, was one of the easiest things so far in my journey with Trixie. We found two unfortunate victims of the antlions but instead of mourning their loss, we continued on. Suddenly, I saw a large mountain pass with no rocks to stand on.
"Well, now what?" I asked. "I doubt any of us have enough bullets to deal with those... antlions." Nevertheless, we risked it and stepped on the sand, awakeing a whole horde of bloodthirsty bugs. I punted one of them with my gravity just to see what would happen and much to my suprise, it turned them upside down, their weak abdomens exposed. Using this technique, we navigated though much of the mountain pass and near the end of it, the antlions ran from us.
"Heh, I think we showed them a lesson," said Trixie. "Don't think it'll stop them from attacking other rebels, but hey, it's a start." Before I could say I agree, a massive bug appeared out of seemingly nowhere and charged at me. Trixie pushed me aside and got hit by it instead of me. The beast knocked her inconscious and wanted to finish her off but then, something snapped. Not caring about my safety, I grabbed a rock and threw it at the beast.
"Hey, you ugly tree-licker!" I shouted. "Why don't you pick a fight with someone your own size?" The beast turned to me and roared. The mountain suddenly quaked and a single, rock fell on it's head. The beast flinched but still wasn't keen on giving up. It charged at me but I dodged, causing it to become desoriented after hitting the mountain pass wall. Using this short window of oppurtunity, I grabbed the rock with my gravity gun and sent it to the beast. It let out a deafening, painful shriek and collapsed, defeated.
Trixie slowly got up, worrying that the worst has happened but instead, was surpised when she saw me single-handedly take down the bug. She approached the slain beast, not believing her own eyes.
"How did you-?" she asked.
"To be honest?" I said. "I have absolutely no idea. A rock fell down after it roared and it used that to kill it." Instead of hearing her say the cliche-y 'My hero!' she just smiled and took out a knife, cutting at the beast's abdomen. Seconds later, she took an odd, organic ball out of it.
"We're gonna need this," She took the organic ball for safekeeping. "I'll show you what it does along the way." We followed the mountain pass and eventually reached yet another outpost, the final one before the prison. Not intending to lose any more time, we stocked up on supplies and continued to the beaches surrounding Novum Prospectum...