Chapter 14
“Truth be told, Ah’m furious,” snarled Apple Bloom, “Her chances aren’t looking too good.”
Scootaloo’s heart paused mid-beat at the way her friend said it. She had been fighting off the notion the entire time that Apple Bloom could be a killer ever since she had found her old photographs. The way she was dressed, Apple Bloom couldn’t have been anything other than a soldier, like the R.E.A.F, or the royal guards. If Scootaloo had learned one thing from those groups it is that soldiers are killers. She had seen them do things, terrible things, and shrug it off as ‘orders’.
But Apple Bloom isn’t like that. She can’t be no matter how much she’s changed. She didn’t hurt me, even though she was ordered to. She’s different… isn’t she?
Her ears fell limp and she averted her eye. She didn’t want to think about it. The idea that Apple Bloom could ever be a cold-blooded killer was not one she was willing to accept. She was just angry, and talking big, that’s all. She was going to shoot off her popper, throw some threats at the masked pony, and scare her away. Then everything would be okay.
Around the wall of crates the door creaked open slowly like a horseshoe being dragged down a chalkboard and Scootaloo cringed. She had tried her hardest to keep it out of her mind, to simply focus on the genuine miracle that she had actually found one of her foalhood friends, but the fact remained that there was somepony out there who, for reasons beyond her understanding, meant to do her harm. There was nothing she could do other than what Apple Bloom said; she leaned back and acted as if she were there against her will while the dull hoofsteps clacked closer on the floor with every step. With that sound followed an eerily pleasant tune; the pony was whistling contently expecting Apple Bloom to have captured her and ready to hand her over. Apple Bloom was a statue with her weapon locked at her side. Her only movement was to briefly curl her lip and expose her teeth like a vicious animal.
Followed by the upbeat whistling, a deep yellow unicorn with a turquoise mane strode casually into view and Apple Bloom was taken back for an instant before quickly pointing her weapon. It was all too obvious this wasn’t the pony she was waiting for; rather than the mare in tattered rags she had described, this one was groomed and well dressed in expensive clothing. He was dressed like a businesspony, with a black blazer over a deep gray turtleneck and a long mane ironed flat and slicked back, but walked and whistled so casually that it was as if he didn’t have a single care in the world. He looked over at the duo and his black eyes widened slightly behind his red sunglasses, and he flashed a charming smile.
Apple Bloom wasn’t impressed. “Who’re you?!” she demanded with a quick thrust of her weapon.
He was oblivious to her threat. “Well, hello,” he said slowly in a low and calm tone, “I must confess I was not expecting this.”
That voice…
Scootaloo hadn’t realized it until she heard him speak, but there was something oddly familiar about this pony. She felt as if she had known him once, like a faded memory of a dream.
BLAM!
One of the empty cans on the crate near his head spiraled to the floor and bounced twice before rolling off-kilter toward him. He did nothing more than sedately lift one of his hooves into the air and gently stop it from moving any further.
Apple Bloom angled her weapon to aim right between his eyes. “Who. Are. You?” she said in a tone that dripped pure hatred.
The mystery stallion’s smile never once waivered and he held out a hoof. “You can put the weapon away. I assure you I mean no harm.” His horn glowed a soft yellow and the can drifted lazily toward him so he could study the hole that had been blown through it. “You can always shoot me if I’m lying,” he said, his tone far too pleasant for one who had just been shot at.
Apple Bloom glared for a moment more and she reluctantly holstered her weapon, but she was clearly on edge and ready to make good on his offer if he so much as hiccupped. Scootaloo didn’t blame her; his air of almost smug friendliness hadn’t faltered once, not even after being shot at. It was as if he was ready for it and had anticipated exactly what she was going to do.
So is he involved in this? Apple Bloom never mentioned anypony other than a mare in a cloak.
“I truly am sorry about the intrusion,” he said, still sounding unusually pleased with himself as he looked Apple Bloom in the eye, “but I heard you speaking outside. I believe I heard one of you ladies mention something about a… ‘masked freak’? Mare? Face wrapped up in rags? Draped in a ratty cloak?”
Apple Bloom’s eyes widened. “You know something about this freak you might consider sharing with us?”
