//------------------------------// // Chapter Four: Thundercloud // Story: Equestria: Agents of S.C.A.L.E // by Insanecrusader //------------------------------// Chapter 4: Thundercloud Location: Stormclouds’ Personal Quarters, Top Secret S.C.A.L.E Training Facility. 3 weeks into S.C.A.L.E Level Four Training Programme. He was tired, no one could deny that. It had been a tough three weeks since he’d joined S.C.A.L.E and the training hadn’t let up. Thankfully though it was Sunday, the one day of the week where Stormcloud and the other agents-in-training could relax. A pony had to be Level Five before they could address themselves as Agents. Stormcloud had slept-in that morning, it was around 11:47 when a knock at the door woke him up. He wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth and realised he was lying on his back, half on the bunk, half off. He righted himself and looked in his mirror; his dull, brown mane was completely messy and his eyes were bloodshot. He used his horn to activate the door, it slid upwards to reveal the pegasus mare he’d briefly spoken to over the past few weeks. “Hey ya little hermit, why dontcha get up and socialise with the rest of us?” She said too joyously to have been training for three weeks. “Well I’ve nothing better to do.” He thought. “Sure. I’ll be right out.” He said at the smiling mare. After he groomed himself he left his room, but not after he made his bed, Captain Falcon had already been on his flank twice this week about it. Instead of joining the other ponies, Stormcloud thought it was time to eat as he’d not eaten for the past eighteen hours. His stomach sounded in agreement. He started eating alone in the mess hall but as lunchtime reared its ugly head, more ponies began sitting around him. He levitated the fork and twirled the spaghetti forming a nice spiral, he was about to place it in his mouth when the pegasus mare who had awoken him sat opposite him. Stormcloud couldn’t help but stare at her, she had grey fur and long flowing black mane that was in a similar style to a famous Buckingham cellist. “You going to eat that?” She said with a small giggle. Stormcloud lost concentration and the fork dropped on the plate with a clatter, Stormcloud blushed furiously in his embarrassment. The pegasus mare just giggled and began to eat her salad. “Get your head in the game Stormcloud!” It was almost like Captain Falcon was in the room with him as he thought about the pegasus. “Mmmm...mmm my name is Stormcloud.” He finally said. The pegasus looked at him and dabbed the left corner of her mouth, which was odd because she had nothing there. “She’s pointing it out to you, you idiot.” His conscience said. Stormcloud quickly levitated a napkin up and dabbed his mouth, as he pulled it away he could see the remnants of the tomato sauce that had failed to enter his mouth. “Water Lily.” The pegasus said. At that moment two unicorns joined the table; one mare and one colt. The mare had a long blue mane and a lighter shade of blue for her fur, her cutie mark was two conical flasks. The colt had a short-cut red mane and orange fur; his cutie mark was of two gears meshed together. The table was joined by a few more ponies: two earth pony colts, a male and a female pegasus and a mare unicorn. The noise at the table was loud and Stormcloud felt that a conversation with Water Lily was impossible now. “Oh swee’ Celes’ia, look who i’ is!” The unicorn with the gears exclaimed after some time had passed. His accent was Northern Equestrian and Stormcloud nearly asked him to repeat that had it not been for all the ponies looking in one direction. Not wanting to be the odd one out Stormcloud turned in his seat to look. By the door was a white furred unicorn his black mane was short and completely covered the top of his head, the most distinguishing feature was the fact he was dressed in a suit. “Is that Agent Coltson?” An earth pony beside Stormcloud asked. “Yup, you know he was there when they found Captain Equestria not long after the Crystal Empire returned.” This was the unicorn with the conical flasks, she spoke in the refined accent of Buckingham. “Wonder why he’s here, he’s a Level Seven agent isn’t he?” Water Lily asked to no one in particular. “Yeah he was hoof-picked by Director Righteous Fury himself.” A voice said, Stormcloud didn’t see who said it. Agent Coltson trotted towards a noticeboard where he stepped up on top of a table so everypony could see him. He had their full attention. “Okay listen up everypony, I have orders from