Finding the Trail
Chapter 9:
Finding the Trail
I haven’t said what my former job entailed, have I? I was a Business Analyst at an information technology firm called Orbital Satellite Communications Incorporated. OSC Inc. owned and managed several geosynchronous communications satellites used to provide TV broadcasting, cable program distribution, business data network capacity, regional mobile communications, and other things of that nature. I was responsible for interacting with existing and prospective clients to figure out what they wanted, and make sure it was actually possible. I’d then convey that information to the computer programmers, and go back and forth throughout the project lifecycle to make sure everyone was on the same page.
In a nutshell, I was a glorified liaison.
The job itself wasn’t hard. I’d always had an amiable personality, and I had enough technical and business savvy to understand the problems and concerns of both parties. As long as I stayed on top of things, all I had to do was make phone calls, attend meetings, answer emails, and walk around cubicles to make sure no one had a problem they weren’t telling me about.
The problem was that neither side really thought I was fully acting in their best interests, so they didn’t have anything to do with me outside of the workplace. This resulted in an incredibly lonely and frustrating existence, and while I committed myself more and more to my work to try and compensate for it, it hadn’t panned out. My co-workers politely declined my invitations or made half-hearted excuses, the client was… well, the client, and my superiors did little to assuage my own concerns when I brought them to light.
In short, I didn’t have much love for OSC Inc.
Fortunately, company loyalty wasn’t a requisite for using their satellites.
It was dark when I beheld my former workplace. The gray six-story building was empty, save for the first and second floors which were left open for a twenty-four hour customer service team. My old office was on the fifth floor, so we’d have to get past them unnoticed in order to do what I needed to do.
“Is that the place?” Shmangie asked as she slowed down the car.
I nodded and pointed out the passenger’s side window to a different building that was completely vacant. “Park over here. We’ll go around the back.”
OSC Inc. was in an office park with tended lawns, manicured gardens, and carefully groomed pine trees that served as markers between the property lines. It was actually rather pretty, but I wasn’t really interested in aesthetics. The important thing was that it would provide lots of hiding places in case someone drove by.
Scootaloo laughed from the back seat. “Nah, let’s just go in through the front! I’m sure they won’t mind.”
“That’s gotta be the most boring-lookin’ building I’ve ever seen.” Apple Bloom’s breath fogged the window as she reared up to get a better look. “And all this hyper-maintained fake landscaping, to boot? Ugh, no wonder you didn’t like it here.”
“Are you sure we don’t need anything else to do this besides putting rags around our hooves?” Babs asked. “I thought you’d have grabbed more out of your old apartment.”
I giggled and patted the feather-light satchel at my side. “I suppose we could’ve had Shmangie make some black latex catsuits for us, if you really wanted.”
“I totally would have, too,” she said without any note of jest.
Babs smiled despite herself. “You know what I mean. Shouldn’t we need more tools to break into a building? Like bolt cutters and lockpicks and fancy gadgets and stuff?”
I shrugged. “OSC has security, but it’s not exactly the paragon of defense. We’re not breaking into Fort Knox, here.”
“Not that that’s a bad thing,” Apple Bloom amended.
I undid my seat belt as the car came to a stop. “Not a bad thing at all.”
The five of us got out and made our way through a copse of trees beside a pond. I took a deep breath of the air, the heady scent of pine needles triggering memories of the times I sat in this area on my lunch breaks. I did a lot of self-reflection here, trying to figure out what I was doing wrong and thinking up new ways to fill the odd void in my life. I never came up with anything, but I always found myself coming back to this same spot for some reason.
The reason why suddenly hit me with an abrupt shock. I stopped and fell flat on my haunches.
The others noticed and stopped. Shmangie came over to me. “Something wrong?”
I blinked several times and looked around with wide eyes. Sure enough, it was as I suspected.
“Home,” I whispered.
Shmangie cocked her head. “What about it?”
I burst out laughing. “This place! It looks like home!”
“Uh…” Shmangie looked around. “Not even close, kiddo. We never had a pond, and we don’t have these kind of trees where we live.”
“No, no!” I said with a snicker. “Not our home. I mean my home back in Equestria! This spot is almost exactly like it, save for the buildings! No wonder I kept coming back here!”
“Wow, you’re right!” Apple Bloom turned around once, seeing the place in a new light. “It’s practically a dead ringer!”
“Ooh, ooh! That tree!” Scootaloo pointed to a maple twenty feet away. “Do you remember? We got so many things stuck up in it! One day we got a ladder and found like, fifty things we’d thought we’d lost!”
Babs was looking over at the pond with a wistful smile. “We used to go swimming off the dock on warm days.”
