//------------------------------//
// Chapter XXXIV: A Treasure Inside 
// Story: As I'm Falling to Pieces 
// by Pinkamena Diane Pie 
//------------------------------//


Chapter XXXIV: A Treasure Inside

Six months later...


Lightning let out a big sigh; “It gets bigger everyday.”  He blurted, standing next to the bed of Applejack’s room, rubbing her belly.

Applejack snorted and then chuckled a bit. “Ah’m starvin’... Lets go wrangle up some food with the other ponies in the mess hall.” She suggested, putting her hoof on his. She sat up in her bed, letting out a small groan and slowly put her hooves back to earth. She began to lose her balance a bit, her legs wobbling.

Rushing to her side, Lightning caught her before she could even slightly tip over. Acting as a crutch for her, Lightning led her out of the bedroom. “You alright? Hooves sore again...?”

“Nah, just... Ah...Ah think it kicked.” Applejack laughed, following in Lightning’s pace.

“Really? That’s amazing!” Lightning grinned towards Applejack, his eyes brightened with pride.

Applejack looked him in his deep yellow ocean of iris. Closing her eyes, smiling, she kissed him on the muzzle. Then rested her head on his neck, snuggling with his mane.

Walking down what seemed to be a never ending amount of hallways of never ending corridors. Soon enough, they began to hear the bellowing of what could have been hundreds of ponies, all coming from one room blockaded by two bright red push-in doorways down a grey depressive trotway.

Lightning, doing the proper gesture, he pushed open the door and let his maiden walk through first. Coming back around to her side, he returned to supporting her.

“You don’t need to do that, you know?” Applejack said, a sense of pride ringed through her words.

“I know.” Lightning smiled; “I just like being next to you, that’s all.”

In no time, Applejack pointed out the direction of the bright rainbow colored mane of her friend, Rainbow Dash. “Hey! Rainbow Dash!”

In the distance, Lightning could see who she was talking to, two mares sat at a table alone, one had a black and pink striped mane and a yellow coat, Fluttershy. Confused, the cyan pony looked around the room for the source of the call, inevitably, she found it. Rainbow Dash waved in the direction of Applejack and Lightning, then signaled them to sit at their table.

Walking over to their table, Lightning took a deep mental image of the cafeteria. Like the rest of the bunker, the walls were grey and pretty depressing. Over in the corner was what seemed to be the kitchen, ponies occasionally rushing in and out with plates and silver-ware. Beside the kitchen was the food line, a seemingly endless amounts of ponies made a line stretching far to a back doorway, to the end of the food line. Surrounding them were so many ponies in the cafeteria’s tables, it looked like a whole cities worth of civilisation. But of course, they weren't at all civilised. Fights were constantly fought out across multiple tables over food, or just other personal reasons that Lightning didn’t ‘want’ to get into. Breaking up most of the fights were two strong head guards, armored in what seemed to be makeshift plate metal taken from was probably a scrap yard, and a steel helmet with fake fur sticking out of the top like a Romans helm, at least, Lightning hoped it was fake. Both the guards were also carrying a taser and a police baton, not taking mercy on anyone they wished to use it on.

Applejack and Lightning walked across the hall, avoiding ponies that crossed their path.  They finally reached the table that Rainbow was sitting at.  Applejack lowered herself onto the bench with a groan.  Lightning sat down next to her, wrapping his front leg around her shoulders.

“We got you some food.”Fluttershy said, pushing two trays in their direction, on the two trays were bowls of oats, and on the side what looked like a artificially made liter of milk. Lightning passed his liter on to Rainbow Dash, who seemed to love it.

Applejack smiled.  “Thanks Fluttershy.” she began eating fast.  Her appetite had grown in the recent months.  Lightning smiled, then began to eat as well.  For a while, there was only the sound of eating.  Applejack thought about how the past six months had changed their lives.  The marriage, the baby.  It was moving fast.  Not really thinking, she pushed the gold, diamond encrusted wedding bracelet up her left, front leg slightly.  After a few moments, Applejack spoke up.

“So, Rainbow.  How is the weather team coming along?” She asked, not taking her eyes off of the food in front of her.

“It’s going really well.” Rainbow said with pride.  She had sent out fliers asking for Pegasi that wanted to join a Weather team.  Cora had designed more of the boots that Rainbow had.  If they were going to try to clear the acid clouds, they would need protection.  “About a dozen signed up, almost enough for a whole team.

