//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: Desperate Shadows // Story: In Another Pony’s Hooves // by Keeper of time RD //------------------------------// The wind was rushing through Scootaloo’s mane, or Sweetie Belle’s mane as the case was, as she sat in the pegasus chariot. A quick stop by Scootaloo’s house before they had left allowed her to grab her usual gear. Thankfully Sweetie Belle was basically the same size as Scootaloo so her tactical harness fit the unicorn’s body. Of course her ‘tactical harness’ was little more than a black vest with a bunch of pouches sown along the bottom like a tool belt, the two white spots of Sweetie’s coat showing on her sides made it clear she was a unicorn in a pegasus’ vest. As annoying as the odd feel of wind blowing through the empty wing holes was, what currently annoyed the filly was the night vision goggles looped around her hoof. She had long ago abandon trying to wear them when she’d found that Sweetie Belle’s horn got in the way of sliding them up onto her forehead. How unicorns were suppose to wear night-vision goggles was beyond her. Did shadow ops unicorns even use them? Or did they just cast light spells when they needed to see in the dark? She would have put the goggles away by now if not for how fast Cloud Wall was pulling the chariot. Flying this fast meant she’d have to fight with the secret compartments to get them closed once they’d caught the wind. Scootaloo shook the thought from her head. She had better things to be thinking about right now. Not least of witch was the fact that they’d been flying for hours and that the sun had already set. They finally began to descend into, what Scootaloo had to guess was, the forests near Vanhoover. When they finally landed in a clearing she asked a question that had been bothering her most of the flight, “Captain, When you said the royal guard used Celestia’s rules you made it sound like we don’t. But don’t we work for Celestia too?” “Huh? Oh right! When you first started we did operate under Celestia, but a few months after her return, Luna was put in charge of shadow ops units,” he started in his matter of fact tone, but a certain playfulness joined the smile that appeared on his face as he continued, “When the first complaint Luna received about our rules of engagement made her look at our rulebook… Well say what you want about the pen being mightier than the sword, I heard Luna took a sword to that book, and the results where spectacular. I must say I do like the no-nonsense get-the-job-done rules Luna handed down to us after that. In fact that was when I started using you for more than just super low risk scouting and distraction jobs.” By the time he’d finished talking Captain Cloud Wall had already released himself from the pegasus chariot’s harness, and was emptying the contents of the two hidden compartments onto the grassy meadow they’d landed in. With his royal guard armor long since removed he was now sporting a simple black body suit, although it had a multitude of cuts and stains marring it thanks to his earlier attempt. The captain quickly laid out the more useful items in one area while tossing the disguises aside. Scootaloo couldn’t help but notice what was missing from this picture. “Where’s the rest of the team?” she asked. “Lieutenant Aurora and I barely got out of there in one piece, dang girl tried to play it tough and said she was fine. But she passed out on me not far from Ponyville. I dropped her off at the hospital there. The good news is that Private Comet Fall was captured,” Cloud Wall said, as he filled his pockets with various tools. “How is that good news?” Scootaloo had to ask. “Hmm? Easy, because that means I still have a combat specialist in there. All we need to do is turn the enemy’s strength into a weakness by freeing him on our way in, then we’ll have a real chance of finishing this mission without a catastrophe,” the captain explained. Then motioning to the assortment of gear around them he added, “Help yourself to whatever you want.” The filly’s eyes glistened like a foal in a candy store as she looked down at the espionage-tools before her. Then she found something she’d didn’t expect to find. “Is that the rocket scooter? I thought you said, there was only one,” she asked, looking at the black, folded up contraption. “And when I told you that, it was true. But after the results you got with the first one, how could I not front the money for the R&D boys to make another one? You should probably take that.” The folded metal scooter was a little smaller than the one she usually rode, but in its folded up state this one was easy to strap to her back. Seeing as her gear was usually chosen for her, she wasn’t sure what else would be useful, so Scootaloo then filled the pouches of her harness with throwing stars and the grenades that she couldn’t remember if the colored bands meant