“Oh, yeah!” I got up and trotted over to her. “And that one time my dad took us out on his boat, and we pretended we were pirates!”
“The water wheel was on the far end over there!”
“We used to catch frogs over here!”
“The hedge bush Sweetie’s dad never trimmed!”
“Mom was always yelling at him to just cut it down.”
“Remember when we went skating in the winter?”
“I liked the snowball fights!”
“Or how about when we played in the leaf piles!”
“Or when we went digging for buried treasure!”
“Or when…”
It went on like that for few minutes. We were all talking at once, completely lost in nostalgia and comparing memory after memory. It wasn’t something any of us really meant to do; that spot just... brought it all back for us.
Shmangie loudly cleared her throat. “Can we save the trip down memory lane for later? Possibly when we’re not in the middle of an office park at midnight?”
Our banter slowly died away. We all exchanged sheepish looks, and I put a hoof behind my head and looked up at Shmangie.
“Sorry. It’s just that, well… this place…”
I trailed off when I saw Shmangie’s face. She wasn’t mad at all, her eyes were kind, and she wore a sad, knowing smile.
“You’ll get it back,” she said softly.
I know she meant well, but she may as well have stabbed me in the chest. My home was gone, probably destroyed or twisted into some horrid monstrosity, and the memories I had would never be anything but. Discord hadn’t cared that he’d uprooted our lives and shattered everything we’d known and loved, he’d just done it because there was a chance we’d get in the way. Can you believe it? Us, a quartet of eight year-old fillies, get in the way of the immortal Spirit of Chaos! How? What did he think we could we possibly do? What was so special about us?
I hated it. I hated the unfairness of it all. I hated that we hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye. But most of all, though, I hated him. I hated every fiber in Discord’s foul, malformed body. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted to make him scream. I wanted to do exactly what he did to us: take everything away from him, make him feel powerless, fall to despair, and then at his lowest moment, crush him like an insect.
I squeezed my eyes shut and grit my teeth. The pangs of loss were mixing with the soul-blackening rage, and it was ripping at my insides like a windigo trying to claw its way out. Revenge. Sweet, beautiful, righteous revenge. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know when, but by everything I knew and loved, I swore right then and there that I’d avenge my lost life, and help reclaim Equestria in the name of vengeance. The ways of friendship and harmony had failed, after all. Perhaps it was time to try something new.
Strangely enough, the sudden burst of anger sharpened my focus rather than dulled it. I had a different goal at the moment, and I knew how to accomplish it. Take it slow. Take it steady. Make my moves in the shadows, and concentrate on one thing at a time. As long as I did that, I’d have my retribution before I knew it.
I opened my eyes and spoke to Shmangie in a perfectly calm voice. “You’re right. I will.”
Shmangie looked at me curiously. It was sometimes a detriment that we knew each other so well, but she didn’t give voice to whatever was on her mind. She straightened back up, and we continued on our way.
We approached the back of OSC Inc. from the cover of the trees. There was little of note in the immediate surroundings, save for a large square of pavement with a picnic table that served as an outside smoking area. A three foot-tall plastic cylindrical ashtray stood beside a set of double doors that led into the building that had a small electronic lock on them. The lock was set by a small scanner on the right-hand side, and was easily noticed thanks to its bright red light.
The ground at the edge of the trees became uneven and gravelly, but still our movement was silent thanks to the cloth around our hooves. I knew we’d make a lot of noise on the metal stairs and pavement of the building if we didn’t take precautions, and we couldn’t afford to go slow.
“How close do you need to be?” Babs whispered to me.
I sucked on my teeth and judged the distance. It looked to be about fifty feet, which was quite a bit farther than what I’d practiced. I was in a mood, though, so I decided to try it.
“I should be able to do it from here.” I reached into my satchel and pulled out a small plastic keyfob. “Just let me know if anyone’s coming.”
The keyfob was the key to get in and out of the building. Every employee of OSC had one, and while I wasn’t sure if mine would still work or not, it was worth a shot.
I felt the familiar warmth seep in behind my eyes as the keyfob became enveloped in an emerald glow. It hovered just a few inches off the ground, and steadily made its way towards the door.
Scootaloo snickered. “Cutie Mark Crusader Infiltrators.”
“Hush!” Babs said.
It was at thirty-five feet that I started to feel the strain. The keyfob only weighed a few ounces, but the distance made it harder and harder to hold in my magical grip.
“Coast is still clear,” Apple Bloom whispered.
The keyfob was almost to the door. Just a few more feet. I grunted and lifted it up to the red light of the electronic lock.
Beep… beep beep beep.
The light stayed red.
“Hayseed,” Apple Bloom said. “Looks like you were right, Sweetie.”
