Not Dead Yet

by Nebula Star

Chapter 6: Looting set to Need Before Greed.

Not Dead Yet
By Nebula Star

Chapter 6: Looting set to need before greed.
***

“Alright everypony, we're here for two things. The Life Bloom and the... device.” Twilight grimaced as she almost didn't catch herself there.

“Ah, come on, you know you wanna say it!” Pinkie grinned.

“No... no I don't.” Her voice was flat as a pancake that had been run over with a steam roller.

“Unfortunately, both items are likely kept behind even more security, which means we'll need Luna for both.” Twilight went on. “So we might as well stick together. We'll get the device first; once we've got it, Pinkie, I want you to take it and get it setup.”

“Okie Dokie Lokie!”

“Wait, hang on. Why Pinkie?” Applejack asked.

“Because Pinkie defies every expectation I've ever had of her. I don't see how she could possibly manage to get out on her own and set up the device, nor do I think she could possibly know how to set up the device, so obviously she'll manage to do both just to spite me.” Twilight said dully.

“You know me too well, Twilight,” Pinkie said bouncing happily.

Applejack just blinked, then shrugged. “I guess that makes as much sense as anything when it comes to Pinkie.”

“Alright, Luna, which way?”

“Going by the blueprints we recovered, the storage for experimental devices should be along the north wall. The cold storage facility where the Life Bloom would be kept is in the northeast corner,” Luna told her, then gestured for them to follow. “This way.”

“Ooo, look at all the sciency stuff!” Pinkie said, suddenly bouncing at Twilight's side as they made their way through the high tech lab.

“I'm trying not to.” Twilight told her flatly.

“Hey, what's this thingy?” A pink blur shot to a nearby station dominated by an enormous machine with all kinds of pipes and tubes looping every which way.

“An alchemical synthesizer. It can create just about any chemical compound or potion from nothing more than the base elements.” Twilight answered with a hint of longing in her voice.

“And this one!?”

“That's a terminal connected to the labs mainframe computer system.” It was Luna's turn to look on with envy. “Over ten petaFLOPS processing power...”

“Oh, oh! What's in here!?”

Twilight didn't even have to look, she knew from the blueprints what the door Pinkie had rushed to held. “That room houses the lab's electron microscope. The third most powerful ever built. Left here to rot,” she said mournfully.

A pink blur shot across the lab to another corner. “And this over here!?”

“PINKIE!” Twilight shouted finally, her horn lighting up as she dragged her pink friend right in front of her. “I am well aware of every wonderful piece of equipment left to rot in this lab. Rest assured, when this is all over I will be sending teams to salvage every last piece of equipment. But right now, we have a mission and we can't afford to be distracted from it. SO STOP POINTING OUT EVERYTHING UNLESS IT'S WHAT WE'RE HERE FOR!”

Twilight dropped her in a heap on the floor and continued on.

Pinking bounced back to her hooves still grinning. “Okie dokie lokie!”

“Over here.” Luna said spotting their first objective, the storage room where the device with the lousy name was kept. “Great, another locked door...”

Twilight blinked as she reached the door as well. “What kind of lock is that?”

Instead of any kind of keypad by the door, there was what appeared to be a giant musical keyboard on the floor just to the side of the door.

“Oh! I love these!” Pinkie exclaimed, dashing forward.

“It's a musical lock; you have to play the right tune to unlock the door... get it wrong and it could engage extra security, or even put the entire lab on lock-down.” Luna's eyes widened. “Pinkie wait!”

But it was too late, even as she shouted out, Pinkie began tapping out a tune, singing along as she did. “~My little pony, my little pony...~”

With a soft beep, the door opened.

Everypony stared at her in various levels of shock. Twilight and Luna both had their jaws hanging open.

“How did you... wha... How did you know that was the pass-code!?” Twilight exclaimed.

“Because, silly, that song always pops up in the middle of our big adventures.” Pinkie Pie told her then bounced through the open door into the storage room.

Twilight blinked, opened her mouth, then shut it again, deciding it would be better not to question it. Her cranium had had enough abuse for one day and she knew the wall would only look more inviting if she tried to understand Pinkie's antics. Without another word, she followed the pink pony into the room, the others filing in behind her.

“Alright, we're looking for a tall narrow device that's really not much more than a launcher for a specialized projectile.” Twilight said, taking the lead and looking around the room.

“Twilight...” Applejack tried to cut in.

“There's no telling where it's stored so let's spread out, we'll cover more ground that way...”

“Twi...”

“Luna, you take the far right aisle...”

“Princess Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight finally turned to see what Applejack wanted, only to find the earth pony standing next to a small cubby hole just inside the door where a tall cylindrical device was stored. On the control panel attached to the side, in ridiculously large letters, was written 'Golly Device.'