they were smoke grenades or flash bangs. “So, what’s the plan?” she asked, feeling nervous but as ready as she could be. Cloud Wall unfurled a blue scroll. Scootaloo was no architect but even she recognized it as a building’s blueprints. “These are the plans on record for the building we need to infiltrate. I know that they are incomplete, as there’s clearly a hidden second basement not on these plans, but they seem fairly accurate for the layout of the first floor and basement,” the captain explained. Pointing a small flashlight on them he pointed a hoof to a small area marked ‘supply closet’ and said, “Seeing as this isn’t really an office building I’m betting that this would be the best makeshift prison for them, so I’m guessing that’s where we’ll find Comet Fall.” Pointing to another part of the plans he added, “And judging from the industrial grade ventilation unit on the roof, that’s way too strong for just a regular sublevel, I’m betting that the hidden sublevel we’re looking for is on that side of the building. The plan is we sneak in through the roof maintenance hatch, get Comet and the three of us proceed to the main objective. Any questions?” Now that she’d had time to think of it, Scootaloo had several, the one that won the fight to get out of he mouth first was, “You’ve never asked me to do anything like this before. I could really get Sweetie Belle hurt!” “I know, I usually give you low risk stuff, and I’m sorry I have to ask this of you. But as much as I hate to admit it, just the times you’ve been caught in a situation gone bad by mistake has given you nine times more combat experience than me,” Cloud said, as he shut off his light and started storing the extra gear back in the chariot’s compartments. A shiver ran down Scootaloo’s spine as she realized that number hadn’t been chosen out of thin air. She’d been caught in a fight eight times working for Captain Cloud Wall. And then there was the one, and only, time she’d worked for her dad, Las Pegasus. “Wait! You’ve never been in a fight before today?” the filly asked, looking over the captain’s recently acquired bruises. The stallion shook his head and answered, “They made me a captain because I’m a good tactician. You know full well that Comet Fall and Aurora Wind are my team’s combat ponies. This morning was the first time I’ve held a weapon since basic combat training ages ago.” He lowered his head in shame as he added, “I never realized just how small a margin for error I got use to operating with by placing so much of the burden on those two. No wonder I started using you so much. Even that little bit of help gave them some room to make minor mistakes and get away with it.” Scootaloo didn’t know what to say to that so she just followed the captain through the forest until they poked their heads out of a bush and peered down the hill at a one-story building in the clearing before them. Then Scootaloo remembered another question to whisper. “Who are these ponies anyway?” Cloud Wall whispered his answer back. “They clam to be anarchists. But their actions prove they’re lying or idiots that don’t know the meaning of the word. Most of them seem to have figured out that saying ‘they want to be free of oppressive rules.’ sounds better than saying ‘I have a grudge against the princesses.’ or whatever really drives them. Ultimately most of them seem to be useful idiots being manipulated by a few power players that want to being Equestria down.” “Why would anypony want to do that?” Scootaloo asked, sincerely. “Heck if I know. A thousand years of relative peace is a better record than any other nation in the world. That I know of anyway,” the captain shrugged off the question. Turning to the unicorn filly at his side he added, “Ready?” Scootaloo nodded and then seeing the captain practically lying on the ground realized he meant for her to climb on. Once she’d done so the pegasus stallion opened his wings and the two of them took to the air. She clung to the pegasus’ back as he hovered in the tree line, watching and waiting. The night was only lit by a quarter moon, but even without her night-vision goggles it was enough for Scootaloo to spot three guards around the building. Two walking patrols around the perimeter and the third standing guard by a broken window, shards of broken glass were scattered about, glimmering in the moonlight, marking where Cloud Wall and Aurora had escaped the building from the first attempt. Then the captain made his move and darted silently from their cover, landing on the roof by a hatch. Scootaloo slid off the stallion’s back as quietly as she could, while Cloud Wall appraised the lock on the hatch. A smile graced his face as he found it was still unlocked from that morning’s attempt. Cloud lifted the hatch leading into the maintenance catwalks for the building ventilation system and motioned for filly beside him to go first. Scootaloo