Family Secrets

by Keeper of time RD

Chapter 4: Cutie Mark Crusader Secret Agents, Yay!

Once more gathered into the pegasus chariot, the trio of fillies were whisked across the Equestrian countryside. Following the uneventful flight, the fillies soon found themselves sitting in the corner of a Vanhoover police station.

While Cloud Wall spoke with one of the officers of the Vanhoover City Police Department, the three crusaders had to fight their youthful energy’s demand to be up and about. Oddly enough, despite being the most restless of the three, Scootaloo seemed to be handling the boredom the best, her eyes diligently searching and researching the deck of the officer Cloud was talking to.

Apple Bloom’s gaze wandered about the room as she fidgeted and silently wished she better understood what was going on with her pegasus friend.

It was Sweetie Belle’s gaze that first took noticed of the papers pinned to a nearby wall.

“Umm, should we be worried about that?”

“About what?” Apple Bloom asked, following Sweetie’s gaze.

“They look like missing pony pictures, and look how many there are.”

“So?”

“Most of them look like ponies our age,” Sweetie clarified her concern.

“Do you think that’s normal?” Apple Bloom asked.

“I don’t know, how about you, Scoot?”

“Wha-huh?” Scootaloo said, mentally replaying everything she’d heard from her friends but didn’t really pay attention to the first time. Spotting the wall full of missing pony posters helped her piece together enough of the sounds for her to answer with, “How should I know if that’s normal for Vanhoover or not? I’ve never been here before.”

“Sorry, It’s just that with you keeping us in the dark, it seems like you’re the only one of us who knows what’s going on. I mean Apple Bloom and I are kind of out of our element here.”

Scootaloo cringed slightly, as the sorrowful and maybe slightly accusing tone of her unicorn friend felt like a jab in the chest to her. “I’m sorry, but some secrets need to stay secret,” was the only answer she could mumble.

“Why?”

Scootaloo could think of a dozen answers, none of which she could say. How many times had she seen Cloud Wall and his team save the day from the shadows and the resulting newspaper articles be dead wrong about what really happened? How many times had she seen the secrets kept by her dad or Cloud and their teams protect ponies precisely because no pony else knew the truth?

Better yet, how could she explain any of that to her friends without sharing the very secrets that brought misery to those who knew them and joy to those who were ignorant of them? She couldn’t. Or at least she couldn’t think of a way. More impotently there was the misery that having to keep even the more harmless secrets brought her personally. No, there was no way she would spread that burden to her friends.

When she finally answered her friends all she could say was, “They just do.”

Apple Bloom opened her mouth to press the issue but was cut off before she could start.

Done gathering what information he could, Cloud Wall approached the fillies and said, “Well the good news is that your dad was here as recently as this morning. The bad news is that judging from the notes he left, he and his team are running in full shadow-ops mode. The more good news is that it seems he was right the last time we talked. So come on, we should get to the rendezvous point and meet up with the rest of my team.”

* * * * * * *

The rendezvous point turned out to be a rather pleasant little cliff ledge, east of Vanhoover, overlooking the city. A few trees and bushes dotted the ledge and lush grass covered most of the ledge like a soft carpet.

Sweetie Belle’s first impression was that this place would be great for a picnic, well for pegasi anyway as flying was the only easy way to reach this ledge. Admiring the shallow cave in the cliff face behind them, Apple Bloom could see why a group of pegasus guards would use this cliff as a meeting place. The first thing to catch Scootaloo’s eye was the fact that two particular towers in the city were almost perfectly lined up with each other from this point of view, making it fairly easy for any pegasus to find. As long as they knew which two towers to line up and follow away from the city anyway.

Speaking of pegasi, two colorful dots appeared and seemed to dive down and start heading right for the cliff-side meeting place. Of the two, the stallion’s coat and mane were midnight blue and his cutie mark was that of a silver comet. The coat of the approaching mare was a dull pink, her mane a bright yellow, and on her flank was the cutie mark of several green and blue wispy lines not too unlike the northern lights.

The stances of the unicorn and earth pony fillies wavered nervously at the sight of two strangers approaching what they thought was a secret place.

“Who are you?” Apple Bloom asked trying her best to sound casual despite being an earth pony in a place she couldn’t possibly reach on her own.

The mare raised an eyebrow and asked, “You don’t know?”

“Why would Ah know that? Ah’ve never seen you before.”

Looking to Captain Cloud Wall the mare said, “She doesn’t know? They don’t know? But you used our names in their presence already. You shouldn’t do that if they didn’t already know!”

“They’re Scootaloo’s friends and, as much as I’d rather they didn’t, they’re going to be helping us. So they were going to find out one way or another,” Cloud said, shrugging off the death glare coming from his lieutenant.

At that the midnight stallion couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m Sergeant Comet Fall, and this is Lieutenant Aurora Wind,” he added, while motioning to himself and the mare beside him. “What are your names?”

“Sweetie Belle!”

“Ah’m Apple Bloom… Wait a second! Aurora, Comet, doesn’t that make you the other two royal guards? You aren’t even the same color!”

“Not everypony in the guard is blessed with white fur and a royal blue mane, like Captain Cloud here. So the rest of us use dye to be regulation colors when we’re on the clock. And seeing as we’re shadow ops we use a really weak dye that’s easy to wash off. You know, just in case.”

“Shadow ops, that’s the second time I’ve heard that term today. What does it mean?” Sweetie Belle asked.

This time it was Aurora’s turn to chuckle. “You really haven’t told them a thing, have you? Consider me impressed, kid,” she said, looking at Scootaloo. The pegasus filly heard enough of the lieutenant’s tone to know it was a rhetorical question, so she didn’t bother gracing it with an answer. Looking back to the other fillies, Lieutenant Aurora just smiled and added, “It’s exactly what it sounds like. We’re the secret agents of the royal guard. And everything you’ve seen and heard today never happened. Got it?”

Something about the way that Aurora used her wings to ruffle the manes of Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle seemed both playful and threatening, to the point where both fillies felt that they really should nod slowly in agreement.

Seeing the moment of apprehension in the two, Captain Cloud Wall jumped on the opportunity to ask, “Are you sure you two want to stick around long enough to have decent odds of getting hurt?”

With a nervous glance Sweetie Belle asked, “Scootaloo?”

The young pegasus gave her right side saddlebag a pat. “I have to get this to my dad, and Cloud Wall is my best bet at finding him. I have to go, but there’s no reason you have to come.”

“Forget it! You’re our friend and fellow cutie mark crusader, so we’re not letting you do this alone!” Apple Bloom said, stomping a hoof on the ground hard enough to kick up a ring of dust through the grass.

