In Another Life II: Chance's Folly

by Bateman66

Rescue in Progress

Alistair jolted awake as he heard the unsettling sound of splintering and breaking wood all around him. He tried to push himself up from his laying position but quickly knocked his head on the low wooden ceiling that was above him. Quickly putting his head back down into a lying position, he was alerted not only to the sound of more snapping wood but also the spiny and spidery surface that the back of his body rested against.

Screaming in terror, he frantically lashed around his small confined space trying to grasp some sort of exit. A heavy smash of wood boomed above him, and the wooden ceiling was quickly slid away from his field of view, fully exposing him to a dimly lit and metal room.

He lay back against the pointy surface, preparing to rise out of whatever was containing him. But before he could, two familiar faces popped up above him, staring down with jointly.

“Alistair!” exclaimed Commodore with joy. “We found you!”

“Are you alright!?” asked Jam with concern but still delight to see his friend.

Alistair stared at them for a second, his brain slowly coming to terms with everything that had just happened in the past seconds. Clicking back into place, he responded to their greeting.

“GUYS!” he screamed jubilantly as he bounced out of the crate and embraced both of them in a hug. “I’M SO HAPPY YOU’RE HERE!”

He squeezed them tightly, the fear he had felt extinguished by their wonderful and unexpected presence. Laughing as three, they spoke to one another as if not seeing each other for years.

“Thank Celestia you’re safe!” said Commodore.

“Thank Celestia you guys are here!” responded Alistair. “I was in that box for what felt like a second and I already wanted to get out!”

Jam grinned. “Well, it’s a good thing we came when we did. That thing looks claustrophobic.”

Alistair nodded his head. “I never did like confined spaces, especially when I can’t get out of them.”

The three friends giggled, still marveling over the unexpected but still wonderful meet-up.

“So what are you guys doing here exactly?” asked Alistair with a laugh. “Not that I’m not happy to see you…”

“We’re here to rescue you!” declared Commodore. “It was part of Twilight Sparkle’s plan.”

“Twilight…” repeated Alistair in confirmation he heard what he though he just heard. “You talked with her.”

“Yeah,” continued Commodore, “we went and told her that we found a bloodied piece of a shirt on the road next to some drag marks. We went straight to her—well, also your house and told her everything. Before we knew it she already had a rescue plan and we were right on the case!”

Alistair smiled gently. “I’m happy to know you she’s looking for me but…where is she.”

Commodore waved the air with his hoof. “Don’t worry; she went to get the Royal Guards’ help. Won’t be long now till they swoop in and blast us out of trouble!”

Jam smiled uncomfortably. “I don’t know about that, dude. We might still be in trouble…”

Alistair nodded seriously. “He’s right. I don’t know how I got on this train, but I know the ponies that brought me here. I’ve seen their faces and they aren’t a weak bunch.”

“Who are they exactly?” asked Commodore, intrigued but worried. “Some sort of crime cabal?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t seem to have any distinguishing marks or clothing about them. Just normal looking ponies.”

“Hmmm,” said Jam as he rubbed his chin, “hiding in plain sight. That’s some pretty professional stuff coming from a group of punks who beat you up and locked you in a crate.”

Alistair shook his head. “They’re not like that, far from any kind of two-bit thug. They have weapons, numbers, and some pretty solid tactics.”

Commodore raised an eyebrow. “How do you know?”

Alistair turned to him, an edge in his voice. “I fought them.”

“Yeah…” said Jam nervously, “that would explain your…condition.” Jam’s eyes quickly scanned over the battered frame that was Alistair’s body.

His normal dark green shirt had several dark stains of dried blood from his skin, while his brown trousers were dusted with dirt and torn around the knees. Several small bandages quilted around his face and a large rolling of medical tape had been set around his right shoulder, most of the cloth gone all together.

“Are you ok then?” he asked kindly. “Nothing too severe?”

Alistair meekly shook his head. “No, I don’t think I’m one-hundred percent well. My chest aches badly and it hurts to walk. Even then I still feel pretty tired.”

“You wanna stay here then?” added Commodore. “Your friend, Twilight Sparkle, said she’d be here soon…”

Alistair smiled at the mention of her name, but it quickly faded back into sternness. “We definitely shouldn’t stay on this train any longer than we have to. Whoever these ponies are, there are not messing around.”

He straightened himself. “Something’s odd about them, something that makes them feel different, bigger than what they seem.”

“Where’d you get that notion?”

“Well…” said Alistair, uncomfortable with what he was about to say, “I know this is going to sound a bit…odd, but I think my pottery teacher is one of them.”

The two colts stared at him, both blinking in unison.

“I know-I know-I know,” he continued, “it sounds fishy, but hear me out. After fighting the other ponies, I saw her, my pottery teacher, appear right behind me. We talked a bit and then she kicked the crud out of me.”