Directors Fury and Sparkle themselves to hoofpick one of you to come on an assignment this evening!” He said loudly. There was a murmur between everypony at the table. “Wonder wha’ i’ is?” “Are we even trained enough to go out on assignments?” “Who cares? I’m ready to kick some flank”. “As I said.” Agent Coltson continued, “Only one of you will be coming on this assignment. So make sure you have everything you own with you, because if that pony successfully completes this mission they will be reassigned!” “What if they’re not successful!?” Somepony shouted from behind. “You’ll be either be dead or a deserter of S.C.A.L.E.” Coltson replied. The room went silent. Coltson stepped down off the table and made his way to a pegasus mare who was wearing a tight leather jacket and black trousers. They both left the mess room in the direction of Rapid Fires’ office. “Was that The Cavalry?” Water Lily asked the pony with the gears. “Aye i’ is, bu’ she doesnea like bein’ called The Cavalry.” “You got a speaking problem there mate.” An earth pony said to the gear-pony. The pony was muscular and snickered to himself, he was sitting on Stormclouds’ right. The orange pony seemed to retreat behind the pony with conical flask cutie mark. “Hey that was a bit uncalled for” Stormcloud said. “What are you doing! She’s not going to be impressed when that earth pony flattens you.” His conscience said. “I’m not doing it for her, I’m doing it because its the right thing to do.” He countered. “I’m sorry was I upsetting your colt-friend?” The earth pony mocked. The earth pony had the same fur colour as Captain Falcon and the cutie mark; Stormcloud gulped; it was also a boxing glove. “He’s not my colt-friend. Rock for brains!” Stormcloud said raising his voice. “Really that was the best insult you could come up with?” His conscience quipped. The scenery suddenly changed as if it was moving, then he realised that he was moving and quite quickly at that. In that moment he understood why pegasi enjoyed flying so much, but the moment was cut short as Stormcloud hit the ground several feet from where he had been sitting. He rolled over. The ponies at the tables around him scarpered. They seemed to automatically form a ring around the pair. Stormcloud righted himself just in time to see the earth pony charging at him. Stormcloud closed his mind and pictured the lunch room facing the other way from where he was. *Pop*. Stormcloud teleported out of the charging pony’s path, there was a crash as the pony crashed into the lunch tables. “Stay still unicorn! Or don’t you want you colt-friend to see you get beaten to a pulp?!” The pony shouted and charged again. *Pop*. He fell for it again, Stormcloud allowed himself a small laugh. “Okay, so he’s obviously bigger than me so he’s got the strength. Thankfully not the smarts, I’m going to have to land a few punches at some point.” The pony charged again, this time Stormcloud cast a spell between two tables, a rope appeared; tied between the two. The pony tripped and pulled the tables with him. The pony made a noise that was somewhere between rage and pain. This was followed by a table sailing through the air towards Stormcloud. “Think soft!” His brain shouted. He fired a spell at the table and it erupted into a stream of feathers. Stormcloud was blinded and quickly wiped the feathers from his eyes and spat them out of his mouth. His eyes narrowed as the earth pony was charging at him again, this time a hoof raised. Stormcloud couldn’t think, he didn’t have enough energy to teleport again. He shut his eyes waiting for the impending doom. *CLANG! CRACK!* Was all Stormcloud heard. “If you enjoy takin’ the piss outta somepony’s accent then perhaps yer on the wrong course Private Falcon.” There was only a whimper to suffice as a reply. “Does everypony have a Northern Equestrian Accent here?” Stormcloud thought. Stormcloud opened his eyes to see why his muzzle was not facing through the back of his head. He was confronted with a metal wing, not a pegasi wing but that of the size of an alicorn. Stormcloud looked to the pony it was attached to. “Nope definitely a pegasus.” The pegasus folded his metal wing to reveal the earth pony known as Private Falcon, his hoof was still in a striking position. The pony slumped to the ground and two nurses rushed to him and tended to the fallen pony. “Th...th...th-” “You’re welcome.” The pegasus said, “Why didn’t you just step to the left though?” Stormcloud drew a blank. “Well he mus’uve hitchu hard if you’ve got amnesia.” The