Both Scootaloo and Cloud placed a hoof on their forehead and sighed. “Fine.”

Pulling his helmet off, Cloud Wall added, “Alright team, and fillies who are tagging along despite my opposition, here’s what we know. First it seems our case has run into a common thread with my friend’s case. Thanks to the notes left at the police station, we know that the alias ‘Dark Feather’ has been popping up far too frequently in both investigations for it to be coincidence.”

Giving a nod toward Scootaloo, the captain continued, “And from what the kid told me, I can only imagine one reason to petrify somepony and then leave them where they won’t be mistaken for a statue, that being a stalling tactic. Something big is going down, and it's going to happen soon.”

Cloud Wall continued, “Hopefully, this morning at the museum bought us some time. But if the legends are true there are six of those shadow crystals, so unless the enemy plans on needing all six, I suspect we at most inconvenienced them. Granted, I may be jumping to the same conclusions as her father.”

“Oh come on! Doesn’t anypony say his name?” Sweetie Belle blurted out at yet another overt refusal for somepony to speak the name of Scootaloo’s dad.

“No, we don’t. We never use names on a mission, only rank. And if you’re going to tag along with us, then don’t you dare so much as breath anypony’s name either,” Lieutenant Aurora answered, glaring the unicorn filly into silence.

“We don’t exactly have titles. What are we supposed to call each other?” Apple Bloom complained.

Cloud gave a slight grin and motioned to Scootaloo. “As far as I’m concerned this kid is the only one on my team. The rest of you fuzzballs are tagging along on your own, so keeping you two in line is her problem. As for you, kid, as soon as we get back into the city I need you to find some dirt to roll around in. It seems the missing pony cases are mostly of homeless foals all of a sudden, so you’ll need to pass for one if you’re going to bait our trap. But we need to be quick, we only have a few hours before school lets out and it won’t be unusual for a filly to be wandering the streets.”

Scootaloo gave a quick salute. “Yes, captain!”

By now the two adults serving under Cloud had put on black cloth vests that had an assortment of pockets. Turning to his team, Captain Cloud Wall gave the order, “Okay everypony, grab a filly and let’s move out!”

Scootaloo quickly fluttered her wings and hopped onto the captain’s back. The sergeant lowered himself down, allowing Apple Bloom to climb on. The lieutenant took the order literally and scooped up Sweetie Belle with her front legs, taking flight with the unicorn filly dangling beneath her.

* * * * * * *

“We’ve been wandering around for hours! How long is this going to take? Do we even know where we are?” Apple Bloom protested as they rounded the corner of yet another random street, with yet another street name that meant nothing to the filly.

The buildings to either side looked like apartment buildings, mostly of brick construction. While not in true disrepair the occasional crack in a window or wall was proof that the maintenance of the buildings in this neighborhood was minimal at best.

Patience wasn’t one of Scootaloo’s virtues, but determination was, and it prompted her to answer, “As long as it takes.”

Right about then a small coach painted with a taxi’s colors pulled up beside the trio. “Well hello there. What might three fillies be doing wandering around at this time of day?” a green stallion with a black mane asked in a pleasant tone of voice.

“We’re kinda, maybe, a little bit lost,” Apple Bloom answered the earth pony with the checkerboard cutie mark.

Striking her face with her hoof, Scootaloo said, “How can we be lost when we weren’t going anywhere? We’re just wandering around, remember?”

“Not knowing the way back home counts as lost,” Sweetie Belle pointed out.

Scootaloo’s eye twitched as the temptation to bang her head on the side of the taxicab was growing rapidly within her.

Then the stallion pulling the coach said, “Maybe I can offer you a ride home?”

“Really? That’d be great!” Sweetie squeaked.

“Ya realized we don’t have any money, right?” Bloom asked.

With a friendly nod the taxicab pony said, “That’s fine, it’s not like I’m bumping a paying customer for you.”

With that the stallion gave a kick with one of his hind legs, striking a lever that opened the door to his taxi. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle took a seat on the padded bench that let them see forward, while Scootaloo sat down on the bench that had her looking out the back window. The door closed and a soft jolt informed them that they were underway. And with each passing second a smile grew on Scootaloo’s face.

Noticing said smile Apple Bloom asked, “What’s up?”

By now Scootaloo had noticed that she couldn’t even hear the trot of the stallion pulling them, yet despite the clear soundproofing on the cabin of the cab she held a hoof to her lips and whispered her answer. “We got him.”

Taking the hint Bloom whispered back, “What do ya mean?”

“He offered to take us home, and he’s already taking us somewhere. But he never asked us where home is.” With her friend’s eyes shrinking to dots Scootaloo added, “Just look normal. Don’t let him know we’re on to him.”

As the ride stretched on from seconds into minutes even Scootaloo’s friends came to notice the level of soundproofing on the coach. Naturally once they’d realized that the stallion pulling the taxi couldn’t hear them either, they started passing the time with idle chatter.

“So if we’re Cutie Mark Crusader Secret Agents now, and we can’t use our names, then we need secret agent names now, right?” Sweetie Belle reviewed the recent logic between her and Apple Bloom.

“Exactly! But what?”

“Well we don’t have ranks, but we do have a title, crusader!”

“No,” Scootaloo interrupted bluntly.

“Why not?”

Possibly exaggerating her frustration by planting her face in her waiting hoof, Scootaloo explained, “Because we call ourselves that back home. It’s too easy to trace that title back to us.”

“Isn’t the captain actually a captain?”

“There are hundreds of captains in the guard. But I haven’t heard of anypony else running around calling themselves crusaders. Have you?”

“Well, no,” Bloom admitted as she saw an equally stumped look on Sweetie.

Tapping her hoof on her chin thoughtfully Apple Bloom tried again. “Ah know! Sometimes strangers call me ‘Red’ just because Ah got a red mane. That’s got to be a common nickname!”

“Perfect!” Sweetie said with a slight squeak in her voice. Then she looked to the floor and with a less enthusiastic tone she added, “But nopony calls me by nicknames. It’s always things like ‘filly’ or ‘hey you’ if they don’t know my name.”

Hanging her head slightly Scootaloo gave a small sigh. “You realize that we probably won’t need spy names, right? The captain is just going to call me ‘Kid’ and he made it clear that you two are just going to be following me.”

“But what if you decide we need to split up? You’ll need spy names for us then, won’t you?” Apple Bloom asked with a bit of a grin.

“…Fine, you can be Red, she’ll be White and I’m Kid. Happy?” Scootaloo answered.

