Sleeping in the Light

by Wheller

Chapter 30

Chapter 30

There was one thing that Kelso could never understand about Sparky. Sparky Starlight was an employee at FutureTec; she went day in and day out trotting over the cold metal floors that ran throughout the Whitetail Industrial Complex. The metal deck plating that had already been there when FutureTec moved into the place, and as Kelso felt the cold metal plates beneath her hooves, she could only wonder how Sparky could stand it.

Kelso‘s ear began to twitch as she heard something off in the distance, peering around the corner, she discovered the entrance corridor to the Everfree Plains Missile Base was occupied by Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo, as they made a strained attempt to drag a broken combot down the hall towards the door.

‘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!’ she added with a strained push to get the broken combot into position.

Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo finished pulling the single combot into the hallway, clearly they were in the process of constructing a barricade to keep the machine cultists out, they had a long way to go, and, unfortunately for them, they would not have the time to finish it. Hazard lights began to flash, steam began to hiss, and the three friends jumped 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, and each of them holding a number of heavy weapons. Several metres behind them were another group of mostly unicorn ponies clad in similar looking robes coloured a deep blue and levitating lever action shotguns.

‘What? Fillies?’ One of the metal masked ponies asked as they looked in to discover the three little fillies before them.

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

‘Use what? It’s a broken robot’, DC Hopely said, raising an eyebrow. Even without any mechanical knowledge of her own, except for what she needed to know for her motorcycle, that the robot was practically useless.

‘You’re three fillies with a half pile of twisted scrap metal’, the leader of the metal masked ponies said. He could clearly see right through the bluff. ‘What can you do against a Cultus Mechanius Brother Templar assault section?’ he asked with a huff.

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 strong 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 explosive grenades into the crowd of Cultus Mechanius Templars, knocking them all to the ground in surprise and injuring most of the blue robed ponies that had come in behind them.

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

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

‘Heh, not so superior now, are you?’ Sparky said with a smirk, she had to admit, she took a small bit of pleasure out of seeing the smug bastard eat his own medicine.

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

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

...

'Bonjour mademoiselle'.

Kelso blinked to discover that they were standing in the middle of a dark alleyway. They were back in Trotterdam, only to discover that she and the rest of her friends were standing between the mysterious Pierre La Roche, the sinister looking Police Internationale inspecteur, and Twilight Sparkle and Heinrich Büchsenmacher.

Twilight, raised an eyebrow in confusion, despite her use of the Tome of Alhazred to speak cheval in a previous memory, it seemed that it did not give her any actual understanding of the language, and she turned to Heinrich, who being a native of the continent Europa must have had some idea what the cheval was saying.

'He says: “hello ma'am”', Heinrich said simply, giving the unicorn a look of small worry.

'I don't care, ask him what he wants', Twilight said with annoyance, which Heinrich was quick to convey.

The cold eyes of Pierre La Roche light up brightly as if he was in the middle of some sick and twisted joke. 'Je m'appelle Pierre La Roche, comment allez-vous aujourd'hui?' he asked with a smirk.

'He says his name is Pierre La Roche, and he wants to know how you are', Heinrich said nervously.

Twilight, however, merely sighed with annoyance. 'That's nice I don't care. Ask him what he wants', she commanded, giving the schäferhund a light kick to get him to translate what she had said faster.

'Je ne pouvais pas m'empêcher de remarquer que vous êtes une licorne. Les licornes sont seulement trouvés dans Equestria, non?' La Roche asked, his eyes getting brighter, almost as if he was close to the punch line.

Heinrich looked nervously at Twilight; Pierre La Roche must have said something that Twilight wasn’t going to like. 'Uh... he didn't answer'. Heinrich said with a shrug.

'I don't care what he didn't say; I want to know what he did say!' Twilight said in annoyance, giving Heinrich another light kick.

'He says that he noticed you're a unicorn, and he's wondering if unicorns come from any place other than Equestria', Heinrich said, wincing in pain as Twilight kicked him.

'No of course not', Twilight said, rolling her eyes. It became clear that Twilight was completely unaware of what exactly Pierre La Roche was doing. The inspecteur was after her, and he was taunting her! Kelso shuddered; this was not how police work was meant to be conducted.

'Vous êtes loin de la maison alors. J'espère que rien de mauvais arrive à vous, si loin de la maison. Bonne journée', La Roche said, and he turned and walked away.

Twilight looked at Heinrich for translation.

'He says.... you're a long way from home, and he hopes nothing bad happens to you', Heinrich said with nervousness in his voice, La Roche had clearly disturbed him.

Twilight thought about what he said for a moment. Then it hit her. 'Heinrich? We need to leave, and we need to leave now'.

'What? Why? Where?' Heinrich asked. It seemed that while he too was made uneasy by the cheval’s presence, though he himself had yet to put together the meaning of the visit by Pierre La Roche.

'Out of the city, we need to leave. He was Police Internationale', Twilight said. 'He knows who I am, and we need to get out of here'.

...

They had returned to the jungles of Sainte-Hélène, or so, Viola had claimed that was where they were, and as Kelso looked around, she had to wonder if that was indeed the case.

‘Viola? You called this place Sainte-Hélène...’ Sparky asked as she raised an eyebrow at the mare. Viola turned towards the unicorn and sighed.

‘Oh don’t tell me you’re bad at geography too...’ Viola said facehoofing hard.

‘I am just fine with geography thank you very much’, Sparky said hotly as she brushed her mane out of her eyes. ‘I just don’t know what they did here... I’m not good at history...’