“Huh, well that was easy.” Her horn lit up and the straps holding the device in place released as she floated it over to Pinkie, using the straps to tie it onto her back. “Here you go Pinkie, go set it up somewhere safe, then come find us when we're done. I haven't a clue how you'll pull that off so you should be fine.”

“You've got it, el capitan!” Pinkie gave her a crisp salute then turned and started bouncing toward the door seemingly unencumbered by the load.

“Alright now we just need to...” Twilight broke off as something else got her attention.

“Hi there, Mister Z!” Pinkie Pie called out cheerfully as she bounced past a zombie wearing an expensive looking business suit that was standing just inside the security door.

“Hey... that's... mine...” the zombie droned as he watched her pass, then he turned back toward the rest of the group. “You're... not... supposed... to... be... here...” With slow deliberate movements he turned to the control panel next to the door.

Applejack charged while Luna and Twilight's horns lit up, but it was already too late. The zombie jabbed a button on the control panel even as two spells zipped past the charging Applejack. The lights turned red and alarms began blaring through the room.

The spells hit the zombie stallion a moment later, slamming him up against the wall just as Applejack spun to deliver a powerful buck right in his head, using the wall like an anvil. The zombie's head might as well have been a melon the way it splattered all over the wall.

“Ah think we might have overdone it...” Applejack said as she shook some of the blood and gray matter off her rear hooves.

Twilight didn't even hear her though. “Buck! The zombies are going to hear this! We need to move fast.”

With that she took off at a gallop toward the back of the lab where the cold storage was located, Luna and Zecora right on her tail and Applejack not far behind.

“There it is!” Twilight said as she skidded to a stop in front of a heavy looking door. Luna immediately went to the controls.

“No, no, no! It's a voice lock... Why in Tartarus did the owner of this place put a different kind of security lock on every damn door!?” Luna growled.

“I'd say, you could ask him yourself, but Applejack just bucked his head into chowder.” Twilight sighed.

“That was the owner of this place?” Applejack asked as she reached them as well.

“Yeah, I recognized him from his picture,” Twilight said, unconcerned. “Can you bypass the lock, Luna?”

“Yes, but it will take time.”

“Well, Ya might want to get started. 'Cause there's no telling how long we have before the ints take interest in that alarm.”

Even as she said it Luna was already ripping the panel under the controls open. She connected a few wires to her fetlock computer and began working.

~~~

“FIRE!”

The cannons roared beside Pipsqueak as he gave the command. The shells, designed by Apple Bloom exploded on impact taking out dozens of zombies each.

It was barely a dent in the writhing mass of zombies that filled the road in front of the barricade.

The battle was not going well.

The fighting was at the very base of the barricade now, they were barely holding them back. And with the unicorn ints providing shields against the unicorns on the towers and the pegasi ints bypassing their defensive lines to attack the defenders directly, they were struggling not to be overwhelmed. If that wasn't bad enough, Cadenza was overhead, casting spells without restraint while she called out for Twilight Sparkle. Already near a dozen of their defenders had fallen victim to her lust spells.

“Look out!” Someone nearby shouted and Pipsqueak looked up just in time to see three pegasi ints diving toward him and his buccaneers, hooves outstretched and a wild hunger in their eyes.

Pipsqueak rolled to the side, then spun and slashed at the nearest of the ints as the undead mare landed heavily where he'd just been standing. The slash only grazed her though and she didn't even slow as she turned, toward him. “You look tasty!”

There was a flash of light, a blur of black, followed by two loud thuds. Pip got just a glimpse of a filly clad in black, wielding a katana nearly twice her body length. Then she was a blur again as she leaped. There was another flash of light on steal then the pegasi int that had been advancing on Pip, fell, her head thudding to the ground a few feet away.

The filly landed in front of Pipsqueak and sheathed her sword. “Hey, Pip!” she said in a startlingly familiar voice then removed her mask.

“Dinky!?”

“Yep! Betcha thought I was dead, huh?” She grinned. “Well I'm not, and I'm a ninja now! Isn't it awesome!”

Pip's expression hardened and he turned away from her, turning back to the battle.

“Pip?” Dinky asked sounding confused. “What's wrong? I thought you'd be happy to see me...”

“Aye I might have been, lass. If you hadn't come back a traitor!”

“W-what?” Dinky gasped. “Traitor!?”

“You wear the cloth of the black clan; a ninja. No pirate could ever be friends with your kind.”

Dinky stared at him in shock, tears filling her eyes as she remembered what the crusaders had said. She hadn't wanted to believe it at the time, but now it seemed they had been right. Her lower lip trembled as Pip kept his back turned to her; not even willing to look her in the eye. Finally she let out a cry as she turned and ran with tears pouring from her eyes.

~~~

“Yep, I thought so,” Sweetie Belle said softly watching as Dinky ran from Pip, her tears obvious, even from a distance. “Poor Dinky.”