If Red was planning on answering, the fact that the taxi came to a sudden stop interrupted her. Looking out the window the trio of fillies noticed that they weren’t even in the city anymore, but instead were on a road heading east of Vanhoover.

Standing in front of the taxi pony was Captain Cloud Wall and though his mouth was moving the three fillies couldn’t hear a word he was saying. After a short exchange of words the captain came to the side of the carriage, tapped on the window and spoke. Judging from his mouth he’d said three words, probably something like ‘Is that so?’ but they didn’t hear anything besides the tap on the window.

Knowing that the taxi pony could see her head through the window behind her, Scootaloo put on a show for him by just smiling pleasantly. But below the back of her chair, where only the captain could see, Scootaloo held out her front left leg and suddenly twisted it.

Mimicking her friend’s forced smile Apple Bloom whispered, “What’s that suppose to mean?”

“Twisted, crooked, same difference. Right and left, and right and wrong are both opposites. So I basically just signaled that he’s a crook and on the wrong side,” Scootaloo whispered back. Of course like any hoof signs she used she’d just made that one up on the spot, so it was up to the captain to reach a similar conclusion at to the meaning of what he’d just seen.

Outside the coach Captain Cloud Wall turned to the owner of the cab and said, “That’s some impressive soundproofing you got there. Too bad I know for a fact you can’t be offering these fillies a ride home, because I know exactly where they live.”

The taxi pony’s eyes suddenly became dots.

Without a pause the captain continued, “But lucky for you, I have bigger fish to fry. So my only question is, am I pinning the blame for every missing foal in Vanhoover on you? Or are you going to lead me to the kingpin of this fillynapping ring?”

“I-I,” the taxi pony said, as beads of sweat began to trickle down his forehead.

The smile on the captain’s face became a snarl. “Need more of an incentive I take it? How about this, you give me somepony more important than you and I just might forget to lock you up. And if I get my kingpin and find out that the foals you’ve been selling into some Celestia-forsaken fate are still alive, I just might forget to have you fined for the amount equal to all your ill-gotten gains.”

Taxi pony’s eyes once more became specks. “I-I can take you where I drop them off and get paid. B-But I don’t know if that’s where their boss is. I swear!” he said with near panic in his voice, in no small part due to the realization that he would never be able to pay such a fine.

Opening the door to the cab and letting the trio of fillies out, Captain Cloud said, “Okay kid, here’s how this is going to work. Our new friend here is going to take you to the bad guy’s place while we follow from the shadows. As soon as you’re inside we’re going to raid the place. Once the alarms go off the other team should break cover to help us take down the bad guys. Assuming we’ve caught up to them that is.”

Turning to the taxi pony, Cloud added, “We’ll be arresting you too, but if all goes well you’ll be home in time for dinner. Just do us a favor and once we take you down, stay down.”

Looking back to Scootaloo and her friends, Cloud Wall had one more thing to say. “You’re heading into enemy territory, so last chance to do any last minute preparations.”

The three friends all gave a salute and jumped back into the taxicab and were soon underway.

* * * * * * *

The taxi had turned off of the main road and took them into a wide valley in the base of the mountains east of the city, though deep enough in the valley that the city could no longer be seen. As they went up the hill on one side of the valley a lone building came into view. At a glance it seemed to be a single story building, not too unlike a villa, but at the right angle it could be seen that there was a basement level that was only partly built into the hillside and partly exposed on one side.

However Scootaloo was too busy raiding her saddlebag to pay much attention to what was outside the taxicab to notice their destination.

Now that her tactical harness was on, she opened her wings and gave them a quick shake to settle the feathers back into a more comfortable place. Of course her harness was little more than a black cloth vest, and with the row of pouches along the bottom completely empty it served no real purpose aside from making two thirds of her torso black.

The next thing she pulled out of her right side saddlebag was her night-vision goggles. Ignoring the fact that it was the middle of the day, so they were at least four hours away from having any potential use, she put them on and slid them up to her forehead.

Finally she put her saddlebags on the floor and reached in with her front right leg, shifting it around until she felt the silver device within and slid it into the right position. In a moment of hesitation Scootaloo sighed, knowing that her friends would soon see something they weren’t supposed to see. Yet the idea of taking it into enemy territory left her no other choice. Putting her weight on her leg an audible click sounded as the device latched onto her hoof, locking it to her leg.

“So the big secret is a silver leg brace?” Sweetie Belle asked as she beheld the device now adorning Scootaloo’s leg as it came out of the saddlebag.

The orange pegasus raised a single eyebrow. “You do realized that I’m probably grounded forever just letting you guys see it, right? He’d kill me if I told you what it is… So, yeah keep thinking that it’s just a leg brace, that works.”

“Seriously, it looks like you hurt your ankle or something,” Apple Bloom couldn’t help but comment, as she took note of how the top of the silver framework around Scootaloo’s leg came just short of her knee. After a moment another observation made Bloom add, “Why are ya lying on the floor?”

Giving her goggles a tap Scootaloo answered, “Because these are kinda a big giveaway so I’d rather stay out of sight until the captain makes his move.”

Right then the carriage came to a halt. Jostled by the sudden stop, the two crusaders still on their chairs couldn’t help but to look out the windows. “Cool,” muttered the two who could see the white plaster walls and red tile roof of the building just down the way. Arches seemed to be favored by the architect of the structure, as they framed all of the windows and doors. Carefully tended flower gardens and trimmed hedges spotted the yard and even a small fountain stood as the centerpiece of the landscaping.

“This looks like one of those fancy vacation homes!” Sweetie Belle said.

Apple Bloom gave a sharp whistle. “No kidding. But why are we stopping here? There’s plenty of path between us and the front door.”

Outside the cab, the taxi pony stomped his hoof on the ground thee times in a distinct pattern. A moment later and the ground before him started sinking down, becoming a ramp leading down into a hidden tunnel.

Inside the taxicab, Sweetie Belle said, “Oh, a secret path, that explains it.”

From her position on the floor the only thing Scootaloo could see through the windows was the sky. At least until the roof of the secret tunnel took its place anyway. The trio didn’t have to settle for the gray walls of the tunnel for scenery for long though, as the tunnel soon opened up into what looked like a commercial loading dock. Not that the gray walls of the loading dock were much different, but at least they weren’t so close.

The taxi pony pulled up, in between a plane looking wagon, currently backed against the loading dock and with its tailgate down for easy loading, and a pedestrian ramp that led to the upper part of the loading dock. On the upper part of the loading dock two earth ponies seemed to be awaiting the new arrivals. And at the back of the dock was an open garage-style door that lead to a room where several crates could be seen. Of the two ponies on the dock, one was a dark gray stallion and the other was a light brown mare.