pegasus said. “He was defenden’ me sir!” The orange gear pony piped up from the crowd. The pegasus turned to face Stormcloud. “Sweet Luna!” The pegasus was covered in scars. His white fur made them stand out, they seemed to be all over his body. They were all over his chest, his forehooves, his flanks and his backhooves. There was a scorch mark on the left hand side of the pegasus’ face. Stormcloud tried to focus his attention to the pegasus’s eyes; they were bright blue. “Yes Sir its true.” Stormcloud said. “WHAT IN TARTARUS IS GOING ON!” Captain Falcon had arrived, “WHICH PONY BROKE MY SONS’ LEG?!” “Aye, that would be me Cap’an.” The pegasus said loudly as the crowd parted. Captain Falcon stared at the metal winged pegasus, it was the second time Stormcloud had seen Captain Falcon at a loss for words. The last being his confrontation by Twilight Sparkle. “You an’ I need tah have a wee word.” The pegasus said cooly. With that the two ponies left the group. Stormcloud looked around, the room was a mess, tables were strewn everywhere and worst of all; Stormcloud hadn’t even finished his lunch. *** Stormcloud lay on top of his bunk an hour later, he wondered about what Agent Coltson and The Cavalry would make of the affair in the mess hall. Stormcloud levitated a set of playing cards into the air. Using his magic he pulled the cards from the box and dismissed the two Discord cards, he then began shuffling them. As he lay on his back he set the cards up for a game of solitaire, the cards floated in midair as he played. As he reshuffled for his third game there came a gentle knock from his door, the knock caught him off-guard and the cards fell to the floor and all over the bed. “52 pick up it is then.” He levitated the door open to reveal the orange furred, red maned unicorn from earlier. “Thanks for whatchu did earlier.” He said quickly; it was almost hard to make out the words. Stormcloud was unsure whether the pony was conscious of how he spoke of whether he was just shy. “It was nothing.” Stormcloud replied. “My name’s Fritz.” He held out a hoof. Stormcloud shook it, “Cirrus Stormcloud.” The pair stood in silence for a few seconds. “O’ eehm, ah’v got tea get back to mah work now, ah just wantead tah say ‘hanks.” Fritz left as quickly as he’d arrived. Stormcloud turned and looked into his room, even if Agent Coltson considered him for the assignment Stormcloud still needed to clean up his quarters. Stormcloud remained in his quarters while he neatly packed everything away, once he’d finished he left the room. The recreational area was filled with a few ponies but no one paid him any notice. There was a pool table in the middle of the room with two ponies playing a game, on the far wall were a few armchairs with ponies reading books. There was also a television in the corner on Stormclouds right, the channel was showing the news the headline at the bottom read; “Bright Spark announces Spark Industries to cease weapon manufacture.” This was just one of the few breaking news headlines that drifted along the bottom of the screen. Stormcloud didn’t want to watch tv and planned to do something else. “Hey.” A feminine voice said behind him. It was Water Lily, she was wearing sweat bands on all four hooves and one around her head that held her mane directly behind her. Her mane was no longer styled like the cellist, but instead was pulled back behind her. “Really? She trains on her day off!” “Oh hi.” He replied realising he was just standing there. “I’m going to the Aerodrome to fly a few laps.” She said, drawing a circle on the floor with her hoof. “Oh I was…er..” Stormcloud searched for he was going to do. “What was I going to do again?” “Feel free to come and watch me if you’re not doing anything.” She said smiling. “Erm sure, I honestly forgot what I came here to do.” Stormcloud said as rubbed his mane back. “Great!” She said as her wings flexed out for a brief second. Stormcloud had never been into the Aerodrome; he’d never had to really. The training facility had three large rooms for each race of ponies, however the Aerodrome was the largest of the three. He quickened his pace to join Water Lily so they could talk. She led him through to the mess hall, it had been cleaned up since earlier. “So why are you flying again, haven’t you been doing that for three weeks?” Stormcloud asked. She giggled. “Do you know nothing about pegasi?” She smiled at him, “Pegasi need to fly. Its a natural thing like walking, we pegasi need to stretch out our wings everyday and flying is the