didn’t hesitate to hop into the hole and grab the ladder. The captain was halfway in when a voice called out from behind him, “Hey, who are you?” Scootaloo froze, the captain’s eyes flashed with concern for a second, but he whispered, “Don’t wait up.” He stood up straight so that the hatch fell closed, leaving Scootaloo alone inside. She heard Cloud Wall speak to the pony who’d surprised him, “I’m with the maintenance company, got a complaint about your air conditioning.” “We do our maintenance in house.” “It was worth a shot,” Cloud Wall said with a sigh. Immediately following the captain’s lament Scootaloo heard the sounds of a brawl begin on the roof just outside the hatch. Turning her eyes to the unlit catwalks she realized why the captain had said what he did, they didn’t realize she was already inside. The ladder wasn’t really that long, or even necessary, as a stallion would have to walk slumped over just to fit in the space between the first floor ceiling and the roof. So Scootaloo started sneaking along the catwalk as best she could. But with the only light coming from holes allowing light up from the first floor her eyes had not yet adjusted to the newfound darkness. Even though she was barely moving her heart was racing like she was in a marathon. Relax, you heard Cloud Wall, I’ve got more combat experience then him, I’ve got this… Scootaloo thought to try to calm herself. But the thought brought to mind just what her ‘combat experience’ was. And the more she thought about it the more it dawned on her that when things went bad and she’d been caught in a fight all she usually did was find a place to hide while the adults fought it out. Truth be told she’d gained more real combat experience fighting with schoolyard bullies over being teased than working for Cloud Wall. Sure there was that time when she’d broken cover to grab the item everypony was fighting over, or that one time the captain had referenced regarding the first rocket scooter, but those were exceptions. How’d I let myself get talked into this? Scootaloo moaned in her mind. Scootaloo’s eyes finally adjusted to the darkness enough that she could make out the tops of the walls and find her way thanks to the blueprint she’d seen earlier. She crept along until she found the small room the captain had guessed to be the makeshift prison. As carefully as possible she lifted one of the ceiling panels to peer into the room below. But instead of finding the bars of a makeshift jail and a pegasus special agent, she found an earth pony mare, with a brown coat and green mane, sitting in front of a bank of monitors. Apparently the storage closet had been converted into the security hub. Thankfully the earth pony watching the security cameras was too fixated on the screens to notice the unicorn filly above her. Scootaloo was about to slip the panel back into place and sneak away when she noticed one of the screens had an image of a hall like room with jail cells on both sides. While the camera couldn’t see into the cells it was a safe bet that Comet was in one of them, and if she could figure out where that camera was she could go right there instead of searching blindly. She just needed to get close enough to read the information on the screen though. And there was only one way she was going to do that. Slowly Scootaloo slid the panel aside until there was enough room for her to fit through. Then she jumped. The mare heard something and looked up just in time to glimpse a flash of white hooves slamming into her head. The earth pony slumped into her chair as Scootaloo slid down onto her lap. She stopped to feel the chest of the mare. Knowing that Sweetie Belle’s body wasn’t as strong as her own Scootaloo hadn’t held back when she bucked down on the poor pony, and for a brief moment, feared she may have killed the mare. A sigh of relief was breathed when she felt that the mare was still breathing. With her concerns diminished Scootaloo turned her attention to the desk full of monitors. Curiosity got the better of the filly as she first looked to the control panel, where the mare had been holding a hoof over just before being knocked out. Scootaloo found two buttons one had a small spinning light by it and was marked ‘perimeter alarm’. The button that the mare seemed to be debating whether or not to press before her untimely nap also had a small, but unlit, light next to it and was marked ‘master alarm.’ Thankful that only the guards outside the building knew there was an intruder about, Scootaloo turned her attention to the monitors. Pausing only for a moment to admire the uppercut the captain just delivered to some stallion in one of the perimeter camera’s line of sight. Looking to the screen with the make shift jail Scootaloo noticed two things. First there was only a single stallion sitting between the back two cells, who also seemed to be asleep in his chair. Second in the corner of the screen was a digital marking identifying the image as camera ‘C3.’ A moment of looking around allowed Scootaloo to spot a map of the building with a matching marking, and more accurate room names than the blueprints the captain had. Checking the numbers and corresponding screens she saw that the first floor was effectively abandon. Another glance at a perimeter camera and it was hard to miss the fact that Captain Cloud Wall was now fighting and dodging gunfire from five guards. While Scootaloo could appreciate that the captain was intentionally drawing as much attention as he could outside, she couldn’t help but wonder if he really intended her to free Comet by herself. Surely Cloud Wall would have known that, even if he was awake, the guard in the prison block wouldn’t abandon his post. Scootaloo knew where she needed to be but there was one thing left to do before leaving the security room. Once, working for Cloud Wall, she’d ended up stuck with Lieutenant Aurora in a security room much like this. And one thing she learned watching the lieutenant was that banks of monitors like this always had a recording device with them. Hopping down from the lap of the knocked out guard Scootaloo found that device and pressed the eject button. Putting the tape away with a bunch of others she glanced back up at the control panel and smiled when she saw the light by the record button had gone out. Now that she didn’t have to worry about leaving any video evidence that Sweetie Belle had been here, at least until somepony noticed the absence of a tape for the cameras to record to, Scootaloo tried to jump back up through the hole in the ceiling. Falling way short she remembered why she cared about not being seen or recorded here. She was Sweetie Belle today, and that meant no wings to help her jump higher than any unicorn could hope to jump. Glancing back at the map of the building, she took note of the halls between the security room and the holding room, as the map called the makeshift jail. With one last look to the screens Scootaloo saw the halls of the first floor were still empty. She took a deep breath and opened the door and, after a final check to see if the coast was clear, she bolted from the room. Scootaloo darted from one hall to the next. Pausing only in the blind spots of each camera along the way. And only long enough to take out her throwing stars and throw them until she’d disabled the camera. Had she thought things through, the filly might have realized that the lack of the master alarm sounding meant the pony in the security room was still knocked out and so the cameras were still useless. But with her original plan of returning to the now unreachable catwalks in the rafters to sneak her way to the jail ruined her mind had become too frazzled to think clearly and she was living only in the moment. Usually having to use three or more throwing stars before she hit something important, she’d run out of throwing stars before she’d run out of cameras between her and the jail room. She poked her head out from around the corner. At the far end of the hall before her was the last, still working, camera. Halfway down that same hall was the door to the jail room. Deciding she had no choice but to relay on speed, she ran for the door hoping to be in and out of the camera’s line of sight in just a couple of seconds. In her haste to avoid lingering in sight of the camera Scootaloo had forgotten about the guard, and quickly swung the door wide-open and dashed inside. Startled awake by the sound of the door being flung open the earth pony stallion, with a light green coat and yellow mane, formerly sleeping across the room saw an unfamiliar figure and acted on instinct instantly. He raise his hoof with a gun strapped to it and with the other front leg pressed the button on the side of the firearm. Seeing a gun leveled at her Scootaloo’s instincts demanded she dodge, so she jumped to the side. A bang rang out, a flash registered in the filly’s eyes, and she froze in pain. The pain wasn’t severe, but the fact that she felt pain at all hit Scootaloo’s mind like a train. Slowly she turned to look at her left flank. Right where Sweetie Belle’s cutie mark would have been, if she’d ever earned one, was a thin red line. The bullet had only grazed the filly’s body and the blood oozed slowly from the minor cut that had resulted. Scootaloo knew her unicorn friend had acquired far worse injuries than this on her own just crusading for their cutie marks, but to Scootaloo this was worlds different. She had taken this risk. She had failed to protect Sweetie Belle. Realizing he’d just shot at a filly the guardspony reacted as anypony with a heart would, he lowered his weapon and spoke to the kid. “Whoa! I don’t know how you snuck in here, but you’d better sneak back out. This is a restricted area. You could get-” he cut