“Not surprising,” I said through clenched teeth. “HR’s really anal about the termination policy.”
Shmangie leaned against a tree. “Plan B, then?”
I hovered the keyfob back over and laid down on the grass to recover. “Yeah. It shouldn’t be long.”
Not long at all, as it turned out. I happened to know that there were several chain smokers on the customer service team, and they frequently went to the back of the building to have a cigarette. True to my predictions, about fifteen minutes later a pair of middle-aged obese men stepped outside the door. They immediately pulled out cigarettes and began chatting with each other.
Scootaloo whimpered.
I put a hoof on her shoulder. “Stay strong.”
“Don’t give in!” Babs whispered.
“Resist the tobacco’s siren song!” Shmangie said.
Scootaloo flattened her ears. “I hate you all.”
“Aww, but we love you!” Apple Bloom said as she hugged her.
Scootaloo didn’t return the embrace, but neither did she push Apple Bloom away. “So. Very. Much.”
The two men talked for about ten minutes while they fueled their addictions. Once they were done, they put out their cigarettes and headed back inside. One of them swiped the lock with a keyfob, and the light turned green. They walked in and headed down the hall.
I focused on the swiftly closing door. My vision zoomed in, and I stretched my magical awareness out as far as I could. I was still a few feet short, so I pushed harder. I felt a painful sensation behind my eyes, like overstretching a stiff muscle. Nevertheless, I now felt the door, so I tried to hold it open with my telekinesis.
Holy crap, it was heavy. I may as well have been trying to lift Shmangie. I let out a gasp as my aura flickered and died.
“Sweetie...” Scootaloo said.
I ignored her. The door was almost closed, I had to think of something quick. The sides of the building were decorated with rock gardens. I grabbed a stone the size of my hoof and wedged it in the door.
“Got it! Go!” I started to move forward myself, but I stumbled and fell to my knees. Apple Bloom, Babs, and Scootaloo ran ahead, but Shmangie bent down and picked me up before I could protest. She quickly crossed the distance and entered the building. Apple Bloom kicked the rock away, and the door closed with a click.
We were now in a sterile break room set with uncomfortable-looking wooden tables and chairs. The walls were bare save for a bulletin board set with company announcements and policies, and the glaring fluorescent lights above made us blink like owls.
“Where are the stairs?” Babs asked.
I wordlessly pointed to a door immediately to our right.
Shmangie opened the door, and we all slipped inside. An empty, dim stairwell with bland white stairs spiraling upward met our eyes.
I wiggled in Shmangie’s arms. “Put me down. I can walk.”
She hesitated for a second, but then slowly obliged. I leaned against her leg and rubbed my temples, but stopped when I noticed the others looking strangely at me.
“What?”
“You got a nosebleed,” Apple Bloom said.
I touched my muzzle, and felt a warm wetness. I pulled my hoof away to find it stained a bright crimson.
“Oh,” I said simply.
“Yeah, you’re not climbing five flights right now.” Shmangie swooped down and picked me back up. “You can’t use a computer very well when you’re passed out.”
I sighed in defeat and wrapped my hooves around her neck. “Fine. We’ll need to stop at the bathroom once we get up there so I can clean this up, though.”
“Will that be a problem?” Babs asked.
I shook my head. “We just need to be quiet until we get up past the second floor.”
“Let’s go, then,” Scootaloo said. She started up the stairs. The others followed close behind.
“Idiota,” Shmangie whispered as she took up the rear. “You shouldn’t have pushed yourself so hard.”
I sighed and stemmed the nosebleed with my satchel. “I didn’t think the door would be so heavy.”
Shmangie petted my mane. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah.” I watched the stairs fall away from us as we ascended. “It’s not an indication of a stroke or anything. I just need to not do anything big like that for a while.”
I felt Shmangie’s posture shift at the words ‘a while.’
“You’re not going to make a habit out of risking yourself like that, are you?”
I groaned. “We got in, didn’t we?”
“Don’t you dare brush me off,” Shmangie hissed. “I’m not—”
She stopped as we reached the second floor. Apple Bloom, Babs, and Scootaloo simply trotted on past, as they were too short to be seen through the door’s window. Shmangie, however, had to duck down and stealthily slip past. As she did, I heard the ringing of phones and snippets of unintelligible conversation.
She continued once we’d gone up another flight. “I’m not just going to sit back and let you throw yourself into harm’s way because you feel like you have something to prove. I know you’re hurting far more than you’re letting on, and while I’m glad you’re not getting depressed about all this, bottling up your anger until it explodes isn’t much better. You’re not alone in this, despite how you may feel, and the others need you as much as you need them. You did good in coming up with this plan, but you didn’t need to keep it a secret from us. I want you to promise me that you’ll stop trying to do everything yourself from now on, okay?”
