Fields of Fire

by Wheller

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Twilight opened her eyes and found that she was lying in bed once more, she was groggy, and felt like she hadn't slept in days, she rolled over in her bed and took a look at her alarm clock. Six thirty in the morning. She had slept for thirteen hours. Why was she so tired? Twilight yawned, stretching her forelegs above her head and stumbling out of bed. Tired or not, she'd just slept for thirteen hours. It was time to get up. Nopony was meant to sleep that much.

Twilight stumbled around in the darkness with her eyes closed, it was dark in her room, so there really was no difference, and she stumbled into the bathroom and turned on her shower. She stuck her hoof out into the running water, allowing it a moment to warm up before stepping inside.

The warm water ran over her body, it felt delightful, still not really enough to wake her up, but still, it was enjoyable. She hadn't bothered to turn on any lights, and she kept her eyes shut as she felt around for her shampoo. This was much harder than she thought it was going to be, she opened her eyes to discover that nothing had changed. The darkness was still dark; she shut her eyes again, allowing them to rest as she continued to feel around.

She felt her leg brush up against the bottle, this was it. She focused her magic on it and squeezed some of it onto a brush, and began to scrub herself clean. She had never really realised how relaxing the darkness could be. She'd be okay with it if this became a regular occurrence. Despite the fact it was extremely inefficient.

She finished up as the water started to become cold, she had used all the hot water, but it would probably be fine, Rainbow Dash and Spike probably wouldn't be waking up for another few hours.

Twilight felt her way out of the shower, the lights still out, she didn't want to turn them on because she'd gotten used to the dark. She felt around for a towel, and upon locating one, wrapped it around her and exited the washroom.

To her surprise, she bumped into Rainbow Dash, on her way out, Rainbow Dash let out a loud yawn, and still looked half asleep.

'Oh... good morning Rainbow', Twilight said in mild surprise.

Rainbow Dash yawned loudly. 'Mornin'' she said sleepily, trotting into the washroom, stepping into the shower and turning on the water. 'COLD!' She cried out in shock.

Twilight chuckled nervously. 'Oops...' if Rainbow Dash had been half asleep for, she was awake now. Twilight trotted into her bedroom, taking her mane brush in her magic and brushing her hair into it's normal shape. Her simple mane style was easy to replicate day in and day out. Twilight had to wonder how much time somepony like Rarity spent in the morning to style their mane. Once satisfied with her work, she went down stairs and poured herself a bowl of cereal. Rainbow Dash came down not long after her. Twilight looked up at her and gave her an apologetic look for using all of the hot water.

Rainbow Dash said nothing, but smiled in return and too sat down to a bowl of cereal.

'Why are you up so early?' Twilight asked.

'FutureTec', Rainbow Dash said simply.

Of course, how could Twilight have forgotten? They were going back over to FutureTec Headquarters to listen to the Cutie Mark Crusaders tell the rest of their story. Twilight didn't know why, but that event, even though it had only been about thirteen and a half hours ago, felt like it had occurred several days prior. 'When are we meeting everypony?'

'Seven thirty over at the bridge leading to Whitetail Wood', Rainbow Dash said. 'The bosses said that they'd meet us early so that we wouldn't run out of time like we did yesterday'.

The bosses, such a quaint term, the Cutie Mark Crusaders had requested that they not talk about them in their true role in the company, but they would respect it. Spike eventually came down stairs, grabbing some breakfast for him, soon enough they were out the door and headed off for the bridge. Along the way, they ran into Vinyl Scratch and Surprise, and the odd sight of Surprise laying on Vinyl's back and her forelegs draped around her neck.

'How did I get roped into this?' Vinyl Scratch asked.

'I asked really really nicely and batted my eyelashes', Surprise said with a smile and rapidly batted her eye lashes at Vinyl again.

'That's not going to work all the time', Vinyl said.

'Yeah, sure it's not', Surprise said in an odd cheerful sarcasm.

They greeted Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Spike and trotted off as a group towards the bridge together. Meeting up with Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity. Apple Bloom and Applejack trotted up a few minutes later. Next was Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, several minutes after that.