As the taxi pony released the straps from his carriage’s harness three blurs of fast flying pegasi entered the room. The dark blue blur ended at the gray stallion and the pink blur came down on the brown mare, as the sergeant and lieutenant clobbered their respective targets. At the same time the white blur of the captain led to the taxi pony, ending with the captain tackling him to the ground.

As the captain stood up it became clear that his guard armor was long gone, and instead he wore a black tactical harness just like the ones worn by his subordinates. And for the first time that day his cutie mark of a blue shield with a cloud in the middle of it was visible. Taking in the eerie silence that followed the surprise attack, the captain tossed a glance to the two unconscious thugs on the loading dock. Following their captain’s lead the two other agents turned their ears toward the deeper part of the facility.

With the lack of commotion coming from deeper inside and the captain’s eyes falling on a red box mounted on the wall, with a lone button marked ‘alarm,’ he said, “Well that’s convenient.”

“What is?” Sweetie Belle asked as the trio of fillies jumped out of the taxicab.

“They didn’t even get a chance to trigger the alarm,” the captain answered. Then spying some spare rope near the crates and bringing his gaze back to the knocked out thugs he added, “Maybe stealth is still an option.”

Walking over to the dark gray stallion, the captain took the criminal’s lanyard, motioned to the ponies they’d just taken down and said, “Tie these three up.” Turning to the three fillies behind him he added, “Hey kid, would you and your friends be willing to play the part of captives a bit longer?”

Scootaloo raised a skeptical eyebrow and looked herself over as if to say ‘don’t I stand out?’ “You’re asking me?” were the words that actually came out of her mouth.

“Kid, first off, fillies your age dress however they want, so I doubt anypony will care what you were dressed like when you fell for their trap. Second, you have to remember that I’m here looking for black-market artifacts. Finding the team investigating the fillynapping ring is your mission, not mine.” Tossing a glance at the silver device on the filly’s leg the captain added, “And seeing as you don’t seem to be at liberty to discuss the true nature of that, I can’t really plan around whatever it is you or the other captain hope to accomplish with it. So yeah I’m asking the only pony who knows if it gets in your way or not, if you want to hold off on blowing the alarm or not?”

Gazing off into space, through the ground, Scootaloo answered, “We don’t even know if he’s here. So, we’ll do things your way as long as we can.”

The captain took one last look at the lanyard before tossing it to the sergeant and saying, “Congratulations ‘Big Hoof,’ looks like you’re now a mercenary for hire. Now go see if you can take these three on a leisurely stroll through the complex. As long as they don’t look too closely, I doubt they’d notice that’s not really you on the security badge, and if they have to use those things it must mean new faces come and go all the time anyway.” Looking back to the three fillies he added, “Feel free to brake cover the instant it looks like they’re in danger. And kid, once we do trip the alarm and all hell breaks loose, use our distraction to do whatever you plan on doing.”

Looking to the pink pegasus mare, the captain said, “Lieutenant, let’s go see if we can find our artifacts before all hell breaks loose.” With that the captain and lieutenant ducked into the crate room and quickly slipped out of sight.

Taking notice of a rack full of collars and leashes not far from the alarm box, the sergeant muttered, “Looks like this is where their deception ends.” Taking the collars he put one on each of the fillies with him, although he didn’t bother to make use of the special locks on said collars and thus left the crusaders free to pop the collars off themselves at a moment’s notice.

Clipping the other end of the leaches to his harness, he gave his ‘captives’ a smile and a nod and cheerfully said, “Well, let’s go see what we can see.”

Walking through the crate room they couldn’t help but notice that of the crates that were open most were empty. But one still had its side waiting to be nailed shut and inside the crate was the stone statue of a colt about the crusaders’ age. Judging from the nearby tools it seemed like a safe bet that the two knocked out criminals had been in the middle of packing the crate before somepony knocked on the front door.

Yet it was when Sweetie Belle looked at the statue that she gasped, “I know him! He’s one of the ponies from the missing pony posters!”

The sergeant quickly shushed her and then looking back at the two crates on the cart behind them, he whispered, “Probably more in those. Can’t say I’m surprised. It’s probably less of a fuss smuggling them around like that.”

“They-They’ll be okay, won’t they?” Sweetie whimpered.

The sergeant gave a small nod and whispered, “Sure they will. Once we finish our raid and turn them over to the unicorn guard to be turned back to normal anyway.”

He allowed a moment’s pause for the trio of fillies to regain their composure before giving their leashes a tug to urge them forward. Although it took a sideways nod from Scootaloo to get her friends to resume following him.

In the next room they found a few ponies, mostly earth ponies and unicorns scattered about. Some seemed to be guards as they sat around a table playing cards, while others were busy unpacking a crate of steel ingots. None seemed to pay the stallion and three leashed fillies anything more than a quick glance before returning to what they were doing.

The overhead of the room allowed for a level of catwalks and there was also a suspended room in the upper left corner. Had this been a normal business one might have guessed the room to be the foreman’s office. Being a criminal organization it was probably the boss’s room. A pegasus was standing on the catwalks nearby the suspended room and seemed to be overseeing the work.

Being the one seemingly in charge, the sergeant lead the way over to just below where the pegasus was, and looking up casually asked, “Where did you want 'em?”

Bloom and Sweetie tensed up as they recognized the midnight blue stallion as the same one from the museum robbery mere hours earlier. However, Scootaloo knew better than to think the bandit would remember three random faces in the background when his focus had been on the captain and the crystal that morning, so she continued to look about curiously.

The bandit pony rolled his eyes as if to say ‘dang new guy,’ as he casually motioned a hoof toward the hallway on the left side of the room and said, “Fifth door on the left.”

The sergeant started toward the indicated hallway, but he didn’t get more than a few steps before another voice came from above. “Heh, aren’t you one unlucky pony!” the gruff male voice said.

Now it was the sergeant’s turn to tense up, with his body ready to jump into a fight he looked to the speaker. It turned out the speaker was a griffin, his body golden brown and the feathers around his head were silver-gray in color.

Even after the griffin had landed beside them, it took a second for any of the ponies to realize that his gaze was not on the sergeant, but locked onto Scootaloo.

As it dawned on her that she was the target of the comment, Scootaloo raised an eyebrow, tilted her head slightly and asked an honest question. “Who are you?”

The griffin gave a hearty laugh and answered, “Ah yes! I suppose it would be too much to expect you to remember me! You were a bit stoned at the time!”