I pursed my lips. I didn’t know if I could make that promise. I’d been flying solo since high school, and it’s not like relying on others was some kind of switch that I could flip on and off. I’d felt betrayed when the others didn’t come to college with me, and as a result I’d told myself that the only person that I could totally rely on was myself. Friends were a luxury that I couldn’t afford, and I needed to focus on the things that mattered if I didn’t want to be flipping burgers for the rest of my life. In a way it’d worked, as I’d graduated in the top five percent of my class, but I’d become bitter and mistrustful towards others, as well. I knew it was wrong. I knew that I’d changed for the worse, but even if my reclusive habits were hurting me, it was hard to argue with the results.
“I’ll try,” I finally said.
“Trying only means something if you put forth an actual effort.” Shmangie gave me a gentle squeeze. “Will you? For me?”
I exhaled out my nose. I really hated it when she played that card. It wasn’t fair in some ways, but I could do the same thing to her if I wanted, so I suppose it evened out.
“All right.” I nuzzled her cheek. “For you.”
We reached the fifth floor and exited the stairwell. It was dark, so the girls couldn’t see what the place looked like, but I can tell you they weren’t missing much. Ugly beige carpet, gray cubicle maze, white stucco ceilings, nondescript windows, and bare white walls save for a clock or two. I didn’t want to turn on the lights in case someone outside took notice, so Shmangie put me down and I took the lead.
One stop at the ladies’ room later, we were standing in front of my old office. It was at the far end of the building, and it was about the size of a cubicle. It used to have a nameplate, but they’d already taken it down. I was only slightly disappointed by this. Honest.
“Still can’t believe you had your own office,” Shmangie muttered as she opened the door. “I didn’t even get one until two years ago, you know. Ugh! You even had a window!”
Not at all to my surprise, my office belongings had been placed into a box beside the door. The only thing that was left was the desk, the chair, the whiteboard, and the computer.
Scootaloo fluttered up onto my desk. “If it makes you feel any better, I never had an office.”
“You were a front-end manager at a grocery store,” Apple Bloom said.
“And a damn good one, too!” Scootaloo beamed. “I had all the produce codes memorized, I knew where everything was in the store, I could bag the shit out anything you wanted, and best of all, I got a discount on cigarettes!”
“The American dream,” Babs said dryly. “Such a shame you had to trade it all in for the ability to fly.”
“Eh, more like ‘prolonged jumping’ right now.“ Scootaloo hovered in midair a few seconds, then fell back down. “I need more power, cap’n! MORE, I say!”
Shmangie chuckled. “Your wings will need to grow in for that. You look like a hummingbird right now.”
“Better than a chicken!” Scootaloo said. She swiveled her neck and began to preen herself. “This is probably the weirdest thing I’ve ever said, but man, I can’t wait for puberty.”
“You’ve said weirder things.” I went over and inspected the computer. It looked like they hadn’t disconnected it or anything, so we were still in good shape there. I turned it on and waited for it to boot up.
“Do you have everything you need?” Babs asked.
I smiled and took off my satchel. “Yep. It’s all in here.”
There were a couple hurdles to get over before I could access the satellites. The first was that I needed a viable username and password, as mine had undoubtedly been removed from the system. Fortunately, I’d had a mishap a few months back where some joker had hacked my mother’s email, and decided to send malware to her entire address list. My computer had been completely ravaged by it, so the admin gave me his username and password so I could still do my work while they redid my access privileges.
A worn scrap of paper floated out of the satchel at my command. I glanced at it once to make sure I had it right.
Please enter your username and password.
Username: Klam1014
Password: Th1s1sy0urb00terang
Access Granted. Loading your preferences and settings...
You know, I never did ask him what that password meant.
The next problem was that the satellites were being monitored by the people downstairs. If I were to just jump right in and start fiddling around, not only would they know something was up, they’d also know what computer it was being done at. Then they’d come up to where we were, and well… you get the picture.
I had a way around this as well, but it requires a bit of explaining. When I was in college, I had a classmate that might be described as a hacker. He called himself ‘an opportunistic troll,’ but that’s beside the point. He was a perfectly nice guy once you got to know him, and we got along fine for the most part, but we barely ever saw each other because he spent almost all of his time writing code.
He had one glaring problem, though, and it was one that he clearly and thoroughly despised: He didn’t have a car. He’d had to choose between getting one for a graduation present or building a new computer, and he’d gone with the latter. It drove him absolutely nuts that he couldn’t even do simple things like run to the store for milk, and he was miserable for it. So, in an act of kindness, I let him use mine whenever he needed. There were some caveats, of course, but seeing as he wasn’t the type to go out and party or anything, I didn’t see the harm.
