Part 3C - Rainboom X-treme!
Part 3C: Rainboom X-treme!
The bullet that entered Colonel Michael O’Neil’s cranium continued out the other side and penetrated Major General Francis Ham’s skull, as was the Colonel’s intention. The two commanding officers’ bodies fell canonically. The soldiers who had accompanied the General did not know how to react. The man responsible for killing their leader had committed suicide. There was no one to enact their vengeance upon. No one, that is, except for the two fake women before them.
Unluckily for the real humans, it took too long to come to this conclusion. It was at the moment of this idea coming to mind that the last of their group was gunned down. The short period of time, between the COs hitting the ground and the last soldier following suit, went a little bit like this:
Bruce nimbly disarmed the soldier who had held him at gunpoint. Once the rifle was his to use, he dived away. Berry saw this as the cue to open fire. Rolling out of the dive, Bruce managed to turn around in time to get a kill or two of his own. Still determined not to fire a single bullet, Cliff simply watched while shielding Sweetie Belle’s eyes.
Reloading her gun, Berry spoke to the human, “Nice work… Bruce, was it?”
She didn’t get a reply. Once he saw there was no more opposition, Bruce ran over to his friend’s corpse. A hand was brushed over the dead face, closing the eyelids. Without a second's pause, Bruce moved on to the General, first repeating the act of respect, then searching the pockets. Whatever he was looking for was found. Pulling the item out, he stood up and spat on the General’s face.
“Tosser,” he muttered, before turning his attention to the electronic device he now held.
Cliff, whose thumb was currently being sucked by Sweetie Belle, asked, “What’s he doing?”
“I have no idea… Bruce?”
“Yes my name is Bruce!” the man snapped. “Now hurry up and gather up all the ammunition! We’ll need everything if we’re gonna get off this blasted vessel!”
“Oh, erm, ok?”
Berry went to work searching the soldiers.
“Speaking of blasted, I’m setting this place to blow in fifteen minutes.”
Loud speakers all over the carrier announced self destruct protocols being activated.
“Wait, what?! Are you crazy?! What if we can’t get off in that amount in time?” screamed Berry.
“Nah. I’m just pissed off. In addition, I made it an counter infection protocol… no one can get out.”
This time, it was Cliff that screamed, “Then how the buck are we supposed to escape?”
“I remember Mike telling me about an invention he was ordered to test out. Meant to cut through magic barriers. It failed, but it could definitely cut through any normal material. They have a failure room to store it and others while on the move.”
Cliff instantly calmed down.
“Oh, well then… Lead the way.”
“I’m not done gathering this ammo,” said Berry.
“I’m sure we’ve got enough. To be perfectly honest, most of the people on board will be panicking by now, too self absorbed to care about prisoners who they think are going to die with them anyway. Just thought we might want to be on the safe side.”
Picking up O’Neil’s pistol, Bruce made his way to the exit. Cliff and Berry followed him.
“You know,” whispered Cliff. “If you look past the lack of love for his own kind, he’s an alright guy.”
“Oh, shut up.”
The filly sitter smirked at her disgruntled companion as they left the labs. Ten minutes later, and without a single bit of opposition. Sure, they’d encountered others, but they either ran away or were too busy losing their minds in various ways. After the door behind them slid shut, Bruce shot keypad that operated the door.
“So, which one do we need?” Berry enquired.
Bruce paused, before answering, “I don’t exactly know… Mike didn’t really describe how it looked.”
“Oh, brilliant! Great plan, madman!”
“Stop bitching and help me find it. It was called the Barrier Buster.”
While those two began their search, Cliff spotted what looked like a portable shelter. She ran over to it, examining its contents.
“I think this is where you leave us, little Sweetie.”
Sweetie looked up at the sound of her name, smiling goofily. Cliff couldn’t help but smile back the same way.
“You know, you’re cute when in a suggestive state.”
“Suggestive… Cute…”
“Oh, whoops… here’s hoping after everything that’s been said since we got you out can be ‘deleted’.”
Putting the filly down, Cliff pulled out the file from earlier and read it some more.
“Ah, yes, here it is…”
“What are you doing over there, Cliff?” Berry shouted across the room.
“I think I found the machine Sweetie uses to go back in time!”
Bruce cut in, “That’s a teleporter!”
“Oh, so you know what one of those looks like?!” Berry screeched angrily.
“They tested it up on the deck! It vapourised the-” Bruce suddenly went quiet. Swallowing, he continued, “It vapourised the test pony.”