“Just rumors,” he said while trying to hold in a laugh as if he were telling a joke, “Just rumors. It behooves a stallion of my profession to keep up on gossip. I really don’t know much about this masked mare, except that she has been seen all over Equestria as of late.” He reached up to run his hoof over his moustache, and his smile grew into a huge grin. “Dressing as if one were caught in a thrift store explosion tends to attract attention. I’m very interested in meeting her. I’ve been following her for some time, and last I heard she was headed here.”
“Why the interest?”
“Reasons.”
“That all?” said Apple Bloom inquisitively.
The yellow stallion stared off at nothing, gently stroking the gemstone he wore tucked under the neck of his shirt as he thought, and slowly paced around the room. As he turned, Scootaloo got a clear look at his cutie mark: a snail with a clean, curved scar intersecting it. She had seen that mark before, she knew the pony that had the cutie mark once, but there is no way in Equestria this was him. She could believe somepony like that could grow up and mature like this, however unlikely it might be, except to her knowledge that pony never had the chance. She had tried her best to blot both him and his friend from her memories because of the truly gruesome thing she had seen that night. Snips and Snails, the two school colts that everypony had made fun of, lying in the street pinned under fallen debris from a building. As she ran for cover she came across them and tried to pull the rubble off; tried to help, and—
And they wouldn’t wake up. And there was so much blood…
The facsimile of Snails continued to pace, until he suddenly glanced out a window. The sun was just beginning to rise, and upon seeing it, his smile evaporated. He seemed frustrated all of a sudden and mouthed something in silence as he glanced at a small pocket watch. “I really should be elsewhere,” he said somberly, “and if I were the two of you, I’d consider leaving town. Quickly.” His watch vanished into the pocket of his blazer and he trotted for the door.
“Hold it!” Apple Bloom yelled angrily. “What the heck is that supposed to mean?! What’s gonna happen?!”
“Snails,” said Scootaloo quietly. “Is it really you?”
Every pony in the room froze in place, and the yellow stallion nodded gently. “It’s good to see the both of you alive and kicking as well,” he said pleasantly. “All things considered, I’m glad to see the good old cutie mark crusaders all managed to survive that night.” He looked over his shoulder to give one final smile and then vanished around the corner.
“Hey Scoot?” said Apple Bloom quietly. “Ah’ve got a real bad feeling ‘bout this.”
Scootaloo bolted around the corner to find that Snails had already vanished. “Apple Bloom, come on! We’ve gotta go after him! Come on! COME ON!!!”
“Wait!” Apple Bloom demanded. “Scoot, we ain’t deal with—”
“Weren’t you listening?! He said all of us survived! Maybe he knows where Sweetie Belle is! Or Babs!”
“Blast it, Scoots! Ah want to find Sweetie too, but that masked freak is after you and neither of us know why! Maybe you don’t realize how serious this is but—”
Apple Bloom went quiet when Scootaloo bucked a crate hard enough to punch a hole clean through the wooden slats and release a mound of packing peanuts from inside. “I know it’s serious,” she said darkly, “I’m not a little filly; I know exactly what is going on. I understand that somepony is out to get me.” She looked over at Apple Bloom and felt the gentle trickle of a tear form in the bottom of her only eye. “Maybe you don’t realize how long I’ve spent looking for the three of you. Or how many nights I laid alone, trying to convince myself that you were still alive but deep down believing I was the only one left. If that masked pony wants me so badly, she can come and get me! I’m going after Sweetie Belle, and if that masked freak knows what’s good for her, she wouldn’t DARE try and get in my way!!!”
She turned away from her silent friend and slammed the door open in a full sprint out into the alley. She jumped over a dumpster, kicked a garbage can out of her way, and ran full tilt into the empty streets of Broncton. It was too early for anypony to be in the streets; Snails should have been easy to spot. The buildings that lined the streets were all businesses, all still closed, and built side-by-side with no alleys except for the one she had come out of. He had simply vanished.
So where the flying feather did he go?
A hoof slapped down gently on her shoulder and Scootaloo almost cried out. “Find him?” said Apple Bloom, her normally stern face softened with remorse.