himself off when her heard the filly mutter something. “What?” he asked, hoping the unicorn filly would repeat herself. Scootaloo was shivering and yet she was burning up inside from a seething, burning rage that demanded release. She was furious with herself for getting her friend’s body hurt. Ever since she’d become friend with Apple Bloom Scootaloo had been getting better at containing her anger, it might escape onto her face but she wasn’t so quick to act on her anger by jumping into a fight anymore. Yet Scootaloo was barely able to keep her anger from moving her mussels. However, today her anger had another means of escape, Sweetie Belle’s horn. “HOW DARE YOU HURT MY FRIEND!” Scootaloo repeated her earlier muttering as a yell. At that moment an orange glow surrounded the filly’s horn. A split second later a flash of lightning arced forth from Scootaloo and the lightning bolt knocked the stallion back, sending him to a crumpled heap against the wall behind him. Scootaloo had been just as surprised by the lightning bolt and her hind legs gave out and she fell into a sitting position as a result. It took several seconds before she realized that the lightning had come from her. Dang, Sweetie, you’ve been holding out on us! That wasn’t so hard. Scootaloo thought, jokingly, to herself as she realized she’d just used unicorn magic. When her eyes fell on the guard, still lying on the ground, a moment of fear pushed the filly to go check if he was still alive. She ran over to the guard and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the slow but rhythmic rise and fall of the guard’s chest. Finally remembering why she was here in the first place, Scootaloo took the keys dangling from the guard’s belt. Glancing around she found the pony she was looking for in the cell on the right. A pegasus stallion who’s coat and mane were a deep dark blue, fitting of the night sky. For a cutie mark he had a silver comet adorning his flank. His light blue eyes looked on the filly with genuine curiosity as she approached his cell, keys in mouth. “Third from the right,” he said, after the filly tried a key at random on the lock to his cell. “Thank you, whoever you are,” he added once she’d opened the cell. She had left the keys dangling from the lock so he snagged them with his wing tip. “Can it Comet. It’s me, Scootaloo,” she snarled in a hushed tone. “Really? Somehow, you look different today. Did you do something different with your mane?” he couldn’t help but ask jokingly, as he removed the firearm from the knocked out guard and strapped it to his own leg. “Mind swapping magic artifact, this is my friend’s body,” Scootaloo said, as she trotted beside Comet, as the two of them returned to the front of the room. Her eyes drifting back to the cut she’d gotten only moments ago, while Comet turned his attention to several lockers. “You must be a pretty quick study,” Comet commented with a grin, as he retrieved what was left of his gear. “Yeah… I have no idea how I got lightning out of this thing,” She answered, tapping the horn on her head. “If I had to guess, I’d bet it’s because you’re really a pegasus and our ability to kick lightning out of clouds comes much more naturally than magic dose to a unicorn.” “Sounds as good as anything I can think of,” Scootaloo said as she opened the door to the hallway, letting the private peek out first. “Clear. Anything I should know from the captain?” he asked, ducking back into the jail room when he spotted the camera at one end of the hallway. “Last I saw he was fighting outside. He told me not to wait up, so I guess he wants us to finish without him,” Scootaloo’s tone was heavy with concern as she spoke. Right then the distant blare of a siren from outside was drowned out by an alarm from the building’s interior intercom. Glancing at the camera over their heads, and then back to the knocked out guard still laying in full view of said camera Comet laughed, “Looks like he wasn’t the only pony asleep at the switch.” Scootaloo said nothing, but frowned, knowing that the mare in the security room must have woken up. As if on queue, the knocked out guard’s radio blared to life and a mare’s voice cried, “Intruders inside the compound! And they’ve released the captive! I repeat two or more intruders are inside! One still fighting on the perimeter!” A grim look crossed Comet’s face. “We shouldn’t keep the captain waiting any longer then necessary. Stay close, follow me.” Scootaloo nodded in response. The private jumped out first and with one shot destroyed the camera in the hallway, and with that the two of them left the jail room behind. Thankfully, with most of the guards from the first floor still outside fighting Captain Cloud Wall, Scootaloo and Comet Fall found little resistance as they made their way through the office like halls. By the time they reached the stairs Comet had spent more time taking out