//------------------------------// // Chapter 10. Them Again? // Story: A Rainbow in the Dark // by Sparky Brony //------------------------------// Twilight had a good sleep. She stretched before standing up on the cloud. Looking around, the eastern sky was starting to lighten. She took stock of her location, the cloud she had slept on had drifted through the night. She was about fifty miles away from the hotel. Not a problem for her though. She hopped off the cloud and took off. After flying for a few minutes she noticed something out of place. More green painted vehicles, she angled her wings and banked to check out the scene. In a field, several tracked vehicles were sitting there, men all around. Oh, no! The military had found her. She banked again and accelerated. In moments though, a flying machine rose up near her. It was green, just like all the others. She didn't know it, but it was a Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter, commonly called a Huey. In moments it was following her. "Attention Twilight Sparkle, land now or we will open fire, " she heard from loudspeakers mounted on the helicopter. Oh dear, she thought, I need to get away from them. In moments, she concentrated and teleported as far as she could in her line of sight, ending up under a copse of trees a few miles away. She turned and looked at the helicopter flying, in moments, it turned and headed towards her. She looked at the rising sun, why did they have to follow her? "How are they following me?" She shrugged off her saddlebags and opened them. Frantically pulling things out of them, at the very bottom, she found a small device that she had not noticed before. It was metal, about a hoof long, half a hoof wide and less than that thick. She looked at the helicopter coming closer, then took the device with her magic and teleported it about a mile away from her. The helicopter immediately changed course towards where the device had gone. She smiled. "You found a way to track me. Let's make this interesting,” she said to herself. She still had a magical hold on it. She took off and teleported to the device. Picking it up and letting it hover next to her, she waited until the chopper was close, then teleported with the device again. Dutifully, the chopper altered course to her new location. She teleported again. Again, it followed her. She focused on the chopper itself and teleported it into the chopper itself. In moments smoke started belching from the helicopter. "Oops, I guess I accidentally put it in their engine," she laughed as the helicopter flared and landed, the roar of its engine becoming more of a cough. Four soldiers jumped out of it as it continued to smoke. She teleported to the landing site of the chopper. "There she is, grab her," one of the soldiers shouted. In response she spread her wings and hovered above them. "Now now, I disabled your machine easily." She was interrupted as one of the soldiers pulled a device off of his hip. He pointed the device at her. She was ready though, she took it in her magic. She could feel how the device was put together, so she disassembled the device in front of the astonished human. "I wouldn't recommend that." She was getting mad. These humans had decided they wanted to capture her. James and Michael had told her about much of the paranoia that was in the military. But this was ridiculous. She looked at the other humans. In the distance she noticed a wheeled vehicle bouncing over the terrain towards her. She looked at the human that had pulled his weapon on her. "I'm guessing you are in charge of this craft. I want you to tell your superiors, leave me alone. I have magic that you cannot counter. I know you are after me, and any further attempts will only make me angry. You don't want to make me angry, do you understand?" The man looked at her dumbfounded, he slowly nodded. She smiled and teleported back to the trees from earlier and grabbed her saddle bags. Using a combination of line of sight teleportation and flying, she was on the roof of the hotel in minutes. She took a moment to assess the situation. In front of James and Michael's hotel room was a white vehicle with lettering on the side, she read it…Tribal Police. She heard a commotion, her friends were being led out by men in a blue uniforms, their hands were being restrained behind their backs. These men had helped her, they were kind to her, they didn't deserve this treatment. "What would Rainbow Dash do here?" she asked herself. After a moment, it came to her. She hopped off the roof and glided to land in front of the door of the police car and faced them down. "Leave my friends alone!" she shouted at them in her best Royal Canterlot Voice. The men holding her friends stopped in shock. It only took a moment for her to wrap them up in her magic and hold them there. Trotting around to her friends, she looked at what was restraining them. They had a simple catch and a quick burst of magic made them fall at her friends feet. "I'm so sorry you had to go through that because of me. Let's get going," Twilight said to them as she levitated the men in blue into their vehicle. With a crunch she pulled the steering wheel off of the vehicle and dropped it on the hood. She looked to Michael, "Will that disable their vehicle?" Michael's mouth dropped open, he looked at the police car and back to Twilight. He nodded, then yelped as Twilight grabbed both of them in her magic and pulled the doors open on their vehicle. Hopping in the back she put them in gently and closed the doors. Michael took a moment to fish for his keys. In moments the car was started and they were on their way. She turned to her friends. James was sitting there looking stunned. "What are you?" he asked. "I'm a pony, James." "Yeah, but ponies can't pick up people and then pull a steering wheel off the column, then crush it. It can't be done." She had to chuckle, she indicated her horn. "I'm an alicorn James. I have magic, didn't you see me using it yesterday?" He shook his head. Twilight was about to launch into a lecture on magic, but then thought better of it when Michael spoke up. "Magic or no, this car is hot now, those police have probably got a description out on the radio right now, any