The filly’s gaze quickly shifted from the griffin’s face, to his talons. “The claw marks on my floor! You were the one behind the illusion! You turned me to stone!”

Giving a much darker laugh the griffin said, “Yes. And I hope you enjoyed the sensation, because that’s how you’ll be leaving this place when I sell you.” With a sinister grin he leaned in close and added, “Don’t worry, I include an antidote with all the ponies I sell. Not much point buying a slave if they stay stone forever now is there?”

A simple question plagued Sweetie Belle, forcing her to ask, “Isn’t slavery illegal?”

“Well duh, why do you think I’m going to have you turned to stone? Customs gets really pissy if they find live ponies in shipping crates. But they don’t seem to mind you exporting pony statues so much,” the criminal griffin answered.

Scootaloo tried to take a timid step backward only to find herself at the end of her leash and forced to stand her ground. Then a thought came to her. “But if you turn ponies to stone to sell them, why did you leave me in my house?”

Standing back up properly, the griffin gave a sheepish smile. “Heh, well, poor planning on my part mostly. You see, I was so eager to field test my illusion belt and portable petrifaction ray that I forgot how heavy you ponies get when turned to stone. So… yeah, seeing as the illusion belt worked and you called me, whatever that name of that pony you know was, I figured I’d have better odds of not getting caught just leaving you there than trying to smuggle you out of your house like that.”

“But why me? Why’d you come after me?”

To this the griffin shrugged. “Fate, luck, whatever you want to call it. Thing is I have a cousin, who’s an athlete. And one day he went and invited me to watch the tryouts for some flag ceremony for the games he was going to be competing in. At the time, I was an innocent face in the crowd, and didn’t think much of it actually. But when I was thinking of how to test my newly crafted illusion belt I couldn’t help but remember the pure hatred that pink filly was shooting at you when the judges announced who would be flying the flag for Ponyville. And then I realized you made the perfect cover for the test, that way even if the portable petrifaction ray didn’t work quite right, you’d lead the authorities to pin the blame for my crime on that pony. The perfect failsafe if you will.”

“But Dia- that bully hates all three of us! So why’d ya have to go after our friend and not us!?” Apple Bloom demanded, stomping a hoof on the ground as loudly as she could.

“Oh that’s so cute, you ponies are so cute when you’re mad. Walking around, talking like you run the place, even when you’re in no position to be demanding anything. But since you’re such a cutie, I’ll tell you anyway. Truthfully I’d have settled for any of you three, but she was the first one I found alone, simple as that.”

The griffin seemed done talking to the fillies, so the sergeant gave the leashes a tug, urging them to follow. But Sweetie wasn’t done and even as she was being led away she shouted, “But why would you do something so mean?”

That got the griffin to turn back to facing the fillies again. “Because not everyone gets to live in your precious utopia, and it’s high time someone brought Equestria to its knees and showed you the misery the rest of us call life. And with the money I’m making selling you spoiled brats, soon I’ll be able to do just that!”

Once more the griffin turned to leave and the sergeant started to lead the trio of fillies toward the hall. This time it was Scootaloo who had a question to shout as she was being led away. “Why don’t you just build up your corner of the world, instead of tearing down ours?”

The griffin paused for a moment, hovering beside the catwalk to his office, but he gave no answer before going inside.

More than content with his observations of the room’s layout and the locations of its guards, Sergeant Comet gave one last tug on Scootaloo’s leash, and with it she reluctantly followed him. Leading the three fillies down the hall, he quickly found that there were only three doors on the left before the hallway turned. Giving the doors discreet glances, he gave a low grown, annoyed to find they had no windows and were only marked as storage. With a sigh he moved on to round the corner and head for their supposed destination.

Rounding the corner the sergeant counted off two more doors. Not that he needed to, as the ‘fifth door on the left’ had a guard standing in front of it. A light-green earth-pony stallion with a yellow mane to be exact. A haunting feeling that he’s seen this particular stallion before made the sergeant hesitate. Unfortunately he’s seen lots of ponies, most of them being random faces in crowds, and so unable to pin down the source of the feeling he continued to play the part of a mercenary leading three fillies to their doom.

As the fillies attached to the sergeant’s harness rounded the corner the guard by the door finally bothered to pay his visitors a glance. At first he didn’t seem too interested, as if it was just another day. Then his eyes went wide as they locked onto Sweetie Belle.

“You!” the guard said with a mix of panic and fear in his voice.

Seeing the gaze on her, Sweetie managed to squeak, “Me?”

“You!” Scootaloo said in a voice that was burning with a sudden anger, as she immediately charged forward and leapt at the guard.

At the same time Comet also leapt into action, simplify because he assumed he’d been recognized, and both he and Scootaloo punched the guard in the face.

The last thing the guard did as he tumbled down, on his way into Luna’s realm, was to push the button on the portable alarm trigger attached to his belt.

Every intercom speaker in the building blared to life. Sergeant Comet helped himself to the door the guard had been guarding and, opening it just a bit, he peeked inside. “Clear,” he whispered as he threw the door open and darted inside, yanking the trio of fillies in as well.

Inside the room and near the back was a large cannon-like object, pointed toward the left wall. Its design included a mix of metal and electrodes, and crystals and rune-engraved stone that made the whole thing look half science and half magic.

Between the alarms sounding and the sergeant ditching his end of the leashes, Scootaloo understood that the time for deception was over. Popping open the latch on her collar she let it fall away.

As she followed her friend’s lead in ditching their collars, Apple Bloom asked, “Sweet- um White, why did it sound like that guy knew you?”

“I don’t know. But it sounded like Kid knows,” Sweetie answered, as she pulled off her own collar.

Scootaloo lowered her ears, hung her head in defeat and sighed. “Remember that time with the magic artifact that swapped our minds with each other?” Her friends nodded, so she looked at Sweetie Belle and continued, “Remember that cut I got you when I was in your body?” Another nod answered her. “Well when I said that I made a mistake, it wasn’t some little everyday kinda mistake. I was doing something like this, and well… I ran into him and… I got the cut when he shot at me and I didn’t exactly dodge it completely.”

A vacant stare appeared on Sweetie’s face as she tried to process the information she’d just gained. “Y-You got shot? Wait, you got me shot?” she finally muttered.

“Sorry,” Scootaloo answered, once more folding her ears down and hanging her head in shame.

In a light-hearted tone and with a bit of a laugh, the sergeant commented, “Right, so that’s where I’ve seen that guy before.” Making his way over to the large device at the back of the room he added, “Heh, I’m guessing this is the non-portable version.”