cameras before they could see who or how many had rescued him than dealing with enemy guards. The two ponies burst into the stairwell to find a squared spiral staircase leading down. Comet Fall smashed the camera by the door they’d entered from and then used a trashcan he’d borrowed from just outside the door to bar it closed behind them. Seeing that the filly with him had already started descending the stairs Comet did a quick back flip into the empty space in the middle of the stairwell and fell down, opening his wings to catch himself when he reached the floor below. Sure enough he found another camera watching the lower door, and promptly bucked it to smithereens. When Scootaloo joined the private her first instinct was to go to the door, but she stopped herself when she noticed that Comet showed no interest in going out onto the basement level and was tapping the walls on the stairwell nearby instead. “What are you doing?” she asked. “I may have been captured this morning but that doesn’t mean I took the day off. While I was in that cell I learned that the mistake we made this morning was assuming that the entrance to the hidden sublevel was going to be somewhere out there,” he answered, pointing a hind leg toward the door behind him. “But I overheard something about a secret in the west stairwell. Bingo!” He finished with a smile, as the tapping noise from his hoof suddenly sounded different. A moment of experimenting later and the wall opened up to reveal yet another set of stairs, this time long and straight. Comet Fall frowned as he looked at the metal door at the bottom of the stairs, turned to the filly beside him and said, “You know. It occurs to me that the key to that door probably isn’t on the jailer’s key ring.” The sound of six to eight sets of hooves charging drew both ponies’ attention to the door behind them. “Any bets one of them has the key we need?” He added, with a grim laugh. Out of habit Scootaloo looked for a place to hide, finding none a weight on her back reminded her of another option. “Forget it. We’ll use mine,” she said with a devious grin, as she released the object and with one fluid motion of her hoof unfolded the scooter. “Is that?” “Yep.” “But I thought…” “Me too. But luckily the captain lied to us.” The devious grin proved contagious as the quick conversation made one appeared on Comet’s face as well. He nodded in approval while throwing himself against the door to the regular basement level to bar it. Only a second latter a pounding noise came from the other side as the guards tried to force their way in. Scootaloo backed up as much as she could in the confines of the stairwell and pushed off as fast as she could for the hidden stairway. She hopped the scooter onto the hidden stairway’s guardrail starting a grinding decent toward the metal door at the bottom. Without her wings she found correcting her balance doable, but harder than she was use to. Thankfully the stairway was short enough that it didn’t matter. When she reached the halfway point of the stairway she flipped open a safety cover between the handlebar’s grips and pressed the red button behind it. The twin black canisters on the sides of the scooter’s baseboard roared to life, and revealed the source of the rocket scooter’s name. Surging forward Scootaloo hopped the scooter off the rail, pointing it right at the metal door and jumped off the scooter, letting it blaze on head without her. Finally she closed her eyes, raised her front legs and pressed them together to guard Sweetie Belle’s head and neck. When the rocket scooter slammed into the door the shaped charge on the front exploded, blasting the door off its hinges and knocking it inward. Though the shaped charge directed most of the blast at the door it still launched a backlash shockwave back up the stairway. The shockwave washed over Scootaloo, although being prepared for it, she was able to keep it from knocking the wind from her lungs. To her the sensation felt a lot like being thrown through a cheep glass window, don’t ask how she knew what that felt like. Short version, cutie mark crusader window washers didn’t go so well. Inside three unicorns, two mares and a stallion, stood in shocked surprise as the door to their room fell inwards and landed a good foot from its doorframe. A fraction of a second latter a collective sigh of relief and grunt of confusion was uttered by the three unicorns when, of all things, a unicorn filly came bursting through the cloud of smoke obscuring the doorway. Scootaloo shot through the explosion’s smoke cloud holding the stance of a flying kick. Though her precaution proved pointless, save for making her entrance into the room look cooler, as there was no guard in the path of her blind entry. In fact the only ponies she found in the room were three unicorns in lab coats. None of whom seemed inclined to fight her as they all backed away