There are no words to express how grateful he was. We didn’t have any problems with this arrangement, and in the four years I knew him, he did little things here and there to show his appreciation. One of those things was to show me how to prevent IP addresses from being tracked, which I’d done when I’d made the website. Another thing was to give me an old program he’d made called Casper, which for all intents and purposes, was a virus.
Casper allowed a user to make changes on a network without anyone else seeing them. My classmate explained that it worked by taking a snapshot of the database, and then displaying that snapshot as the current state. It was only believable so long as no one else tried to make changes, and that wasn’t what he was trying to do, so he decided to give it to me. I didn’t think I’d ever have a use for such a thing, but it was the thought that counted, so I’d held onto it.
Turns out I did have a use for it. The service reps downstairs were only supposed to investigate problems if they were called in by the end-users, and if Casper was only going to show them the system’s default state, no one would think anything was wrong.
I disabled the computer’s firewall and antivirus software, then pulled Casper out of my satchel and plugged it into the USB port. I typed in the network’s settings, linked it to the satellite system, and allowed myself an evil smile.
“Su red es ahora mi perra.” I pressed Enter.
It took a few minutes for Casper to do its job. The OSC satellites serviced about a hundred thousand users all over the world, so there was a lot of data coming in and out. It eventually did work, though, and a simple pop-up screen notified me that I now full access to the satellite system without fear of being discovered.
I rubbed my hooves together. “We’re in.”
“Damn,” Scootaloo said with raised eyebrows.
Apple Bloom whistled. “Go, Sweetie.”
Babs facehooved and shook her head. “Remind me, exactly. Why on Earth did you want to go on TV when you had access to a global satellite network?!”
I laughed. “Would you believe I didn’t think of it at first? And even if I did, these satellites are contracted by the National Weather Service to transfer electronic data and track major weather patterns. You can track heat sources, sure, but cities just light up like Christmas trees. I’d been working on a program the last two weeks to see if I could get rid of the excess.”
“But you were never trying to track heat in the first place,” Shmangie said with a knowing smirk. “You were trying to track something else. Something that no one else on Earth would recognize.”
I took a deep breath. “Not like you can really blame them. I’m probably the only one who can tell the difference between electromagnetic fields and magic.”
It was something I’d started thinking about after I’d had my Flare. I didn’t know the specifics, but I did know that there was some kind of energy transfer going on whenever I cast a spell. The clues were all there: the damage I’d done to the ceiling, the spark I’d made whenever I’d broken the curse, the warm feeling I always got behind my eyes. I remembered Miss Cheerilee talking once about ‘magical fields,’ but she’d only mentioned it in passing and hadn’t gone into detail. I suspected it was something we were going to learn when we started learning the respective magics of our races, but that never happened.
So I didn’t know anything about magical fields. I did, however, know about electromagnetic fields, which are formed when a current of electricity is run through a conductive material. They had a lot in common with what I’d observed about magic: they could be switched on and off at will, they generated heat, and most interestingly of all, they could create feedback loops. That last one led me to a theory, and while I’d no way of knowing for sure, I suspected this was how I was able to break the curse.
When Rarity had interrupted Discord twenty-five years ago, she’d inadvertently created in me the equivalent of a frayed wire. It stayed ‘unplugged’ for the twenty-five years while my magic was gone, but when it started to come back, that ‘frayed wire’ began to spark. Thus, whenever I introduced my magical field to someone else’s through physical contact, I created a feedback loop, and caused the curse to overload.
Again, it was just a theory. It made sense to me, but this was Discord we were talking about. Motherfucker laughed in the face of sense.
Anyway, based off the evidence I’d gathered, I came to the conclusion that any kind of magical disturbance picked up by a human tracking device would be mistaken for an electromagnetic field. I didn’t think Rainbow had known this—scratch that, I knew she hadn’t, but her brashness had paid off this time. My original plan had been to see if I could hack into the satellite network remotely and find other ponies by searching for unusual heat signatures generated by ‘electromagnetic fields.’ Since Rainbow had gone and left her calling card, though, I didn’t really need to look.
I pulled up the satellite logs from earlier that day. I zoomed in over Des Moines, then moved the slider to the time of the Rainboom. I watched as a single, missile-like projectile appeared out of nowhere due to a sudden rise in temperature.
“There she is.” I pointed at the screen.
“I’ll be danged,” Apple Bloom said.
“Go, Rainbow, go!” Scootaloo cheered.
Amusingly, Rainbow’s blip went through almost the entire color spectrum as she gathered more and more magic. Her movement became choppier and choppier as she picked up speed, which was due to the satellite’s transponder being unable to keep up with her. Then, when she was right above the middle of the city, the entire screen exploded with colorful light. I gasped and closed my eyes on instinct, and when I opened them again, there was no more sign of Rainbow other than a residual heat trail.