The clopping of hooves from the hallway drew the foursome’s attention to the door. Looking to the trio of fillies with him, Comet said, “You might want to take cover. Oh and once I clear a path I’m heading out on my own to meet up with the captain and lieutenant.”

The three crusaders ran behind the large petrifaction ray. With that, the sergeant opened one of the pockets of his vest and pulled out a cloud grenade. Right when the hoof steps sounded as if they were right outside the door, Comet opened it slightly and rolled the grenade out into the hall.

A cry of “What the-” was heard from the hallway just before a blast of white filled the area with a dense cloud of water vapor. Sergeant Comet flew out into the hall, disappearing into the cloud. Gunfire echoed and thunderclaps crashed.

From their hiding spot the crusaders cowered, instinctually flinching at each loud noise to assault their ears. And yet, as the sound of lightning claps started coming from further away, Scootaloo couldn’t help but smile on the inside, even as she flinched from the very thunder making her body tremble.

As the sound of Comet’s fighting grew more distant, the realization that there was fighting going on out there made Scootaloo look down to the silver device attached to her leg. Remembering what little training she’d had with the device she reached for the top ring, just below her knee, and slid open a small panel to reveal a small toggle switch. Flipping that switch made a small high-pitched sound, like that of a crystal chime, sound for a moment before fading away. With that the filly closed the panel knowing the weapon was powered up and ready. She gave the small button on the side of the weapon a glance knowing all she had to do now was push that to fire. And somewhere in the back of her mind her youthful curiosity hoped she’d finally have a good reason to see just what the family secret could do.

Opening her eyes after another thunderclap and looking to her friends, Scootaloo said, “You two are more then welcome to stay and hide here or even sneak back out to the taxi if you want, but I need to see if he’s here.”

Apple Bloom just stood up and glared back at her friend as if to say ‘You’re not going to make me say it again, are you?’

“Or you could just follow me into the place where all the adults are shooting at each other,” Scootaloo added with a sigh.

At first Sweetie Belle seemed like she was contemplating staying hidden here. But when Apple Bloom confidently strode up beside their pegasus friend, Sweetie felt she had to accompany her friends anyway. Then she gave a nervous swallow and asked, “Anything we should know?”

Scootaloo gave a slight nod. “Staying close to the walls and keeping my head down seems to work most of the time. Find places too tight for an adult if you can. And whatever you do, try not to get between two adults, they’re usually too busy fighting each other to pay much attention to me…” The sound of gunfire and thunder started coming from the main room. “…So yeah, stay out of the middle of that.”

With the commotion elsewhere, Scootaloo was content that the hallway seemed clear of fighting. Not that she could be sure with the thick white mist of a cloud making it impossible to see more than three feet just outside the door. Regardless it was time to get moving, so she headed out into the hallway.

While she would have preferred to run through the cover-less hallway as quickly as possible being a pegasus her natural magics tended to treat the cloud filling the area like a foam wall. So instead she had to settle for trudging slowly through the cloud, pushing her way between it and the wall as if the cloud were an airbag she had to squeeze past.

As they followed effortlessly behind her, Scootaloo’s friends couldn’t help but share a giggle at the way their pegasus friend’s tail stuck straight out behind her, seemingly levitating as if she were swimming underwater or trudging through neck-high mud or something.

Thankfully the cloud was small enough that it didn’t even make it to the corner of the hallway. Peeking carefully around the corner, Scootaloo caught a glimpse of Comet and some other pony tumble into and out of view in an apparent wrestling match out in the main room. She could also see that somepony (probably also Comet,) had opened the other doors in the hallway between here and the main room. In addition to that, the floor of the hallway had two bandit ponies sprawled out unconscious on the floor, and between the frazzled manes and occasional twitch it was clear that lightning had made them that way.

It was funny really, in nature lightning was extremely dangerous. But when regulated by a pegasus a lightning strike could be less dangerous than a bullet. Having worked with Cloud Wall and his team enough times, Scootaloo had long ago learned that pegasi of the royal guard were taught not only how to kick lightning with the intent to kill, but also how to tone down that lightning to merely knock out the target. The ones in special ops were anyway, she wasn’t entirely sure about the rest of the guard.

Shaking the stray thoughts from her mind, Scootaloo refocused on the task before her and darted for the first of the open storage room doors. As her friends quickly joined her all three crusaders gasped at what they found.

The storage room held nothing but a half dozen pony statues, and given the frightened look on the faces of said statues, it wasn’t hard to guess that they weren’t really statues. Most of them were fillies and colts about the crusaders’ age, but one of the statues was large enough that she could have gotten away with being called a mare.

“This is terrible, we have to do something!” Sweetie Belle whispered.

Even as Apple Bloom nodded her head in agreement, Scootaloo raised a curious eyebrow at her unicorn friend. “No we don’t. As long as the captain and his team win, they’ll fix this.”

Looking to Sweetie, Bloom frowned and reluctantly said, “Ah guess she’s right. Besides, unless you just learned how to un-stone somepony there isn’t anything we can do.”

“Oh, right,” the young unicorn said, reflexively aiming her eyes up toward her forehead, even though she couldn’t actually see her own horn up there without a mirror.

As much as she hated the idea of leading her friends closer to danger, Scootaloo wasn’t going to find her dad sitting in this room, so she poked her head back out into the hallway and got ready to make her next dash toward the main room.

With one last look down the hall she was certain that nopony, or griffin for that matter, was paying any attention to the hallway. This time Scootaloo sprinted for the end of the hallway, slowing only to glance inside the other doorways as she went. Just as she’d expected the other two storage rooms also held petrified ponies. Finally coming to a stop just short of the main room she took a quick look to either side.

In the chaos field otherwise called the main room many things were happening at the same time. To the left Comet had just finished punching somepony into a trip to dreamland, while trying to stay behind the toppled card table that was shielding him from small arms fire. To the right Lieutenant Aurora had her hind hoof deep in the gut of the pegasus stallion who’d been overseeing things, sending him to the ground too winded to do anything but gasp and grown in pain. On the far side of the room the griffin was flying through another large garage-style doorway, deeper into the facility, while being chased by Captain Cloud Wall. And near the griffin was a unicorn bandit moving to intercept the captain. Finally, and seemingly from nowhere a silver pegasus mare with a blue mane and black shadow-ops vest tackled the unicorn, leaving Cloud Wall free to peruse the griffin unhindered.

A grin graced Scootaloo’s face as she whispered, “He’s here.”

“What? Who?” Sweetie whispered, trying to peek around her friend to see what she was muttering about.