Commodore folded his hooves. “Ok, don’t you think you may have been imagining just a teeny-tiny bit of this? A pottery teaching teleporting right in front of you is normally grounds for a concussion.”

“No!” insisted Alistair. “I’m sure it was her. While we talked she mentioned something, that ‘a higher power sees me guilty’ and ‘that my existence has tainted the flow of events.’ Really freaky stuff but definitely not a hallucination.”

Jam shrugged. “Sounds like garbled ranting to me. But still, Alistair’s right, we need to figure a way off this crazy train. Any ideas?”

Commodore thought for a moment, then quickly raised his hoof into the air. “I have an idea, we stop the train!”

Jam rolled his eyes. “And how do you figure we do that?”

“Simple, there’s probably a control box in one of the passenger cars, and within that box is an emergency brake. All we to have do is flip that lever, wait for the train to stop, and high-tail it out of here.”

Jam and Alistair looked at their friend, confused with the random formulation of a pretty solid plan. “How’d you think of that?” they both asked.

He grinned. “My Dad has one of those picture encyclopedias on trains. I used to read it all the time as a foal.”

“Learn something new everyday I suppose,” muttered Jam.

“So it’s settled then?” said Alistair. “Because we better move quickly, there’s no telling what this group has in store.

“Agreed,” agreed Jam.

The three moved over to the end of train car and pushed the metal connecting door open. Immediately, a wave of outside wind smacked into them, filling the cargo car with freezing air and the howl of the speeding train.

“Lets go!” shouted Jam over the wind, moving out of the car. Commodore and Alistair followed after him, but quickly stopped as they exited the car.

Separating them between the cargo car and the passenger car in front of them, was a wide gap between the two areas, connected only by a low metal bar close to the tracks. The wind was at full force now, no thick walls protecting them from the full weight of the speed force.

“We have to jump!” yelled Alistair to his friends, fear deep in his chest.

“I don’t know if we should do that!” responded Jam. “It looks too wide!”

“We have to!” Then, without even judging the distance, Alistair jumped, his legs slowly outstretched in a leap. Landing heels first on the metal footing on the other side, Alistair waved for them to do the same.

Jam went first, followed by Commodore who screamed “I’m Supermare!” as he jumped. All three now on the other side, they peered through the passenger car’s door, making sure no pony was in the space. With the coast all clear, they slid the door open, hopping through the opening as one, and then quickly sliding the door shut.

“Wow…” marveled Commodore, “look at this…”

The passenger car was of the normal Ponyville variant, bright yellow floor with pink carpeting going straight down the aisle. Red cushiony seats set on both sides of the car, rows of two going all the way up to the front. But the most striking feature about the entire space was the apparent lack of any other ponies in the room. Minus, the low rumble from outside, not a single noise came from the room. All was still.

“Look, there it is!” pointed Jam with his hoof. “The box!”

Sure enough, at the front of the car, right next to the sliding door to the next passenger car, was a shiny silver box with the single word: Emergency written across the top in bright green.

Rushing towards the box in a stupor, the three crowded around the module examining how to open the foreign device.

“I’ll keep watched for anypony,” announced Jam, “you guys figure out how to hit the emergency switch.”

Jam moved over to the connecting door and peaked up through the glass window, scanning the next car for anypony inside. Alistair and Commodore unlocked the box and began searching for any distinguishing characteristics within. The box was a complicated mass of switches, knobs, buttons and dials without a single label indentifying what any did.

“Uhhh…Jam?” said Alistair unsurely, “I can’t find the switch.”

“What about you Commodore?” he called while still looking through the door. “See anything?”

Commodore shook his head. “I have no idea how to operate this thing. There’s a red button off to the side but I don’t think we should press it.”

“Why not?” said Jam hurriedly.

“Because if it was the emergency stop it would definitely have some sort of identifier. This one just looks plain.”

“You sure? We really can’t make a mistake like this, not—oh crap!”

“What’s the matter?!” yelled Alistair.

“Somepony’s coming,” responded Jam, “they’re two cars away, walking normally.”

“Do they see us?”

“No, not yet, but they’re getting close to the car next to ours.”

“Oh man…” moaned Commodore, “what are we going do?”

“I don’t know!” shouted Jam. “Just keep looking for something important!”

“I can’t, nothing stands out!”

“There has to be something!” yelled Jam as he quickly peered back through the door then cursed. “He’s in the next car right next to us!”

“We have to do something!” screamed Commodore.

“Shut up, I’m thinking!” retorted Jam.

“Guys!” yelled Alistair with a boom to his voice. “I have a plan,” he looked up at one of the passenger side windows, “and it involves getting some fresh air.”