“Dios…” Shmangie breathed.
“Whoa, wait!” Babs said. “Go back! We lost her!”
I grinned. “I was hoping we would.”
Babs looked at me. “What do you mean?”
I leaned back in my chair. “If it were easy to see where she’d went, then anyone else who can see this would’ve found her already. It’s going to be tricky, but since we know what to look for, we have a better chance of seeing where she went.”
“And what exactly are we lookin’ for?” Apple Bloom asked.
I rewound to right after the Rainboom, then set it to play as slow as it could go.
“Help me look for a streak of white leaving the city.”
The explosion played out again at an agonizingly slow rate. I kept my eyes open for our quarry, but I didn’t see her on the first pass. The colors were all blending in together, and due to the darkness of the room, it was hard not to squint.
Fortunately, there was someone in the room who literally had eagle eyes… on her mother’s side.
“Pause it!” Scootaloo said.
I obliged. She made me rewind a few tenths of a second, then she leaned in and pointed at the bottom of the screen.
“There. Just outside the city limits.”
Even though it was expected, I still couldn’t believe Scootaloo had found it so fast. I rubbed my eyes and let them focus. Yep, there it was. A bright white streak almost indistinguishable from the rest of the light on the screen. It was only visible for an instant, then it was gone again.
“That’s... amazing, Dylan.” Shmangie shook her head in dismay. “I can’t believe you saw that.”
I laughed. “I don’t think she’s done yet.”
Scootaloo rubbed her chin and dipped into her extensive knowledge of all things Rainbow Dash. “She must’ve dipped down to avoid being seen. She was trying to escape, so she wouldn’t have wanted to lose any of her speed, and she wouldn’t have made any changes to her trajectory since she wasn’t being chased.”
I bit my lip. “Meaning?”
Scootaloo met my eyes. “Meaning she went straight until she decided to slow down. We’ll catch another glimpse of her if we follow her vector.”
I turned back to the computer. “Show me the way, Scoots.”
It took ten minutes of fiddling, zooming, fast-forwarding, rewinding, and reconfiguring, but we managed to find Rainbow again. She’d ascended again over the Mississippi River, two hundred miles away from Des Moines. She’d gotten there in just under two minutes. I did some rough math, and realized with a chill that she had to have been flying at least six thousand miles per hour to do that. Almost Mach Eight.
There was really only one word I could think of to describe such a feat.
“Awesome.” I shivered with goosebumps.
“She’s turning around.” Scootaloo leaned in closer to the screen. “And the dot isn’t as bright now, so she’s starting to kill her speed. She wouldn’t do that if she was going to be flying somewhere far away. She’s definitely in that area somewhere.”
“That’s still a big area,” Babs pointed out. “We could search for months and still not find her with only that to go on. We need to find her at least one more time.”
Scootaloo clicked her teeth. “She’d have exhausted most of the excess aether by that point, and I doubt she’d have flown up high enough again for the satellite to spot her.”
“Let’s just look,” Apple Bloom said. “Ain’t no harm in checkin’, right?”
Scootaloo ran a hoof through her mane. “Yeah… all right.”
I made the satellite focus on a fifty mile radius around where we’d seen Rainbow over the Mississippi, then let it play again. Scootaloo took control over the mouse, and we all huddled around the monitor. Over the next twenty minutes, we consecutively cycled through thirty second blocks of time, but it seemed Rainbow had completely disappeared. A part of me was glad it was proving so difficult because it was that much more unlikely that anyone else had found her, but it was still incredibly frustrating.
I was just about to give up when Scootaloo pounded the mouse with a shout.
“GOT HER!”
We all jumped and hissed out a cumulative, “SHH!”
Scootaloo hunched down and bowed her head. “Sorry. I did, though!”
I glanced at the screen. “Where?”
Scootaloo pointed again, this time at an almost imperceptible ghost of a blip at the very edge of the screen. It was tiny. It was faint. It could’ve been mistaken for some kind of interference, which was what I’d thought it was at first. No one would’ve seen it unless they were intentionally looking in this exact area like we were, and even then, they still wouldn’t have thought anything of it.
“You’re kidding,” Babs whispered.
“I’ll bet she was tired and flew up to grab a cloud.” Scootaloo folded her arms with a smug grin. “That’s the only reason I can think of to why she’d reveal herself again.”
I wrote down the blip’s latitude and longitude, then alt-tabbed and ran it against Google Maps.
An address popped up.