best way to do it.” From the mess room they took a left and walked down the narrow corridor, this was where the classrooms and training rooms were. Water Lily folded out her wings and flapped to a hover. She kept pace with Stormcloud while remaining off the ground. “I love to keep fit and I love flying. Its hard to describe what it feels like.” Water Lily continued. She didn’t seem to be talking to Stormcloud but rather to herself. They walked down the corridor until they reached the door to the Aerodrome. Stormcloud opened the double doors with his magic and the pair entered. In front of them was a small room. The room was completely tiled white, there were two rows of wooden benches in the middle of the room. Some other pegasi were already in the room but took no notice of the unicorn. It was then that Stormcloud noticed the shower heads in the walls and the drain running along the middle of the floor. The pair walked through another set of doors on the other side. This next room made Stormcloud feel uncomfortable. They were walking along a metal walkway which ran alongside a convex wall, on the other side the wall was perfectly straight but quite some distance away from the walkway. This made the room feel small and yet large at the same time which made Stormcloud feel slightly ill. Stormcloud looked down to settle his stomach and he immediately wished he hadn’t; there was nothing but darkness below him. He froze. Water Lily hovered on ahead but then turned around when she saw she was alone. “Don’t worry all Level Four pegasi agents have to put up with it.” She said reassuringly. “Why? And I’m a Level Four unicorn agent, we don’t have don’t have to put up with anything like this when we go to training.” He said, his voice quivering as he said so. She took his hoof and guided him towards a door located within the curved wall. “Why is that there?” Stormcloud asked again. “Hmm.” “The walkway, why is it like that?” “Weeeell I guess its to remind pegasi that just because we can fly doesn’t make it easy to navigate, its there on purpose to throw your senses so you can recover quickly. Like if a pegasi fell from the sky, you have to right yourself quickly before you hit the ground, but if you’re too high up all you see is blue. So its like a test within a test.” She smiled once more as she said this. The pair of them were in an odd room. It was a narrow corridor that ran at ninety degrees to the doors. Both of the walls were curved and the other two didn’t seem to exist. “Here, I’ll show you where to go.” Water Lily said. Between the two walls were more metal walkways, but these ones had rows of benches on them. She led Stormcloud to a bench and gestured for him to sit. As he sat on the bench he saw the window in front of him. The window looked into a massive room, even Stormclouds’ viewing area didn’t show the entire room. Inside the massive room were pegasi, they flew around the outer edge of the room above the curved wall. “That explains why they’re curved.” At that moment the wall vibrated, Stormcloud started to panic a little. He wasn’t sure what was going on and even less aware that he was holding Water Lilys’ hoof. The vibrations ran along the wall until they met the window, then Stormcloud saw a multitude of colours fly past the window. He turned to Water Lily to say something and saw they were holding hooves. He quickly retracted his and Water Lily blushed. “Or did she?” “Well I’m going to get warmed up, I don’t mind if you get bored and leave.” She smiled again and left Stormcloud to his own devices. *** He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting there, he’d lost count of how many times the pegasi flew past the window. “Beautiful isn’t it?” The voice caught him off-guard. He turned and saw the suited unicorn. “Yes it is Agent Coltson.” Stormcloud said. The unicorn sat beside him and watched another group of pegasi fly past, the wall reverberated as they flew past. “So I heard what happened in the mess hall.” He continued. “Oh right… I can explain…” “No need, Thunderer told me what happened.” “Thunderer?” “The scarred pegasus with the oversized wings.” Stormcloud recalled the pegasus with the unusually large wings made of metal. “What you did was brave.” Coltson continued, “Stupid, but brave.” “Stupid, how?” Stormcloud said taken aback. “Well Private Falcon clearly has more strength than you and more endurance, not to mention higher pain tolerance.” “Oh.” Was all Stormcloud could say. “Although that spell with the rope was smart and you did have