“But then-” Cliff started to wonder.
Berry cursed, “Celestia dammit!”
The woman paused her search and rushed over to Sweetie Belle, removing the Harkness from her arm in the process. She wrapped the straps around the filly’s body and tapped away at the interface.
Cliff, realising what the other was doing, asked, “Berry… how are we going to get back?”
“I don’t know how, but I know I get it back because I was wearing it in the Library. Besides, we need to get to the human world. I just know we’ll be needed there too.”
“But we still need to go back in time even in the human world to help Lorraine.”
The time traveller stopped, only just now realising that flaw in the plan. It was then that Bruce threw in his two cents.
“The Portal!” This earned a couple of blank stares, so he explained, “The portal between Equis and Earth! It has to be shut down at times to prevent travel. I heard a guy travelled to the future by accident. The scientists worked out it had something to do with Solar Flares from Earth’s Sun and now they have to close off travel at certain times to avoid similar incidents.”
“Brilliant!” Berry exclaimed, returning to the Harkness interface.
Cliff, however, questioned, “But we want to go back in time.”
“I’m sure your friend can figure it out when we get there. Mike told me she taught a couple how to build a robot that defies physics.”
“I dunno…”
“It’ll be fine Cliff! I’ll work things out; trust me!”
With one last tap on the Harkness, Berry Punch stepped away from Sweetie Belle as the filly and the teleporter went wibbly wobbly.
“Now be a good girl and stay put until I come for you, ok?” Berry told the blissfully ignorant foal.
The pony and machine vanished.
“So that’s what we look like before we go, huh?”
“Pretty much. The wibbly wobbly delay was the Harkness acquiring the teleporter.”
“Found it!” exclaimed an exuberant Bruce.
A loud noise followed, like an industrial sized cheese grater having a crack at grating the moon. There was a yelp. It all happened so fast, all the two women saw when they turned around was a large hole. The helicarrier self destruct countdown reached ten seconds. Cliff grabbed something that resembled a hand glider, then got a hold of Berry, and leapt down through the hole, head first.
As luck would have it, Cliff had been spot on in her judgement, and it was indeed a hand glider. While they fell, the experienced adventurer fiddled with the straps, fastening herself and her companion together. Berry saw no reason to resist. The helicarrier exploded, and Cliff steered the glider to avoid as much debris as possible.
Down below, Bruce had managed to use the blast cutting power of the Barrier Buster like thrusters, slowing his descent. When he felt he was close enough, he switched the machine off, causing it to suddenly drop the last six or so feet.
“Ugh… any landing I can walk away from is a good landing, right?”
He looked up and watched his partners in crime glide away to safety. With a brisk jog, he followed their shadow. Eventually, the three of them met up on safe ground, having avoided all debris. They stood together as they witnessed the remains of one of humanity’s greatest feats of engineering crash into the earth.
Berry muttered, “Talk about pride coming before a fall…”
With that, the party of three wandered off into the Equestrian wilderness, headed for the Human base housing the portal between Earth and Equis. Some time later, during their trek, Berry broke the thick silence that had fallen over them.
“Thanks for the save back there, Cliff.”
Cliff shrugged.
“It was nothing. I’d done a bit of gliding here and there on a couple of adventures before we met.”
“I should have reacted faster.”
“That would have been hard, seeing as I reacted instantly.”
“True… Cliff… I’m sorry… for everything… I dragged you along with me, put your life in danger… and then I went and treated you like some foal, unable to think for yourself. You’d told me about your adventures, and the hay you’d get yourself messed up in, yet I just acted like that stuff never happened.”
“It’s alright now, Berry. As long as you’re sorry, I’m happy.”
Cliff went to hug Berry, but she was pushed away.
“It’s not alright! I’m really worried I’ve gone and put things in motion towards your death!”
Cliff stopped in her tracks. Berry saw this and stopped too. Bruce, the silent third party, also stopped, but kept to himself.
“My what?!”
“You remember when my future self came into the library? She was alone. And her face… I know myself well enough to know when I’ve lost somepony… and still I went and brought you with me… I’m such an idiot!”
Berry Punch broke into tears. Her special somepony held her in a strong embrace.
