Sunset Shimmer awoke from her nap. Oh crap, how long was I out? She looked to the digital watch on her wrist, a lovely piece Rarity had made for her during the holidays last year. Despite the hate that had formed between the two alliances, Sunset had kept her watch. It was too beautiful to simply get rid of. A glorious sun had been painstakingly engraved and enameled onto the faceplate, each number on the dial marked in shining silver.
It was 1PM. Her guard shift should have ended half an hour ago. Strangely, no one else was on the balcony. Sunset looked around. The next shift was supposed to be the new girl, Adagio. She had only been there for a few days, but so far had proven herself dutiful reporting to her post on time.
Sunset looked across the river, and gasped in fear. Twilight had her sniper rifle pointed straight at her. Before she could react, Twilight Sparkle pulled the trigger.
Betrayed... Sunset Shimmer thought. She felt a horrendous pinch in her neck as she fell to the ground. She felt her consciousness begin to fade. Weakly, she groped at her neck, and felt a syringe embedded into her skin. Then, she blacked out, the last thing she felt was confusion.
* * *
"Excellent shot dear," Rarity congratulated, patting Twilight on the back, "Although you might have wanted to shoot before she saw you."
"Hey, I had to get a clear shot. I don't have many of these darts." Twilight retorted with annoyance.
Rarity pressed on, "I must ask though, what is in those syringes you have concocted?"
The answer could not have sounded more professional. "It is a highly complicated compound made of muscle relaxants and sleeping chemicals."
Rarity raised an eyebrow in suspicion.
Twilight sighed, "You got me, it's piss." She confessed.
"What? That is abhorrent!" Rarity exclaimed.
"I found a book on making Jarate when I arrived here." Twilight explained, "It's a chemical weapon called Jar-based Karate. I had to triple the size of my kidneys to be able to produce it, but I think it's totally worth it."
"There is a way to undo that, right?" Rarity asked, voice laden with concern.
"Don't worry, I'll figure out an antidote." Twilight reassured.
"What in the world possessed you to do something so completely asinine with your beautiful body?" The questions were becoming more frantic as Rarity kept posing them. Rarity knew no one was thinking at 100% of their capacities, but she had thought Twilight of all people would be smart enough to know such a procedure could never reasonably end well.
* * *
Applejack led her older brother as he hauled Sunset Shimmer's limp body into the locker room. Sunset was alive, just unconscious. She had instructed Big Mac to leave the dart where it was for the time being. She had heard horrible stories from Fluttershy about barbed syringes that rip at the skin when pulled out. Better leave it alone until Fluttershy could inspect it herself. After all, she was the RED medic.
The entire incident had put Applejack under no small amount of distress. Twilight never had made an attack on RED so long as they remained on their side of the bridge. Something suspicious was going on.
The sudden blare of a warning alarm confirmed her fears. Intruder alert! Intruder alert! BLU spy is in the base! Applejack froze. Spies. Rarity.
Since they had enlisted and separated, Rarity seemed to take no small amount of pleasure tormenting Applejack. Every sentry gun, dispenser, and teleporter she worked tirelessly to build seemed to meet the business end of one of her electro-sappers.
But while the destruction of property had put Rarity out of Applejack's good graces, it was her knife that she feared most. Rarity was the only person on either alliance to have killed. Flash Sentry may have been a vapid waste of space, but he was a teammate. Applejack had sworn Rarity would pay for his death.
Big Macintosh hoisted his minigun, an absurdly large weapon meant to be mounted on a car. "Ah better be goin, sis. Stay safe, ya hear?" He tussled her hair beneath her hat, and began walking out the door.
Applejack called out before the garage door closed, "Wait, Mac, ya done forgot yer lunch!" As a heavy, an indispensible part of his equipment was his lunch box. The metal case had been through hell and back, yet somehow the My Little Pony stickers he had put on the box had managed to avoid damage. Applejack rolled her eyes. Wasn't her brother too old to be watching kid shows?
No, he ain't. She thought. Her brother had, admittedly, the best way of coping with the stress of the job. Applejack and especially Pinkie Pie had taken to heavy drinking, and she was fairly sure that Zecora and Adagio were experimenting with drugs. Big Macintosh on the other hand had managed to preserve his sanity, and spare his strapping young body the destruction that the vices their teammates had turned to had wrought. If that was what kept his mind intact, then more power to him.
She tossed him his lunch box. Mac eagerly caught it, undoing the metal clasps, and drooling over its contents. Okay, maybe he has developed an addiction. She thought. Mac had, like the rest of the family, subsisted on a very apple-based diet before he had enlisted. But the lack of fruit in the desert had turned her brother to the Sandvich. Applejack had first thought the sandwiches had been laced with some sort of drug, because Mac certainly acted like he had an addiction. She had started packing his lunch herself to test her theory. As it turned out, Mac had formed a special bond with his Sandvich. He talked to them. Fluttershy knew very little about psychology, but she had postulated that his distress had caused him to form an emotional attachment to the Sandvich.