from the strange and mostly square contraption with a long, thin cylinder on the top sitting in the middle of the room. A moment after Scootaloo slid to a halt from her dramatic entrance, the sound of gunfire came from the stairway behind her and a second after that Private Comet Fall flew into the room. In a heartbeat he looped around, scooped the dislodged door up, tossed it back into its doorframe and immediately started dragging the nearest desk he could find to add to his makeshift barricade. The moment the barricade was done the private flung himself against it just in time for the gunfire to stop and a half dozen angry vices started shouting and pounding on the barricade from the other side. “Destroy it!” Comet yelled. Scootaloo knew it had to be done, and that she had to do it. After all if Comet stopped reinforcing the barricade for even a second the enemy forces would tare it down. But the strange device was made of metal, and all the filly had left was flash bangs and smoke grenades, the scooter had been her only heavy ordnance. So she did the only thing she could do. Lowering her head, she begged. Not out loud but in her mind she pleaded. Come on horn, you gave me lightning a minute ago. Give it to me again! Sweetie Belle’s horn responded to Scootaloo’s desire that the device be destroyed. An orange glow formed round the horn and a bolt of lightning flashed across the room. The magnetic fields of the newly ionized metal caused some of the machine’s casing to be torn apart as if something inside had exploded. Although the bulk of the device remained intact and Scootaloo could hear motors still humming away inside, she could also see the dancing light of flames coming from gapes in the main chamber’s casing. Breathing heavily and feeling the drain of the magics she couldn’t hope to understand Scootaloo was not convinced that the machine was unsalvageable. Looking over the newly revealed parts, she noticed that part of the device’s cannon had shed its casing, revealing a section that had a purple gem about the size of a pony’s hoof floating between two electrodes. The top half of the cannon must have been held up by magic, as with the casing gone nothing physically connected the two halves and yet the top part just floated in place as electricity arched around the crystal and between the two electrodes. Well that looks important. Scootaloo thought and then she charged at the device. Scootaloo braced her mind for pain as she jumped at the machine and swung a hoof wide, through the crystal and the electricity arching around it. Both the filly and the gem tumbled to the ground on the other side. With the crystal gone the top part of the cannon fell straight down. The hum from the device became a high pitched whine and flames started jumping out from the inner working as parts started shorting out. Scootaloo writhed in pain for a second as the electricity discharged from her body. Once she’d crawled back to her hooves she took the now dormant crystal and stuffed it in one of the empty pouches on her vest. That was the moment one of the mares, the one who had faded green fur and a light blue mane, chose to step toward Comet and said, “Please don’t hurt us. We’re being blackmailed into helping them.” The other two unicorns, who both had brown fur and blond manes and looked like they might be bother and sister, nodded to confirmed. “Where are the research notes on the weapon?” Comet asked, to test them. All three unicorns pointed to the same file cabinet without hesitation. “Burn them,” the pegasus added. A pink glow surrounded the horn of the mare who had spoken and the file cabinet opened and some of the folders levitated out. She used her magic to guide them to the flaming device in the middle of the room and once lit returned them to the cabinet. A moment later and all of the cabinet’s contents were ablaze. “Is there another way out?” Comet Fall asked, Looking about and hoping there was something he couldn’t see stuck holding up his barricade. The lead lab coat unicorn shook her head. “The only way in or out is that door,” she said, pointing at the one Comet was desperately trying to hold closed. “This ventilation shaft looks big enough to fly through. And I think I see stars up there!” Scootaloo volunteered, looking straight up through said shaft. “Can you get the fan out of the way kid?” Comet Fall asked. “I think so,” Scootaloo answered, not really sure she could summon another lightning bolt but seeing no other way out felt she had to say yes. The pink glow returned as the screws holding the grate in were unscrewed and the grate was set aside. “What about us?” the mare asked. Comet shook his head sorrowfully. “Tell them whatever you have to, to stay alive and more or less here for about an hour. Now that we know the weapon is inoperable we can have a regular guard unit raid this place, they’ll be more than happy