“That’s not gonna happen, you hear me? You would never let me die, that much I’m sure about. To be honest, I don’t think I’d let myself go either. You’ll just be mad because… erm…”
“You’re terrible at this,” Bruce observed. The man held Berry’s chin and forced her to look into his eyes as he said, “Listen up, crybaby. Thanks to you two, my best friend is dead. I ain’t gonna tip toe around that shit. I am most certainly not a happy bunny. But, you see, he believed in you. He and I have always felt things were wrong. It’s what drew us together as mates. So, here’s what’s gonna happen:
“You are going to wipe those pitiful tears from your eyes. Next, you’ll give your wonderful girlfriend here a heartfelt kiss. No tongue, mind you, because we ain’t got time for that. Once all that crap’s out the way, we get back on course to the Portal. That’ll take us a couple of days. After that, we go in like ninjas, stealth our way to the control room. You use your fancy mathematics to work out how we time travel. None of us die, we jump on through, and Bob’s your uncle, we all have a cuppa in some cafe in ye olde London; my treat.”
Berry sniffled, “You’re right… need to pull myself together.”
“Damn straight,” said Bruce, turning away. “Now get the lovey dovey stuff out the way already, will you?”
With shared smiles, the two women looked at one another, and kissed. Humouring the human, they kept it short.
As the pair of them broke their embrace, Cliff commented, “You know, we didn’t say anything about letting you tag along.”
Michael restarted the trek, explaining, “I’m a fugitive with my own people, your kind sure as hell won’t take me in, and I am nowhere near trained enough to survive on my own as an enemy of both sides. Way I see it, you two are the only chance I have. Besides, apart from Mike, my life was kinda shit. It is for most of us lackies.”
“Bruce, it’s fine. We would never leave you behind. Cliff was just joking about your presumptions.”
“... I knew that.”
Bruce, Cliff and Berry continued on their journey over the war torn Equestria for the next two days. There were times when they had to hide. It was decided that there would be less trouble if they hid from both sides. Humans and Ponies alike were avoided at all costs. There were barely any opportunities to talk, and even then they spoke very little.
As the Sun rose over War Torn Equestria for the third time since Berry and Cliff arrived, Bruce pointed down into a valley. The two ponies posing as humans recognised the valley for what it used to be home to; Ponyville. The valley was now scarred and lifeless, and in the town’s place sat a smooth, matte grey dome. A large fence circled the dome, and between dome and fence were countless tents and troops.
Cliff whistled in awe.
“We’re going to have a hard time ‘stealthing’ into there.”
“Hmmm…” Berry thought aloud. “Bruce, before they discovered you, did you hear what sorts of things were broadcast from the carrier?”
“Erm… prisoner escape… losing men fast… and then probably the pre recorded ‘Mayday! Mayday! Mass infection! Locked down! Self destruct imminent!’”
“So, if a few survivors were to appear, how would they react?”
Bruce smiled as he saw the plan being formed.
“They’d check us for any contagion. They’d find nothing of course. We might be questioned as to the events leading to the apparent infection.”
“Maybe we could bend the truth a little and say the prisoners found Sweetie Belle and used her to hack the systems!” Cliff exclaimed.
The trio carried on talking away, plotting their way into the dome. It was simple:
Cliff changed her Cloakling Device to the ‘Manual’ setting and had herself look like Colonel Michael O’Neil. Bruce said they’d need a superior officer to seem more believable and trustworthy, and they’d need to pull him off seamlessly. Cliff had so many interviews with him, so she was the best choice.
That evening, they would limp into the encampment. During the decontamination, they would keep saying how pointless it was. Once cleared, they would explain the false scenario of the ponies getting their hooves on the secret weapon, how they managed to kill the ponies, escape and make it all the way to Portal Base. The problem was, there was one thing they didn’t count on.
They snuck up as close as possible to the base, preparing to act out the first phase of their cleverly devised infiltration. A couple of guards were chatting within ear shot.
“Did you hear about that kid who respawned the other day?”
“From Pride Rock? Sure, everyone has. Claims his squad’s CO betrayed him for the ponies they had on board.”
“Yeah, well, they just confirmed that Pride Rock was destroyed. Generals are taking him seriously now.”
The plan was already pointless now. It was clear the ‘kid’ was Stiggerz. He was the only one to die before Bruce messed with the shielding. Luckily, they had a back up plan, which was why they approached at night. The fact they’d got so close was proof enough that it would be possible. A simple glance past the fence revealed many dark spots without lighting. How lax the Humans had become in their confidence.
Half an hour later, and Bruce was leading the way through air ducts within the dome. Another five minutes and Bruce and Cliff had secured the Portal room. The Portal itself was a large stone ring, about 5 metres in diameter, with symbols on it. Cliff recognised them as the cutie marks of the Element Bearers, as well as Luna and Celestia’s. The control room in which Berry sat in was a couple metres higher up than the Portal room. Berry was looking over the report from the time travel incident.