Scootaloo had only met the mare once and she didn’t even know if she’d heard her name, but that one time was an important enough day to the orange filly that she still remembered the mare’s face. “The silverish mare, she’s part of his team,” she explained.

With Comet being shot at to the left, Scootaloo looked to the right and found what she was looking for. The space between the wall and the stacks of crates was just big enough for fillies to slip between. “Come on! We have to find him,” she whispered, right before she darted for the safest passage through the room.

A few quick sprints from one safe spot to another and the trio of fillies found themselves darting through the same doorway that Cloud Wall had left the main room through.

Much like the previous room this one had the feel of a factory warehouse, with exposed pipes and ventilation ducts, and crates scattered about. Unlike the other room the crates in here were mostly open, and were either completely empty or had engineering supplies like gears or pistons or such in them. One thing was clear, if the fillynapping was the fund raising side of the operation than this part of the building seemed to be what they were using the money for.

Scenery aside Captain Cloud seemed to have been pulled into a fight with another unicorn. Also by now Lieutenant Aurora had made her way into this room and was trading blows in an aerial hoof fight with another of the pegasus bandits from that morning.

And yet none of that mattered to Scootaloo, the pony she was looking for wasn’t here so instead her eyes locked onto another large doorway on the opposite side of the room. Making her move she darted between two sets of stacked crates. The soft clatter of small hooves, and the feeling of presence close behind her, proved that her friends were keeping pace with her.

Scootaloo paused as she came to a rather large gap between her and the next tight pathway in her sights. A stray blast of magic rushed through that gap, causing her to hesitate all the more. A glance to the left, following the magic bolt, showing nothing but a wall for a target, glancing to the right made it clear that the shot had been intended for Cloud Wall but had missed the mark. In fact given the locations of the captain and the unicorn he was fighting the stacks of crates that the crusaders were here hiding in was the current backdrop of any missed shots from the unicorn.

Spurred on by that thought Scootaloo made her break for the rows of big metal drums across the way.

She didn’t get more than a few steps when a crashing noise came from above, thanks to Captain Cloud Wall being throwing into the very stacked crates she just left behind.

Apple Bloom’s voice cried out, “Look out!”

Scootaloo looked back to see what the warning was about. As her mind grasped the images passing through her eyes the world seemed to move in slow motion as she saw a crate falling toward Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom leaping forward. Worst of all, Scootaloo’s forward momentum forbid her from doing anything to help her friends, leaving her a helpless witness as Bloom shoved Sweetie out of the falling crate’s path.

The crate came down on Apple Bloom’s back half, forcing her to fall forward. Then the crate seemed to shoot Bloom’s rump out from under it like a tiddlywink but the farm filly’s back legs weren’t so lucky. A thundering crash sounded as the crate came down on her back legs. A sickening snap echoed out. A snap that Scootaloo knew too well, a snap who’s tone she’d only herd when one of her scooter tricks went horribly wrong, the snap of a bone.

As Apple Bloom’s agonized cry filled the room time seemed to start moving again for Scootaloo, or at least her body started responding to her commands again.

Bloom’s vengeance came quickly, and unintentionally, as her cry distracted the unicorn who’d knocked Cloud into the crates long enough for the captain to rebound and clobber her in a counterattack. Even as the mare fell from the first strike, the captain spun on his front hooves and bucked with his back ones, slamming the unicorn hard enough to ensure she wouldn’t be waking up any time soon, if at all.

At the same time, Scootaloo rushed to her friend’s side, threw her front hooves against the side of the crate and pushed up with all her strength. At first Apple Bloom’s cry lessened, but when she tried to pull her back legs out from under the crate she howled in pain once more and her instincts refused to move her back limbs. Putting her full weight into the effort, Scootaloo managed to angel the crate up a little more, but it also became apparent that moving the crate outright was beyond the young pegasus.

With Scootaloo’s muscles crying out for rest, desperate purple eyes found their way to Sweetie Belle. “Pull her out before I drop it!”

Until now Sweetie had been sitting motionless since she had been pushed to safety. Urged into action by Scootaloo’s command, she reached out, wrapped her front legs around Apple Bloom and pulled her friend until her hind legs were out from under the crate, causing Bloom to cry out in pain once more.

As soon as her friend’s legs were free of the crate, Scootaloo let the crate down. And as soon as the crate crashed down, Apple Bloom reached out and forced herself free of Sweetie’s grasp, pushing her friend away to lessen the pain racking the farm filly from the forced movement of her leg.

All three crusaders looked with horror at the bumps in Apple Bloom’s back left leg where the bones were threatening to brake through the skin at the unnatural bend halfway between the knee and ankle.

All Bloom could do to lessen the pain was to lie on her belly and keep her back half perfectly motionless. Through her pained sobs Apple Bloom managed to mutter, “Don’t touch it… It hurts so much… Help me…”

Having just been pushed away, Sweetie Belle found herself fighting the urge to hug her friend to offer comfort. Settling for standing as close as she could without touching her injured friend, Sweetie looked to her pegasus friend and with pleading eyes and a squeaky voice said, “We need to get her to a hospital, she needs a doctor!”

While Sweetie Belle’s reaction was understandable, Scootaloo’s mind was still in secret-agent mode enough to realize they were in the middle of nowhere, and that there probably wasn’t a hospital nearby this far out of the city. And yet her friends’ eyes were all on her, as if she somehow had the answer to everything. But she didn’t, she wasn’t a doctor, she couldn’t fix this.

By now even Cloud Wall had turned to face the trio of fillies but he made no motion to come to their aid. And why should he? Scootaloo knew he wasn’t a doctor either, and to top it off she knew his team didn’t have a medic… Scootaloo’s eyes lit up as a revelation came to her. “The other team has a medic!” Looking back to her unicorn friend, she added, “Stay with her! I’ll get help!”

With that the orange pegasus filly dashed off on a new mission. Seemingly giving a nod of approval to the plan, Captain Cloud Wall joined Scootaloo in charging off into the next room.

The new room was as big as the last, but unlike the previous one this one was mostly empty. Off to the right there were a few small generators, and on the left side of the room were some water heaters, but aside from that the room was mostly empty space. Had Scootaloo been more astute she might noticed that the paneling on the back wasn’t quite the same as the other walls in the room, but as it stood Cloud Wall was the only new arrival to make that mental note.

Scootaloo’s eyes focused on the only pony in the room that truly mattered, the white pegasus mare with a royal blue mane, and a cutie mark of a light-blue cross surrounded by equally light-blue swirls. Oh and her dad was in the background fighting the griffin mastermind, but that didn’t matter right now. No, right now, only the mare with the royal guard’s colors and the shadow-ops vest adorned with medical supplies mattered.