“It’s a farm,” I said with incredulity. “She’s on some kind of farm, a dozen miles away from a small town in the middle of nowhere. That’s gotta be where she is.”
Apple Bloom suddenly seized both me and Scootaloo in a fierce hug.
“Ya’ll are the best, you know that?!” she said.
Babs joined in the hug as well. “I can’t believe it! I can’t believe we found her!”
“Can’t… breathe…” My ribs creaked as all the air was crushed out of my lungs.
Shmangie watched us with an amused smile. “You might wanna let go before they pass out.”’
Apple Bloom and Babs still held on for a few seconds, but then obeyed. Scootaloo and I were left massaging our chests and taking deep breaths, then wordlessly agreed that earth pony strength was no joke. If that was the kind of power they had with their front legs, I didn’t even wanna think about what they could do with their back ones.
Shmangie pulled out a pen and piece of paper and wrote down the farm’s address. “Do you think anyone else might’ve seen this, Shmage?”
I sucked on my teeth. “Satellite transponders can only transmit information so fast, and cameras are limited by frames per second. Rainbow was moving so fast that she was gone before anything could get a second reading of her, and since she’s so small, she’s likely to be mistaken for some kind of electrical disturbance. They might even think she’s a lightning bolt.”
“So you think this is a safe bet,” Shmangie said. “We’re not going to be walking into a trap, or anything.”
I took a few screenshots of the satellite info, put them on Casper’s flash drive, then started to delete everything I’d done off the computer. “Without knowledge of Rainbow’s flying habits and the similarities between magic and electromagnetic fields, AND the aid superhuman vision? The chances of anyone finding what we just did are worse than winning the lottery. Take that how you will.”
“I’ll take it!” Scootaloo said with a raise of her hoof.
“Seconded.” Apple Bloom raised her hoof as well.
“Thirded.” Babs followed suit.
I giggled and shut the computer down. “Good enough for you, sister?”
Shmangie looked out the window for a few seconds, then rolled her eyes and let out a resigned sigh. “All right, all right. So much for my PTO.”
“Marvelous.” I turned off the computer and slipped into my best imitation of Rarity’s accent. “Pack up your things and prepare for a change of scenery, darlings. Our Dashing hero awaits.”
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This is really good. I cannot in all honesty say it is one of the best stories I've ever read, but it is damn good.
Argh! Booterang! Why it put da booterang on da skin!? (+10 internets to you, sir.)
Story is good as always. Plus you make me feel bad about being so lackadaisical about how slowly I update my own. So yay for motivation?
Go go pony rangers!! XD
time to meet up with the rest of the gang!
2 fics that meet together in a collab?
has that ever happened on FIMFiction?
AFTER ALL THESE YEARS... well, 2 years, I finally get to see one!
This is why information security is important, people. Never share or write down your passwords, or ponies might break in.
Eh? Are we going to find out she is half-gryphon or something, or am I'm just reading too much into it?
3428919
You're reading too much into it.
Cliffhangers!
Really Awesome!
3428795
Griffin the Griffin and Echo the Diamond Dog have met up in their respective stories, although the way events transpired for each of them was considerably different.
Hyperventilation! When, if you don't mind me asking, do you think the next chapter will be out?
3429417
That depends on a myriad of different factors, so I can't give an definite estimate on time. The best I can give you is 'within a fortnight.'
3429427
Neat! Thanks.
3428107
The Netherwing Rep grind, while certainly not perfect, was one of the most enjoyable experiences I had in WoW. I will never forget the Booterang quest, simply because of the hilarious absurdity of throwing a Boot of Returning at a lazy fel orc while on dragonback.
BOOTERANG! IT GO ON DA SKIN!
WHY?!?!?!!??!?!
3428470
wat
I am still amazed by all the different knowledge you possess about programming, physics, and everything.
Or, if you're just randomly writing technobabble, I'll instead be amazed at how easily you have fooled me.
Either way, another amazing chapter.
3429449
For some reason, the end of that chapter struck me with a very 'Power Ranger-ish' vibe. Thus the comment.
3428051
I'll take it
3428919 Nah, if Scoots was half-griffon, then she'd be born a hippogriff.
Perhaps a distant ancestor was one or the other?
That is, IF that's what Cyborg is suggesting. I rather like the concept.
OMG THE SUSPENSE!!!
I can't get enough of this story; the theories of magic and Scootaloo's super-sight, I truly enjoy this band of besties! Hope you update soon, it's startin' to get super good!
It's happening.
I was worried when I saw the author of Five Score was opening to merge side-fics together, but after seeing this I think it will work.
Also, Sweetie is a boss.
Oh, and did Shmage get any blood on Shmangie when she nuzzled her? She did have a nosebleed at the time.
Great chapter man.