Over the speakerphone from the control room, Berry announced, “I figured it out. A solar flare of the exact strength required will be occurring in… less than five minutes.”
There was a crashing sound inside the control room and a new voice spoke, “I’m sorry, but your flight’s been cancelled.”
The alarm sounded all over the base.
Bruce roared, “God Dammit! Cliff, hold the Portal room while I help Berry!” No response. “Cliff?!”
Cliff had already left the room. Bruce watched helplessly through the bulletproof glass that separated control room from Portal room. Stiggerz pointed a rifle down at a concussed Berry Punch slumped over the control board. Before he could pull the trigger, Cliff tackled him.
“I guess I’ll hold the room.”
A bullet barely missed his shoulder. He’d forgotten there were two entrances to the Portal room. Thinking quickly, he fired upon the safety breaker holding one of the doors open. It slammed shut, and Bruce positioned himself behind cover to defend the last way in or out.
Back in the control room, Cliff was kicked away. Stiggerz got back to his feet and aimed once more at the defenceless Berry Punch. This time, the trigger got pulled, but not before Cliff Jumper had a hold of his arm, causing a flurry of bullets to strike the glass. Eventually, the rifle was emptied.
Stiggerz managed to throw Cliff off of his arm and discarded the rifle, drawing his pistol. Before him stood Cliff, still looking like the traitorous Colonel. He managed to graze the charging woman across the cheek, but then the weapon was knocked from his hands.
“Fight like a real stallion!” Cliff screamed, jumping out of the way of a stray fist. “Hoof to hoof!”
It dawned on Sitggerz that he wasn’t fighting Colonel O’neil.
“If that’s what you want, bitch, then so be it.”
The two of them stood in combat ready positions, like two boxers, only one was a military trained man, and the other a self taught pony posing as a human female.
“How about we make this a little more… level pegging?” Stiggerz suggested.
“Sure you want to give yourself a handicap?” Cliff grunted back.
“It won’t limit my ability to kill you with my bare hands… I just thought you’d rather not have any interruptions.” He flicked a switch on the control board, and the room sealed itself off from the rest of the base. “Now, no one can get in, or out… I can’t even respawn.”
“How thoughtful.”
Like lightning, Stiggerz unleashed a flurry of jabs, forcing Cliff to block. Next, he slipped to the ground swept a leg under her, sending her toppling onto the concrete. Without pause, Stiggerz was back on his feet and going in to stomp down on Cliff’s gut. She rolled away and up, returning with a couple powered swings. They were evaded with ease.
Cliff left herself open, and Stiggerz went in for a few punches in the stomach, before pulling back enough to smack her right in the face. Once more, Cliff was floored. Unrelenting, Stiggerz was down on her, one hand holding the shirt collar, the other going for the face. The target head moved to the side and his fist collided with the solid ground. The man roared in pain.
Berry Punch was slowly coming to. Down below, through the cracked glass, she could make out a single man doing his best to keep the opposition at bay. He was fighting a losing battle, as his ammunition was running low. A glance at the time told Berry there wasn’t much time left. Her head was throbbing. She reached over to the mic.
“A minute and a half.”
Amongst the sound of bullets, Bruce heard himself say, “Time flies when you’re having fun!”
Cliff pushed Stiggerz away and stumbled back upright. She was breathing heavily. Stiggerz was too, glaring at her while massaging his hand.
“That all you got, Human? I’ve fought kittens that put up a better fight than you.”
She wasn’t lying, but Stiggerz didn’t know that. He charged angrily, rage clouding his judgement. This was what Cliff needed. Grabbing the outstretched fist aimed for her face, she twisted, causing Stiggerz more pain and redirecting him a little before smashing her spare fist into his cheek. He went sideways into a wall. Grabbing him by his shirt, Cliff flung him across the room.
“Get up, ‘bitch’. We’re not done here.”
“No,” Stiggerz agreed, wiping blood from his mouth. “We’re not.”
He lunged forward, a knife wielding handing thrusting ahead. Cliff caught it by the wrist.
“Now that’s just cheating.”
The knife dropped, the other hand catching it, going for a second attempt. This, too, was caught by the wrist.
“Tut tut. You should know, cheaters never prosper.”