Last but not least was Whirlwind, who looked incredibly distracted from what was going on.

'Jeez Whirlwind, do I need to start making you fly laps again?' Rainbow Dash said with a smirk.

Whirlwind looked up in confusion for a moment. Then he started registering what she was saying. 'Oh... uh, sorry, I didn't sleep very well last night'.

Twilight raised an eyebrow at that statement. 'I didn't sleep very well either, I woke up a couple times during the night; did you have bad dreams?'

'I don't recall dreams', Whirlwind said simply. Twilight gave him that, she didn't recall dreams either.

Apple Bloom got everypony's attention, climbing up on a rock, waving at everypony. 'Howdy everypony, when we get ta FutureTec, stick close ta us', Apple Bloom waved, jumping off the rock and trotting off into Whitetail Wood.

The group came up to the building that held the elevator to FutureTec Headquarters. Two Combots were hanging out outside the doors, guarding them from unauthorised entry.

'Halt!' One of the Combots said. 'Entry is not permitted at this time! Please come back later'.

'Executive override Apple-47', Apple Bloom said without stopping.

The Combots started making a clicking noise. 'Thank you! Have a nice day!' One of them said. The other Combot opened up the door for them and they all trotted inside, where they entered the elevator, heading down to the headquarters itself. They opened up the door and headed inside, to the Crusader's office.

The Crusaders sat themselves down in their chair where they smiled at the group before them. 'We'll get to right where we left you all hanging', Scootaloo said.

'It's a great story', Sweetie Belle said.

'After speakin' with the Cultus Mechanius Brother Templar, we kinda panicked, and we realised that there was something that we needed ta do'.

…

The Cutie Mark Crusaders struggled to pull a severely damaged combot into the front hallway of EPMB.

‘You sure this is gonna work?’ Scootaloo asked with a grunt.

‘No, but we ain’t got any better ideas!’ Apple Bloom said. ‘There’s... unngh... a bunch o’ these things lyin’ around since the battle!’

The Crusaders finished pulling the single combot into the hallway. Their plan was to drag as many as they could to block off the hallway, if somepony was coming in here, they weren’t just going to sit by and let them take it.

Hazard lights began to flash, steam began to hiss, The Cutie Mark Crusader’s hearts leapt in terror as the door bolt locked into place. Metal grinded against metal as the huge door to EPMB slid back, rolling to the right. Standing outside were six ponies wearing metal masks and red robes. Each of them had a large claw like device sticking out of their backs, each of them holding a number of heavy weapons. There were also a number of unicorns wearing blue robes and levitating pistols by their heads not too far behind.

‘What? Fillies?’ One of the metal masked ponies asked.

‘Stay back!’ Apple Bloom cried out. ‘Ah know how ta use this!’ she added, hoping her bluff was good enough.

‘You’re three fillies with half pile of twisted scrap metal’, the leader of the metal masked ponies said. ‘What can you do against a Cultus Mechanius Brother Templar assault section?’

Apple Bloom didn’t really have a good answer to that, She had to improvise, and so she did the first thing to pop into her mind, she looked at the combot and turned around and gave it a kick.

The combot went wild, its submachine gun burst into operation, and spraying bullets into the air. Likewise, its grenade launcher fired off, sending shots of high explosives into the crowd of Cultus Mechanius Templars, knocking them all to the ground and injuring most of the Saracens that had come with them.

Apple Bloom’s eyes widened, she looked over to Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, they hadn’t meant to hurt them. When the combot ceased firing, they all ran over to where the group lay, all of them, even the metal armoured ones lay bleeding on the ground.

‘Beaten... by a bunch of fillies...’ the leader said. ‘How embarrassing...’

‘We’re willin’ ta call a cease fire ta get ya some help,’ Apple Bloom asked. ‘Ya’ll gonna take it?’

‘Doesn’t seem like we’ve much of a choice’, the leader said. ‘We accept’.

Comments

[DreadedCandiru2]

Okaaaaaaaaay. We're getting a reminder that Whirlwind is still somewhat pissed off about his time as Legion as well as more of Apple Bloom's backstory. The reminder that she remembers the Old World can probably come later.

[Fulgor Ignis]

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