‘Sparky, this is the cheval prison island!’ Kelso cried out. ‘How could you not know that?’

‘Like I said, I’m not good at history!’ Sparky said with a frown.

‘Sparky... this is STILL a prison island even in the modern day! It has been since the Cheval Second Empire started dumping violent criminals here three hundred years ago!’ Kelso said facehoofing hard.

‘Do you just not pay attention to the news?’ Viola asked with a sigh.

‘I pay attention to the news! I was paying attention when those people at BERN were able to synthesise anti-protons’, Sparky said defensively, causing Kelso to smirk. That was Sparky for them, once a science nerd, always a science nerd.

'It won't budge!'

Kelso and company turned to discover that they were not alone, though it was silly to think that they would have been, considering that they were still reliving past memories. Rarity, Fluttershy, and Spike were standing underneath a pear tree. Fluttershy and Spike watched as Rarity used her telekinesis to pull one of the pears down from the tree, but for some reason, it was just not coming down.

Rarity released the pear with a small pout of disappointment, and turned around to look at what she had at her disposal. Turning towards the baby dragon, she smiled as she an idea formed in her head. 'Ohhh Spikey-wikey!' Rarity sang as she rapidly batted her eyelashes at him.

'Huh?' Spike asked, almost as if he had not been paying attention to anything but the food in the pear tree before him. 'Y... yes Rarity?'

'Be a dear, climb up into that tree and get some of those pears down for us', Rarity said, with a warm smile. 'Pretty please?'

'Oh! Of course I will Rarity! Give me just a tick!' Spike said as he got a running start. Spike jumped into the air and grabbed a hold of the pear tree; he began to climb up into the thick leaves and was soon out of the mare's view.

'Um... Rarity? I don't think Applejack even likes pears', Fluttershy said quietly.

'Applejack doesn't like anything that isn't an apple!' Rarity said with a huff. 'She'll get over it if she's hungry enough... I know I am...'

Everyone, passive observers included, jumped in surprise at the sound of a twig snapping behind them. Kelso and company turned to discover that a grey coated cheval mare was standing several metres behind them, silently cursing herself for making noise and getting their attention before she was ready to. Her mane was an emerald green, and her eyes were a deep blue. Most importantly however, was the fact that she was armed with a contemporary bolt action rifle.

'Qui êtes-vous? Comment avez-vous arrivé ici?!' The mare cried out angrily at them.

Rarity and Fluttershy looked at each other with worry; it seemed that neither of them properly spoke the cheval language, though it didn't stop Rarity from trying. 'Uh... Nous... Amiez... Vous?' she said, causing Hopely to facehoof hard at how much the unicorn mare had butchered the language.

The cheval mare was clearly unamused by Rarity's pathetic attempt at communication and let out a frustrated sigh before continuing her shouting.

'Débiles! Vous avez besoin de courir! J'essaie de vous aider!'

'Uh... Rarity?' Fluttershy asked nervously. The pegasus mare was beginning to panic.

'I tried to tell her we're friendly!' Rarity said, beginning to get just as hysterical. 'Clearly it didn't work'.

Far off into the distance, they heard muffled shouting in cheval. The expression on the cheval mare's face turned to panic. 'Les prisonniers!' she cried out, the sound of worry in her voice. She turned back to Rarity and Fluttershy, and pointed the rifle directly at them. 'Marche!' she cried out, gesturing for them to move.

Language barrier aside, the meaning of pointing a gun at someone, shouting angrily and pointing in a direction had a pretty much universal meaning. Rarity and Fluttershy understood that perfectly. The mare began running toward them, and Rarity and Fluttershy took off in front of her.

Spike poked his head below the tree cover, clearly unaware of what had just occurred, he was holding an armful of pears, and he climbed down from the tree only to discover that he was alone. ‘Uh? Rarity? Fluttershy? Where did you go?’

Spike merely shrugged, for all he knew, they had gone to get more food elsewhere, and he took off at a steady pace out of the jungle.

Comments

[kladdos]

ugh... spike....
great chapter again
keep up the good work

[supernova708]

are we sure Sparky isn't related to Twilight somehow, with all the "sole interest in a certain field" thing going on?
joking aside, I really want to know who her parents are.
but, that's just me complaining.
just keep these chapters rollin'

[Qub3d]

Moar... because moar. I'm really just waiting with baited breath for the end of this damn flashback that's now taken about 25 chapters.

In short:

Dear Wheller, Get on with it.

[thatonenigga]

901644 she's vinyl scratch is her grand mother and her parents died in an accident when she was young, try reading whellers others story's, there really long but its defenently worth the read

[SuperPinkBrony12]

903132 I agree, if this flashback is going to serve a point you need to at least start dropping some hints and giving us some answers, like how in the hay Twilight still becomes the first Prime Minister of Equestria after everything she's done, and don't give me the she begs for forgiveness and blames the book, it's her falt she even bothered to read it in the first place!

[Spiffers]

903249 It's sorta worth the read... the plot is pretty good, but the writing needs to be cleaned up (I'm on his.... 18th story right now I think)
But yeah, it's an interesting read

[supernova708]

903249
I know that much, I read all the stories.
I'm just wondering if Sparky's parents are related to Twilight somehow; it'd be an interesting concept.

[thatonenigga]

904870 the ending is great but leaves you with questions
but over all its worth it

[Dr. Equestria]

904183

If you had bother to check, everything that your reading and asking about as already been explained in the other series.

Pleb.