speed and tact on your side. Normally most ponies would have just let him slander Fritz.” “I’m not most ponies.” Stormcloud said smugly. “Well done Storm, could you come with a more cliched phrase.” Colt-son laughed. “You all packed for tonight?” Coltson asked. “Tonight… you mean?” Stormcloud asked confused. “We leave in five, don’t mention anything to anypony just grab your stuff and Rapid Fire will take you to the hanger.” “Keep it together Storm, its only the most important mission in your life that you’re about to go on.” “Will I need to be drugged again?” Stormcloud asked. *** Location: Unknown “Wakey wakey!” a Northern Equestrain accent said. Then came the most horrible smell that Stormcloud could imagine, it wasn’t even a smell it just burned his nostrils. Stormcloud opened his eyes quickly, he was greeted with a white face but the the fur on the right side was slightly burnt. It was the pony Agent Colt-son referred to as Thunderer. The pegasus lowered the smelling salts and turned his head. “Yes he’s up!” The pegasus shouted. “Odd his accent was much stronger earlier.” The pegasus turned back to face him, this time with a torch in his mouth. He shone the torch in both of Stormclouds’ eyes. “Yup, you’re fine.” He said. “You’re accent..” Was all Stormcloud could muster. “Surveys show that ponies are more influenced by the Northern Equestrian accent next to the Royal Canterlot. It was a necessary play so Captain Falcon doesn’t get wise to the fact I’m not S.C.A.L.E.” “You’re not?…” “Ah Stormcloud you’re finally awake, good. Follow me.” Agent Coltson said as he entered the room. As Stormcloud stood he felt a strange sensation in his hooves, like he was moving. “You’re in a dropship, its a fast moving aircraft.” Thunderer explained. “Where’re we going?” “All in good time.” Thunderer passed Stormcloud to follow Coltson into another room. Stormcloud followed Thunderer and saw that the white pegasus had a wrench for a cutie mark. The room they walked into was square with cabinets lining one wall, a staircase leading upwards and a table in the middle, there were documents scattered all over it. They were the only three ponies in the room. “Cirrus Stormcloud, you’ve been picked to undertake this two-pony mission.” Coltson began. He moved a blueprint forward. The paper showed the layout of some medium sized building which had four floors. He tapped at what was the second floor, to a large circular room. “Your job is to enter this premises and gain access to the main server room, where you will then copy all the documents into a flash drive.” Coltson pushed forward the small device. “Shouldn’t there be more?” Stormcloud felt this was too easy. Thunderer laughed. “You gotta love recruits on their first mission.” Coltson paid him no heed. “No, this base is used by a group of mercenary ponies, we want the information they have. That’s why you’re going in, you’ll infiltrate the main server room while Thunderer takes care of any resistance.” “Don’t think I’m taking care of everpony though, I’ll need your help too.” Thunderer added. “I’ll be dropping you half a klick from the base itself, its located on a cliffside so your only entry is by the main gate or side window.” Coltson pointed to the lower floor to show the perimeter. “You’ll need to cut through a wire-fence, incapacitate any guards patrolling the area and get inside the building. On the ground floor there is a security room where you’ll need to disable all the cameras in the building. Then you’ll have to work your way around the ground floor to the stairwell. Get to the first floor. Now the blueprints put the staircase to the second floor at the other end of the building, so you’ll need to get there. On the first floor you’ll need to find somepony with clearance to the server room. Take their ID and use it to get in the server room. Any questions?” “Breach perimeter, disable patrols, disable cameras, find ID, copy all files….what about getting out?” It the was the only point that hadn’t been mentioned. “That’s my area, there’ll be a team on standby outside. I give the signal and we’re home free.” Thunderer said. “There is one thing you can’t do…” Agent Coltson began. Stormcloud turned his attention from the blueprints and photographs of the server room. “This facility has had every effort made to make it look like a legitimate business this means we can’t harm anypony, even if they try to harm you.” Coltson explained. “When do we start?” Stormcloud asked with a smile. “Like making cupcakes.” Stormcloud smugly thought.