cop in Montana is going to be searching for us." Twilight smiled, "I can take care of that. Magic can be very useful." She concentrated and enveloped the car in her magic. In moments it changed from the light blue it was to a dark brown. "Now the car looks different." "Well, the license plates are the same, can you change how they look?" Twilight concentrated again. "I scrambled the numbers on them, will that work?" Michael finally started to calm down. "I think so, oh crap!" he shouted as he pulled his car over to the side of the road as a half dozen more police cars screamed down the road, lights flashing and sirens blazing. They passed without a second look at the dark brown car. In moments he was back at cruising speed. They drove for a few hours until the mountains came into view. Then Michael pulled off in a scenic overlook spot. He stopped the car and turned off the engine. Then he turned to look at Twilight. "So, apparently we had an eventful morning. I'll tell you what happened to us, then you tell us what happened to you." "Deal." "We were woken up by a pounding on the door. I answered the door, and there were two police officers there, saying they had a warrant for our arrest for harboring a fugitive. They arrested us, went through all our stuff, then they were taking us God knows where when you showed up." Twilight swallowed, then related what happened to her. "So, you found a funky device in your bags?" "Yes, I know I didn't bring it from Equestria." James thought for a moment, "Some kind of tracking device, it must have had pretty good range. I wonder why they let you sleep until morning." Michael answered that question. "They had to have had a single vehicle following us, just where we couldn't see them, but close enough to read the signal from the tracking device. Then they had to call for reinforcements, and it looks like you woke up just in time to spoil their plans. You are a lucky pony Twilight Sparkle." He put his hand on her cheek, "And thank you for saving our bacon back there." She nuzzled his hand, "I would never leave my friends hanging, you saved me. If you hadn't come along yesterday, they might have been able to pick me up, and I wouldn't have had the strength to stop them. I owe you as much as you think you owe me. Thank you, my friends." He smiled at her. "Well, I think our planned road trip back to school has been derailed, let's get to California and find your friend, this is the United States Military, they aren't going to give up so long as you are here. He turned back to face the road and started up his car again. "Now this is what I call a road trip." *** In the White House, just after a turbulent re-election campaign, culminating in a failure, the President of the United States sat down to read a memo that had just been delivered to him. Attn: President Carter Fr: Major Jeremy Sheppard Re: Unknown Alien Life Forms Executive Summary On September 14th, 1979, NORAD air defense radar picked up a fast moving signal that was not transmitting IFF. Crystal Palace dispatched two F-15 Eagles to investigate. The pilots reported an encounter with a winged horse, later identified as a pegasus. Their story was literally unbelievable, until an examination of camera footage of the incident showed a blue bodied, rainbow maned flying pegasus.(photo enclosed). On august 12, 1980, another pony was discovered hitchhiking on top of a train carrying nuclear weapons along with an order of tanks for delivery to the US Army. The pony was detained then brought for interrogation. She identified herself as a Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria (photo enclosed) and said that if we let her go it would prevent war between her ponies and our people. I discounted her words as bravado. I interviewed her for a short time. When I told her that she was going to be brought to DC for civilian leadership to interrogate, she said that was unacceptable, then used unknown means to take her bag and then she disappeared from the interrogation room. Films were taken of the encounter via one way mirror, and can be viewable at your discretion. She apparently did not notice that we had put a tracking device in her bag, as she took the bag with her when she left. We followed her signal and a helicopter was dispatched to retrieve her off the cloud she had decided to sleep in. She apparently discovered the tracking device, then used it to damage the pursuing helicopter. She confronted the crew and said that any further attempts to apprehend her would be met with "magic that we couldn't stop" and that we "didn't want to make her angry." Then she apparently released two humans that she apparently had befriended and they escaped Tribal Police, in the city of Wolf Point, MT, which is in the Fort Peck Indian reservation. Attempts to locate the vehicle they escaped in have been met with frustration. The search is ongoing at this time. The President looked at the pictures included in the folder, one of a flying, pale blue pegasus with a muticolored mane, and the other of an apparently sleeping pegasus with a unicorns horn lying in chains on the tiled floor of a building. He thought about what he had seen, after a moment he pulled out a letterhead stenciled with the Presidential Seal. To: Jeremy Sheppard, Major US Army Cease and Desist all activities searching for the alien life forms. We might be able to find them at some point in the future, but at this time, we will need to study the information presented before anything else is done. Attempting to capture them with military equipment is apparently a futile effort. If we are able to find them, all well and good, but as of now, this entire encounter is being designated SP/SAR eyes only to the President and yourself. Any soldiers are to be sworn to secrecy and all information you have gathered will be placed in my personal files, not to be released for a minimum of one hundred years. The President looked at what he had written. Would he give this information to the upstart actor turned politician who was to be his successor? He didn't think so. This information could rot for all he cared. He signed the memo to go to his personal secretary and then turned in his chair. What would he do afterwards?