Stiggerz arms were moved out of way so Cliff could knee him in the gut. She released him as he let go of his knife, all the air knocked out of him. He attempted to ready his guard, but it was too late. Cliff unleashed a right and a left into his face, and then his chest. Stiggerz wobbled on the spot. Cliff circled him, and then pushed him. He stumbled backwards until he found the control board behind him.
“What’s the matter, soldier? I thought you were a trained killer? Where’d all that bravado go, huh? You’re just a colt!”
Slowly, Stiggerz lifted his hands back up into a boxer’s pose. He took one step forward. Cliff spun on the spot, on one leg, and fired the lifted leg like a cannon, knocking her defeated opponent flying over the control board, straight through the weakened bullet proof glass.
“Berry, how are we on time?”
To answer Cliff’s question, Berry pushed a button and the Portal burst to life, a shimmering rainbow coloured water filling the centre of the ring. Bruce, seeing the broken window, wasted his last bullets on the second safety breaker, sealing off the Portal room completely.
“Just need to set it to close when we go through.”
One of the doors into the control room blew inwards, smoke flooding the room.
“No time!”
Cliff picked Berry up and jumped through the opening Stiggerz had made. She rolled upon landing. Behind her, Stiggerz was failing to lift himself off the ground, glass piercing his body all over from rolling about.
“They’ll… just… follow… you… through… beast…”
Bruce ran up to Cliff to assist with the weakened Berry.
“He’s right you know. They’ll save the input settings while we jump through. We need to destroy the Portal!”
“But how?”
“... I’ll do it! Go on through! I got this!”
Smoke in the control room started to dissipate. The soldiers inside started appearing.
“But you’re coming with us!”
“Just. GO!”
Bruce shoved Berry through the Portal, ripples spreading from her entry point. Cliff had no choice but to follow her. The soldiers in the control room found the off switch too late, closing it after the two women got through. Bruce went behind the gate.
“Cease your actions immediately! This is high treason you are committing!”
“Bit late for that, fuckers! This beauty’s gonna be going boom!”
“That will destroy the entire planet!”
“Oh good, better than I’d hoped!”
“You’re mad!”
“Just as sane as any human! By the way, quick question! If I cut these cables and rearrange them in any other way, that’ll do it, right?”
“Don’t- I mean, ha, no. You’ll just cut the power!”
“I ask because I’m like… 99.9% sure, and just thought you might give me that last 0.1! Gonna do it anyway! Toodle Pip!”
“Sto-”
In an instant, all of Equis was swallowed in a bright rainbow light. Bruce, ramming random cable ends together while looking away. Stiggerz, lying lifeless amongst glass shards. The invading Human army. The planet’s natural residents. Everything. And then it all came in on itself, forming a singularity; a black hole. One that would eventually suck in and devour the entire Universe.
The first words that came to Cliff’s mind were ‘Bright’ and ‘Colourful’. This didn’t actually mean much, as anything could be described as such when compared to the last place she’d been. Her thoughts drifted to Bruce, and whatever fate befell him. They then returned to the more urgent problem, that being Berry Punch.
The woman in question lay a within arms reach, staring up at the unfamiliar sky. Clouds lazed across the wide open blue. Exceedingly tall trees poked at them, not even getting close to touching the white puffs of gaseous water. While Berry continued to stare upwards, Cliff focused more on the ground.
They lay in a muddied track in some forest. The marks resembled ones she’d seen in the human ground base. So, there were definitely humans around. That was good. Or at least she hoped it was. If Berry got everything right, this version of humanity would be less… for lack of a better word, evil.
Something roared in the distance. It was too mechanical sounding for an animal. It took a moment, but Cliff finally realised that she and her companion were in the middle of a human road. Quick as a flash, she was slipping away in the mud in a desperate attempt to get to her feet. It would have been much easier as a pony, but she still had her human disguise, and there was no time to shed it.
The roar grew closer as Cliff managed to get a hold of Berry, who was totally out of it from the concussion Stiggerz had given her. It took far too much effort than she had the energy for, but Cliff lifted Berry onto her feet. A metal contraption skidded into view, turning the corner, coming right at them. It squealed. It seemed to be trying to stop. The driver could be seen, her face horror struck.
“Come on Berry! MOVE!”
Cliff pushed with all her might, feet slipping in the mud. Berry gave way, falling off of the road, onto the grass. She seemed uninterested as she looked at her saviour. Cliff just sighed with relief. Then the car hit her.
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I mean... it's the best timeline so far.
...they teleported to the human world and now it's Rainbow's turn.