“We can worry about relationship issues later.” Scootaloo rolled her eyes, peaking over the barricade. Most the rest of the defenders had moved to other parts of the barricade, knowing that the crusader's explosive combat styles weren't really conductive to team combat. “We've got more important things to worry about right now.”

“Yeah, Ah'm out of charges, grenades, Ah even used my last stick of dynamite...” Apple Bloom sighed.

“Me too.”

“Same here, all I've got is my magic now.” Even as she said it, Sweetie Belle, lit her horn. “You might want to cover your ears.” She said just before firing her spell at an incoming pegasus int. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo covered their ears just in time as the spell hit the pegasus dead center in the chest and exploded in highest pitched bell tone they'd ever heard, filling the air with agonizing decibels of extreme frequency. Even from a distance they felt the sound in their very bones; the pegasus the spell had hit likely had his remaining innards turned to mush by the vibrations and plummeted from the sky like a rag doll as did a couple others that had been too close to the blast.

“Yikes,” Scootaloo muttered, a little shocked by the brutality of her friend's spell. “Well at least one of us can still do some damage.”

“Yeah, but I can't keep this up for long,” Sweetie Belle told them. “Half a dozen more shots like that and I'll be out of magic.”

THUNK!

“How dare you try to sneak up on the crusaders!”

THUNK!

“I have half a mind to tell your mother!”

THUNK!

The crusaders peered over the edge of the barricade to just as Fluttershy slammed her mace down for the third time on what had apparently once been a zombie pony.

“Ah think you got him, General Fluttershy.” Apple Bloom called out as Fluttershy raised her mace for a fourth swing.

“Oh, girls.” Fluttershy's rage switched off like a switch and she beamed a radiant smile at them resting her mace on her shoulder. “I just came to ask you not to use those loud sound spells like the last one; half our own forces have their ears ringing now... I mean, if that's alright with you.”

Sweetie Belle winced. “Sorry, Fluttershy, I'll stick to the deeper tones.”

“Okay, thank you, Sweetie.” She said and turned back to the battle. “HEY! Did you just cast a spell at Dinky!?” She screamed, leaping out of sight from the crusaders, followed by a loud THUNK!

Apple Bloom looked over the barricade once more to see the teaming sea of undead still filling the street, climbing over the hundreds of corpses that they'd already dispatched. “This isn't going well. There's too many; it's almost like they know this is the final battle and they're sending everything they have against us...”

“Looks like their evacuating the far buildings,” Sweetie added. “They've got too many fliers and casters.”

Scootaloo took a look herself, the furthest towers down the road, near where the bulk of the zombie horde was funneling into the trap, appeared almost empty of their casters already. She glanced back and forth between the battered tower, and the horde of zombies at it's base a couple times, then grinned. “Hey... I think I have an idea that could seriously thin out their numbers. But I'd need a class four or five charge and some way to get it in place at the base of that tower on the far right corner.”

“Well you've got two problems there. We're out of charges, let alone class four or five; and if you hadn't noticed, there's a few hundred zombies between here and there,” Apple Bloom pointed out sarcastically.

“And even if we can get the charge you need and find a way to place it, if you're thinking of bringing the building down, at the very least we should warn the rest of our forces,” Sweetie Belle told her.

“Well yeah, of course; but we have to figure out a way to actually do it first. Even if we can't, we're still going to need somepony to cover this part of the barricade.”

“Your right there;” Apple Bloom sighed. “We're not going to do any good here without any more explosives. Heck, even Dinky is probably doing more than us now...”

As if to emphasize her point they all heard a shing shing and two headless pegasi int corpses crashed to the ground behind the barricade a little ways away.

“At least she's not just moping about Pip rejecting her.”

Apple Bloom's eyes widened. “The cannons! Their shells are near class four yield and they have more than enough range to reach that tower!”

Sweetie Belle glanced over to where the cannons were, seeing that most the cannon crew were too busy fighting off pegasi to load another round. “Do you think you could place a shot well enough from the outside to bring the tower down without it falling on top of us?”

Scootaloo nodded. “Oh yeah, that's no problem. The structure is already weak from all the fighting; as long as I have time to aim, I could place a shot to bring it down right where we want. We'll flatten half their army in one shot!”

“Sounds like a great plan, girls, we'll hold the dead heads here.”

The crusaders all jumped, spinning to face Lyra in shock, finding her standing only a few feet away with Vinyl, Octavia, Derpy and Carrot top.

“Where in tarnation did you girls come from!?” Apple Bloom exclaimed.

Lyra turned to her friends. “See!? See!? Nopony ever notices us!”

“Nevermind that; you girls go bring that building down; we've got this section,” Octavia told them as Derpy leaped into the air to intercept some incoming pegasi ints while Carrot Top moved to the top of the barricade.