“No…”
“Look,” she said apologetically, “If this is what you wanna do, Sugar, Ah’m in. Ah just—”
—and a faint shrill sound cut her off. It started quiet but grew louder and lower, as if an impossibly large stallion was whistling in the distance and getting closer as he went on. Scootaloo’s blood ran cold; she knew exactly what it was, but Apple Bloom was perplexed and staring upward. “What in—”
Scootaloo threw her light frame at Apple Bloom. “DOWN!!!” she screeched as she tackled her friend to the cobblestone street and held her face-down to the ground. Not a heartbeat after they hit, the whistle was cut off by an ear-shattering explosion and the crumbling of a building just up the street.
“What was that?!” Apple Bloom cried out as she rubbed frantically at her ears.
“Bombs!” yelled Scootaloo as he pulled her to her hooves, “Run!” She broke into a dead run in the opposite direction of the blast, hearing only a few steps of her friend’s limping stride behind her before they were drowned out by two more explosions. One was out of sight but the other claimed another building not far up the street from them. She struggled to breathe; it was too much like that night in Ponyville, but she had to keep going. She had to find safety for her and Apple Bloom.
“In there!” she yelled, stopping very briefly to point to a potential safe-haven. The last building on the left was a house, a cottage very similar to Apple Bloom’s home, and with luck it would make do as a hiding spot. Scootaloo spun and bucked the door open and let her crimson-headed friend run past.
Apple Bloom took a few shaky steps in and looked around frantically. “You nuts, Scootaloo?!” she yelled angrily, “This place ain’t gonna be safe against those things!”
Scootaloo cringed at the sound of another blast and closed the door as best as the broken door jamb would hold. “Trust me,” she said between gasps for air, “They don’t normally aim for houses. We’re safer in here than outside.”
The horror on Apple Bloom’s face was heartbreaking. “‘Normally?!’” she sputtered, “You mean this happens often?!”
“Too often,” said Scootaloo as she rubbed her head to try and nurse the ringing out of her ears. “Whenever they’re chasing somepony, it always ends like this. Except…” she trailed off and chanced a peek out the window, “Never in the middle of a town like this. Usually they attack along paths out in the plains or forests; Somepony must have done one fantastic of a job ticking them off.”
Apple Bloom wrenched her weapon out of its holster, her face twisted into a malevolent sneer. “Who?!” she growled.
“Put it away,” said Scootaloo sadly. “They’re the Royal Equestrian Air Force. Like it or not, they’re the law.”
The realization set in and Apple Bloom’s anger melted quickly into pure despair. She looked as if she were ready to cry, and slowly put her popping weapon back in its holster. “Ah didn’t think it had gotten so bad. Things really went to pot, huh?”
“Told you. It’s been bad.” Scootaloo dropped to her haunches and looked about the room; thankfully they had happened across a vacant house to take shelter in and wouldn’t have to face a scared family of ponies. She cocked her head to listen outside and heard several more explosions in the distance. “All we can do now is wait. It’s how they do things: first they chase whoever they’re after with bombs to keep them pinned into a building and cut off their escape. Then in come the ground troops.” She listened to the scattered blasts for a second longer, noting how spread apart they were from each other. “Sounds like they lost whoever it is they’re chasing.”
Apple Bloom peered through the dusty window to the streets outside and then paced nervously around the room. Although she was doing an admirable job of hiding it, it was clear she was devastated at how things had changed in her absence. She wandered around aimlessly, dragging her hoof through the dust on the old abandoned furniture, before starting down the darkened hallway toward what was probably once a bedroom.
“Hey,” Scootaloo said quietly, “If they come in here, just keep the popper away, okay? They’re not after us, so just do what they say and they’ll leave us alone.”
“If you even move,” said the cold, malicious voice of a stranger, “I will kill you.”
Scootaloo whirled around. Apple Bloom was standing just beyond the doorway of the room, motionless, and leaning slightly to her right with an expression that was caught somewhere between anger and fear. A gray leg was clutching a knife between its hoof and pastern, with the tip pointed right to Apple Bloom’s throat.
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... Shit.
Any background for this bad future, or was this fic made specifically to make some?
Dayum. Good stuff happening here.
And here's Silver Spoon! Good to see Snail's again, but he knows of Sweetie Belle's location? Considering the pictures this story is based off of, I thought Sweetie Belle ran with a... ruff-er crowd.
Considering what I think Snail's job is, I suppose that would make sense then. I'm interested to see where we go from here. :D
Great chapter, as always;
-Lumino
3864745
I'm going to guarantee right now, that no he/she is not.