“You could probably get Phoenix to help you with the weather, he hasn’t really done much but freelance for strangers.” Lightning talked with his mouth full of oats, keeping his head tilted towards his food but his eyes fixed on Rainbow.

Ignoring his idea, Rainbow Dash kept most of her attention on how much, and how fast, Applejack had devoured her food. “Sheesh, Applejack, slow down! Look at your stomach! You’re going to explode!”

This brought a shivering cold chill down Lightning’s spine. They had yet to tell Applejack’s closest friends about the news. He bent his entire body towards Applejack, blocking the vision of Rainbow Dash’s wondering eyes with his hoof up against his muzzle that was inches away from Applejack’s ear. “I think it’s time we announced the big news.”

Lightning proceeded to return to his normal sitting position, he set hiatus on his eating. Applejack stared him in the eyes, as if she wanted him to say it. Soon enough, both of them were passing on each other facial expressions and hoof gestures deciding who should tell everypony. Applejack couldn’t take the argument anymore. Standing on her hind legs over the table, she stomped on Lightnings hoof, whom jumped straight into shock;

“We’re having a foal!” Applejack screamed. Instantly sitting straight back down into her chair. Lightning’s face was as shocked as every other ponies. Everypony from every table in the cafeteria heard it, even the guards that were hassling some stranger stopped to look at the four with dead serious eyes. The room slowly died into a painful silence.

Breaking the silence was the sound Rainbow Dash spitting up artificial milk and oats, almost chocking from her squeaky laughter. Banging her hoof on the table astonishingly she continued to laugh at the two. “B’ahahah...! Wa.... Wait? Y-... You two aren’t kidding!?” She eventually stopped her constant chuckling, and bent over the table to stare at Applejack’s stomach. “Woah! You aren’t! Looks like some pony got busssyyy!” She commenced back to her constant chuckle, like she was laughing at her own joke.

Lightning slowly brought his hoof up to his face I'm embarrassment. Fluttershy just stood there, almost like she had fainted like a goat. After what seemed to be a lifetime, the silence was ended by the sound of the other hundred ponies talking and going on with their interrupted conversation.

Before anyone could say anything, the doors Lightning and Applejack had came through, were forcefully bucked in so hard, when they hit the walls, the room was lit up even brighter by a shower of sparks, followed by a terrible screech. Lightning glanced behind him quickly, but motion blur was falling behind his vision. He tried to make out the pony that had bucked open the doors; Soon enough, he could see it was his friend; Phoenix.

“Lightning!? Hey! Dude, you in here!?” Phoenix must have been in a hurry, he took only small glances around the room for Lightning. “Dammit.” Phoenix sighed and quickly trotted out the door.

“Hey Phoenix!  Phoenix!!  Whats up?” Lightning waved at his friend, whom stopped in his tracks when he heard the call, he instantly turned around and galloped towards Lightnings table. A piece of paper hung out of his mouth.

“Lightning, read this.” he said, out of breath.  Phoenix laid the piece of parchment out in front of Lightning.  He had recently gotten his ear tagged, and a hollowed-out fifty cal. hung from his left ear.  Lightning read the paper, a smile spreading across his face.

“She’s actually coming back?” he asked.

Phoenix jumped up in the air, flying for a second, then landing back on the ground.  “You bet your sweet ass she is!  Celia is finally coming back!”  A round of congratulations went around after this statement, until Rainbow broke it.

“Did you hear the good news, Phoenix?  Lightning and Applejack are having a foal!”  Phoenix’s smile fell when he heard this.  It was replaced by a look of shock.  He bent his head over Lightning’s shoulder to get a better look at Applejack, who’s belly gave it away.

“No way!  Really?” he said, bewildered.  “How far along are you?”

Applejack blushed.  “About five months last week.”  Phoenix let out a whoop.

“That’s about as far as Celia is.  Oh, that will be awesome!  We will have our kids at the same time!”  He and Lightning Bro-hoofed.

Fluttershy spoke up.  “Do you...um...do you know what gender it will be?” she asked, clearly uncomfortable with all the talk of children.

“We were actually going to see Twilight today” Applejack responded.  “I hear that she can figure out exactly what it will look like, along with the gender.”

Rainbow jumped up.  “Well what are we waiting for?  Let’s go see--”

She was interrupted by the sound of an explosion and the lights going out.