You've pulled many rules of coolness in this chapter, and I like it. Also, does Sweetie being the computer/technology "expert" serves as a Sweetie-bot reference?
I wonder what the Equestrian equivalent of Old France is.
Your mother was a gryphon, and your father smelt of poison joke!
Progress, beautiful progress. I wonder what Rarity, AJ and Rainbow are going to do when they're reunited with their "sisters".
3430529
Why the quotes around sisters? That's what they actually are. Not by blood in Rainbow and Scootaloo's case, but still.
3429129 is this officially going to be incorporated into five score cannon?
3431528
yar.
"I squeezed my eyes shut and grit my teeth." - "grit" should be past tense, "gritted"
Besides that, though, great job! That was a creative and plausible way to find the farm. Now I just gotta figure out how my own characters are supposed to find it... Ah well.
And now to follow the rainbow!
I'm currently reading Four Score Divided by Four. Do you recommend that I read up to a certain point there before reading further in this story? I know that your's will stand on its own, but I kind of want the background info before I proceed, if you think it'll help.
3432223
The events of Five Score leading up to this point in TLC are only skimmed, so it's not gonna spoil anything other than the Rainboom. Basically, you should probably be up to date on Five Score before reading the upcoming chapter if you don't want to avoid spoilers.
Now they just have to get out of the building without being detected. And aren't there security cameras?
Huh. I was just thinking about Sweetie's knowledge of electromagnetic whatevers and I realized Equestria just might have a technological revolution if/when they get back depending on how many ponies lived as engineers on earth.
3432327
Thank you! It'll probably take me a while, but I don't think your story is going anywhere anytime soon.
Edit: By that, I mean it won't be disappearing.
3431738 SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!!
The context suggests that this should either say "much more likely no one else had found her" or "much more unlikely that anyone else had found her". As it is, it's saying that Sweetie is happy that there's a good chance of other people locating Rainbow.
3430801
I just picture the whole thing having an air of awkwardness. "Hey, we're your sisters who've been seperated from you for the last twenty-five years you didn't realize you had until now! Oh, we also turned thirty-six recently, but we're fillies! You are now obligated to love us without recalling anything we ever did together! CUTIE MARK CRUSADER FORGOTTEN PASTS!"
You know. Stuff like that. I wonder what Shmangie's gonna do.
The plot thickens!
Onwards!
Got linked here from Five Score itself, and I'm not disappointed in the convergence into the official storyline. Where will this story go from here? Will it run parallel, following the same story from the eyes of the Crusaders? Will it go in a totally different direction? Can I overthink this anymore than I have? Probably not.
Oh you.
DUDE!!! YOUR FIC IS GOING TO BE IN THE ORIGINAL FIVE SCORE % FOUR!!!!
I have come here to congratulate you for being "Canon" in Five score
Good luck!!
----Dimencio20
Can't wait for the next chapter !
3444498
#slowking
3428919
Maybe there are specific breeds, or even pedigrees, of pegasi or something akin to those ideas in this 'verse. It'd make a lot of sense, actually.
3429449
*sweetiebellederelle.gif*
Needless to say, liked and favorite'd. Keep up the good work, CyborgSamurai.
This fic doesn't lapse in it's tense, and there were only three scenes that suffered from an unbearable overabundance of expository show-and-tell. Compared to Five Score's average of one scene a chapter, that makes this a literary masterpiece, so, good job?
I was hoping for a bit more divergence in the plot elements, but this holds true to the original, which is probably the point of doing a fanfic of a fanfic.
There's no passage in here that tops Big Mac's adventures with the crazy nurse, though.
All in all, pretty damn good, and on average I'd say superior to the source fic. Tracked and faved.
First off, congratulations on a fantastic story that I couldn't stop reading when I was directed to it from the Canon 5 Score.
Secondly, now that the 2 stories are crossing over, is it continuing as its own story?
3429441 Some day, me get that booterang.
Someday I'll finish that rep grind, too.
3446945
I agree very good story.
I could be wrong but by what I saw hinted in his blog his story will coincide with the main story but won't merge. He will be writing the crusaders side of things while tf will write the mane 6s..... I could be wrong however.
Congratulations CyborgSamurai for having your story become canon in the "Five Score, Divided By Four" story! I look forward to future chapters in your story and Twisted Spectrum's story from now on.
However, I do have a question though. Are you going to continue your story from here on out, or are you going to be a co-author with Twisted Spectrum and just include happenings among the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Shmangie with the group from FSDF?
Great chapter and I see you later!
~ Super-Brony12
So now that your story has made it into the main one, will you be writing on the CMC's perspective of what's happening? Or will you co-author the story? Or will you just end this story?
3448929
This story isn't done yet.