“You sure?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Yeah, we've got this,” Lyra said with a dismissive wave as she and Vinyl took position behind the Earth Ponies readying their spells. “Get to the cannons. Sounds like you'll do a lot more good there.”

Scootaloo nodded and took off at a gallop toward the cannons. “Come on girls, let's go flatten some zombies!”

~~~

“Any day now, Luna!” Twilight growled, her horn glowing as she fed more and more magic into the force field she'd put up across the entrance to the lab. Hundreds of zombies could be seen on the other side, bashing against the shield in varying degree's of mindlessness as they tried to force their way through.

“I'm trying, Twilight. It's one thing to hack a pass-code, it's another thing altogether to bypass the security systems entirely.”

A flash of light from the entrance caused Twilight to grunt and was soon followed by several more. “Well we're running out of time, some of the unicorns just remembered they have horns.”

“I'm going as fast as I can!”

More flashes of light came from the entrance as the unicorn ints sent blast after blast into the barrier. Twilight groaned, pouring more and more of her magic into it.

“That's it; this is takin' too long!” Applejack exclaimed, finally losing her patience. She galloped toward the cold storage door, planting her forehooves and spinning around just as she reached it. “Let us IN!” She shouted as she delivered her strongest buck to the steal door. The door buckled, warping around her hooves and was ripped from its frame, crashing down inside the cold storage room.

Twilight and the others stared in slack jawed shock as another alarm started blaring through the building.

“Well don't just stand there! Get what we came for!”

Twilight blinked and nodded numbly, but didn't move at first. Finally she gave her head a shake. “Right, Luna, take over the barrier! Zecora, with me, let's find the life bloom!” She said and hurried into the storage room.

“The flower we seek is white as snow, but where it is kept I do not know,” Zecora said as she followed Twilight. Lining the walls of the room were countless drawers and storage cabinets all designed to keep the contents at a specific temperature, sometimes even sub-zero if the item being stored would not be damaged by being frozen, which was the case for the life bloom.

“Check the sub-zero units first; they likely kept the life bloom frozen to preserve it.” Twilight instructed and Zecora nodded, starting on the wall opposite Twilight. Unfortunately the storage units were only labeled with numbers, so they would have to check every one of them visually.

One after another, Twilight yanked drawers and cabinet doors open, only to slam them shut again when the contents weren't what she was looking for. Behind her she could hear Zecora doing the same.

“Twilight! Hurry!” Luna called from the door. “I don't know how much longer I can hold this barrier!”

Twilight sped up her search, opening each unit just long enough to scan the contents before slamming it shut again. About two thirds of the way along the wall, she finally opened one of the drawers and found herself looking at a large bundle of white flowers with blood red stems. They looked almost exactly like the picture she'd seen, but it was always best to be sure. “Zecora, is this it!?”

Zecora hurried to her side and looked for herself. “Yes, you geek, this is what we seek!”

Twilight gave her an annoyed look.

“You try to come up with a rhyme with so little time!”

Twilight rolled her eyes as her horn lit up, grabbing one of the portable refrigerated cases from the rack by the door. Opening it, she quickly levitated all the Life Bloom inside and shut it again. “This will be enough right?”

Zecora nodded. “A single flower would make enough to cure a county, there's more than enough in this plentiful bounty.”

Twilight snapped the case shut. “Good, let's go!”

“Got it?” Luna asked, her voice strained, trying to maintain the barrier.

“Yes.”

“Good, now how are we getting out of here?”

Twilight looked at the mass of zombies beyond the barrier. Then to the window beyond. “Luna, can you get Applejack?”

Luna looked confused, but then followed her line of sight, and grinned. “Yes.”

“Alright,” Zecora let out a startled whinny as Twilight levitated her along with the case. “Stay close!”

“What in tarnation!” Applejack exclaimed as she was levitated by Luna.

Twilight galloped forward toward the door even as Luna dropped the barrier. Immediately zombies began to flood into the room, but Twilight was already charging a spell. She let it loose and an enormous wave of kinetic energy tore through the zombie's. Dozens were flung against the windows which shattered outward, leaving the living corpses to rain down into the streets below. Twilight and Luna charged through the cleared path, Zecora and Applejack levitated alongside.

“Twi, what are you thinking!?” Applejack screamed as the two alicorns showed no sign of stopping. “Earth ponies ain't suppose to fly!”

“They're not supposed to keep moving after they're dead either! Which one would you rather do?” Twilight shouted back, then leaped from the building.

“...Ah take your point. But Ah don't like thiiIIIISSSSS!” Applejack screamed as Luna leaped as well, dragging her out after. Both alicorns snapped their wings open, soaring to safety; zebra, earth pony and precious cargo floating alongside.

Comments

[Silken Quills]

The cover image made me come up with new names: Sweetie Bomb, Shootaloo, and Apple Boom....... I have too much time on my hooves.....