to rescue you,” he told the three ponies in lab coats. To the filly he added, “Let’s go!” Scootaloo jumped onto a box and readied herself to jump again. Comet gave a countdown and on ‘one’ Scootaloo jumped, Comet bolted, the filly landed on his back and wrapped her hooves around him and he shot up the shaft. An orange glow shone from Sweetie Belle’s horn as Scootaloo desired the destruction of the air-conditioning unit above them, but the magic didn’t seem to want to come this time. The glow flickered and strengthened but no lightning came. Come on, just one more time! Please o please just one more! Scootaloo begged in her mind as they were quickly running out of shaft between them and the fan blades. Whether Sweetie’s horn was listening or whether it was simple survival instincts, a bolt of lightning flashed past the side of Comet Fall’s head and blasted the fan. The fan shattered into pieces and while the rest of the air-conditioning unit didn’t explode outright it was weakened enough that Comet was able to punch through it. The two of them burst into the night sky and Comet Fall flapped his wings like mad trying to get away from the enemy building as quickly as he could. Seeing the escaping ponies Captain Cloud Wall stopped going easy with the pegasus he was currently brawling with, delivered a powerful blow to the chest, stunning the pony and sending the mare crashing to the roof below. Then he took off after his team, dodging the gunfire from the earth ponies below until he was out of range of their weapons. At first the trio flew north, and then ducked below the tree line to loop back, returning to the clearing with the pegasus chariot. Once there, the private radioed in the request for a formal raid and stayed behind to keep watch just in case the enemy tried to move the other three captives before said raid could get there. The captain quickly hitched himself to the chariot and took off for Ponyville with Scootaloo. * * * * * * * They were still a good fifty minutes outside of Ponyville but a glance at the moon high over head was all it took to see that midnight would come much sooner then that. Seeing a worried look on his passenger’s face, even though he could guess the answer Cloud Wall asked, “What’s wrong?” “You know that mind swapping artifact I mentioned? It goes off at midnight, there’s no way I can get Sweetie Belle in bed before then,” the filly answered. “Did the mind swapping spell wake you every night?” the captain asked, glancing up at the moon to gauge the time of night. “Well, no. I woke up like normal, just in a different body.” “Then can’t you just go to sleep? I might be able to slip her back into her home before she wakes up anyway. Thanks to that note we left, her parents think she’d at Rarity’s, Rarity thinks she’s at home. So I sneak in, drop Sweetie off in her own bed and snag the note, Sweetie wakes in her own bed none the wiser and her parents think they imagined the note saying she’d be at Rarity’s. Given what we just pulled of that should be easy as pie,” Cloud Wall laughed. “Yeah… one problem. I’m way too awake to fall asleep right now,” Scootaloo pointed out the flaw in the plan. “Maybe you don’t have to be,” he suggested. An inquisitive eye from the filly in the chariot prompted him to explain. “I’d think your friend is asleep at this time of night. So if you just curl up and pretend to be asleep maybe she’ll stay asleep when her mind comes back to her body. You know, if she doesn’t fall over because you were sitting up or something when the mind swap happens.” “Worth a shot, I guess,” Scootaloo admitted, but not sounding convinced at all. “Look if she wakes up before I get her into bed, let me worry about it. I’ll find you right away and tell you whatever cover story I come up with to explain why you had her out and about in the middle of the night. Okay?” Cloud said, trying to reassure the filly. They hadn’t come this far just to let something small blow Scootaloo’s cover. It didn’t matter what happened he’d make sure the filly who’d helped him didn’t pay a price with her friends for doing so, he’d come up with something to tell Sweetie if he had to. “Fine,” Scootaloo said, as she curled up at the front of the chariot, trying to hide as best she could from the wind. She curled up tight enough to use Sweetie’s tail as a pillow, if not for the metal floor she might have even been comfortable enough to fall asleep, if she had enough time. She closed her eyes and waited. Scootaloo was still awake when midnight came though. A bizarre sensation of motion without moving came over her, as she felt something tug at her mind. The darkness of the inside of her eyelids vanished, replaced by a sea of lights and images rushing past her far too quickly to make since of. As quickly as the darkness had been interrupted it returned. The magic sensation faded and the first thing Scootaloo felt was pain.