Not that AJ minded, but it was just the way he talked to it. Mac was big, but extremely shy. Very rarely did he speak to others, and that was usually in curt "Eeyups" and "Nopes". But Sandvich was different. He referred to it by name. He sang songs with it. She had once heard him ask it, "What was that Sandvich? Kill them all? GOOD IDEA!" Applejack had no idea how his sanity would fare, but if talking to his lunch and a horse named Dr. Whooves could keep him from snapping, without resorting to drugs, who was she to complain?
Mac walked off, humming a tune with his friend/lunch. Applejack saw Pinkie Pie following him, with her grenade launcher and a milk crate full of cider bottles in tow.
"Hey Pinkie! Where y'all headin?" Applejack asked.
Pinkie Pie turned to face her, eyebrow cocked in an angry scowl. "I thought ah told ya, the name's Tarvish, lass!" Applejack groaned. She had forgotten about Pinkie's persona. Big Mac may have resorted to a children's television show and talking to food, but Pinkie Pie's "coping method" was far more bizzare. She demanded that everyone address her as "Tavish Finnegan DeGroot." The name made Applejack's head spin. Too damn many weird syllables. When she remembered, Applejack just called her Tarvs. When she forgot, Pinkie gave her the dirtiest look Applejack had ever seen.
It was bad enough without her costume. Pinkie had began wearing eyepatches all the time, despite having two perfectly good eyeballs in her head. She had stashes of the everywhere back home in case of, what did she call it? A pirate emergency?
Beyond that, Pinkie had glued fake mutton chops to her face, and was talking in a fake, and incredibly annoying Scottish brogue that drove everyone crazy.
Applejack sighed. She couldn't be too hard on Pinkie. She had learned during one of Pinkie's drunken tirades that her bombastic personality was only a cover-up. Everything, from her fun-loving personality, to her passion for parties, to her recently-acquired alcoholism, were all hiding a heart consumed by sadness. Pinkie revealed that she had left home as a kid and came into the Canterlot School District. She had been taken in by the Cakes, the owners of the town bakery, and had lived with them since elementary school.
There was more to the story than Applejack knew, but at that point Pinkie's words had turned into utter gibberish. Applejack doubted even her Great Uncle Cider Barrel could have understood what she was saying, and Drunk might has well have been his native language.
"Ye betta get tha tushie o yers down to the intelligence room." Pinkie slurred, "Them thunderin' twits from BLU are comin for it!"
"Will do 'Tarvish,'" Applejack yelled. Pinkie started on another bottle of cider. She shuddered. Applejack had no idea how Pinkie Pie had not killed herself with her bombs, drunk as she was. Were it not for her uncanny reaction speed and unnatural good luck, Pinkamena D. Pie would surely be dead.
Applejack exited the locker room, and turned right, taking the spiralling ramp down into the intelligence room. The room was bare save for the desk, upon which sat the intelligence. There were two doors that led into the room, both on the far side of the room from the briefcase.
In the corner between the doors, Applejack had built her sentry gun. It was a formidable turret on a tripod with two miniguns and a rocket launcher on top. No one was taking that case on her watch.
Applejack opened her toolbox to set up the mechanical louge chair inside. The case was stocked well with cider, and she helped herself to a bottle. Just as she sat down, the lights went off in the room, leaving Applejack in total darkness.
"What they hay? Is anyone there?" She asked fearfully. This was not good. She was alone, all alone. She carried a shotgun for defense, but almost any of the BLU mercenaries would be more than a match for her. It's alright. I just gotta stick with this 'ere sentry.
As she thought to herself, she heard the unmistakable sound of an electro-sapper. She sprang towards it, wrench in hand, hoping to bash the thing off before-
The sentry gun exploded into dozens of metal pieces. Uh oh. Applejack gulped. This was about to get unpleasant.
Applejack felt a cold hand on her back. She turned around slowly. She stammered, and felt a warmness growing in her overalls. Standing before her, wearing a blue ski mask and suit, was Rarity.
"It has been a long time darling." She said, as she plunged something sharp into Applejack's neck.
Applejack reeled in pain. Ugh, this smells like piss. Whatever Rarity had stabbed her with, it had obviously been poisoned. Applejack tried to stand, but her legs had become wobbly. Her vision was darting in and out of focus as she watched helplessly as Rarity grabbed the case.
The debonair agent walked to Applejack and smiled, "We will be seeing each other soon, darling." Rarity planted a kiss on her cheek, and walked out, leaving Applejack on the floor to collapse.