The name of the mare in question was Lieutenant Soothing Mist or Misty, or something like that. Much like the other member of her dad’s team, Scootaloo had only met the mare once, even if she’d heard this mare’s name from her dad’s stories, so she wasn’t 100% sure she had the name right. Not that it mattered, seeing as they were in the middle of the mission, so names were not to be used anyway.

Unfortunately the lieutenant wasn’t alone and was trading punches and kicks with the last of the pegasus bandits from the museum raid.

Panic flooded through Scootaloo’s mind, she didn’t want to interrupt Lieutenant what’s-her-name’s mission, but she couldn’t leave her friend without medical attention any longer either. So she took a deep breath and shouted the one name that mattered.

“Medic!”

The youthful shout definitely got the mare’s attention. And as she looked to the source, the orange filly added, “My friend is hurt!”

With her opponent distracted the gray and red bandit lunged. The movement in the corner of her eye drew the medic’s attention back to the fight she was in, but too late to do anything about the hoof flying right at her. The clack of hoof on hoof echoed out as the bandit’s attack met with Cloud Wall’s hoof.

With both mares surprised by the stallion’s intervention he angled his head slightly toward the medic and calmly said, “Help the kid out. I got this.”

With a firm nod, the medic flapped her wings and retreated toward Scootaloo, who was more than eager to run back through the doorway and point to where her friends were.

As the medic landed by her friends, Scootaloo’s eyes were drawn to the very limb she’d used to point them out and the silver device attached to it. Looking over her shoulder, back into the final room, her eyes found their way to her father.

At the moment the orange stallion was dodging a blast of strange, white energy from the griffin’s rifle. Unlike pony firearms, which were usually built to be strapped to the body in some way, the griffin held his rifle with his talons, and braced its stock against his shoulder. Another easily spotted difference between the two design types was that while pony guns favored button triggers, the griffin’s rifle had a small lever-like trigger that allowed the weapon to be fired with little more than the squeeze of a single digit of their talon.

But what truly caught Scootaloo’s eye was the oddly familiar bolt of white energy that had come from the weapon. With her father having dodged the blast it sailed across the room and struck one of the griffin’s henchponies instead. The unfortunate pony grimaced as he started turning to stone, although by the time the process was complete he looked more annoyed than anything else.

So that’s what really happened. Scootaloo thought to herself, as her mind recreated her own memory of being turned to stone, only this time it played out in her mind with this griffin and rune-inscribed rifle instead of Diamond Tiara and a cockatrice.

With a sudden blitz, her father got in close and managed to wrench the rifle free from the griffin’s grasp, sending it tumbling to the floor. Not that getting in a brawl with a creature that had claws was much of an improvement, so Scootaloo’s father allowed the griffin to back out of melee range and settled for positioning himself between the griffin and the fallen magic rifle.

The griffin looked to his fallen weapon and then glared at the fiery stallion who had deprived him of it. “Well, I’d hoped to wait until I had two shadow crystals to power it before I tipped my cards. But one should be enough to take care of mere pegasi!”

With his treat uttered, the griffin reached for a small radio-like device on his belt and pushed the button on it. With that the wall at the back of the room began to open, revealing a large figure. It stood upright, twice as high as the average pony and had hands like those of a minotaur. As the doors continued to slide open and the light better fell on the figure, the dark sheen of its ebony steel armor became apparent for all to see. In fact, if not for the dark purple glow that seem to be coming from the eye slots in the helmet and the absence of a minotaur’s horns, Scootaloo might have assumed it was an armor-clad minotaur. But those two details kind of made her toss that assumption out the window.

“Come my war golem! Defend your master!” the griffin commanded the metal figure.

As the metallic monstrosity obeyed the command and stepped forward another detail could be seen. Within its chest plate was a dark crystal with an eerie purple glow. And just below that was an empty slot, clearly meant for a second shadow crystal.

Unsure whether to continue fighting the griffin or go after the dark magic imbued machine, Scootaloo’s father allowed his eyes to dart back and forth between the two choices. His instincts told him to fight the wielder, not the weapon, but weapons didn’t normally move on their own either.

His decision was greatly simplified when Cloud Wall darted past, flying right at the golem, while shouting, “I got it!”

With the other captain dealing with the golem, Scootaloo’s dad charged at the griffin.

The clang of hoof on steel rang out when Cloud Wall executed a flying kick against the golem’s head. The golem barely reacted to the strike, taking little more than a half step back to stay upright. Cloud grimaced in pain as his leg conceded that it wasn’t an unstoppable force, but that the golem was definitely an unmovable object. In addition to that, Cloud forgot to flap his wings for a moment. As he started to fall away, the golem lashed out and with the back of its hand knocked the pegasus away.

Even though the attack had been little more than a backhanded slap from the golem it sent Cloud Wall slamming into the wall just to Scootaloo’s right. A few last second flaps of his wings saved Cloud the trouble of a second hit from the floor. Shaking off the blow, he reached into one of his vest’s pockets and pulled out a puff of cloud.

“Let’s see how you like this,” Cloud Wall muttered.

Then setting it in the air in front of him, he coiled one of his front legs and thrust his hoof into the cloud puff. Thunder boomed as the lightning bolt flashed across the room, past the two still brawling in the middle of the room and striking the golem.

Electricity arched around the golem, but as it did so it changed color, from white to dark purple. Then the golem lifted its arm and pointed its open hand at Captain Cloud, and with that a bolt of purple lightning shot back at him.

A last second dodge kept the bolt from hitting Cloud Wall outright, but it still clipped his tail and hind legs, sending him twitching to the floor. “Okay… Maybe I don’t got it,” Cloud moaned.

Scootaloo took a few timid steps forward, leaving the safety of the doorway. With Cloud Wall struggling just to stand back up, he was in no condition to keep fighting, and a war golem lumbering toward her father, she wanted to help. But how could she? She was just a filly, not a trained warrior like the two stallions in the room. As her eyes fell helplessly to the floor the silver glisten of the device strapped to her leg seemed to speak to her, and the filly smiled as a plan formed in her mind.

Small orange wings came to life, not in an attempt to fly, but to allow the filly to stand upright easily, freeing up her front legs. Pointing her silver-clad hoof at the war golem, Scootaloo discovered two problems with her plan. First, her dad was between her and the golem. Second, her dad was the guardian of the device, so technically that made it his call as to whether she should fire or not. Fortunately she saw a way that both problems could be solved with the same action.

“Get out of the way!” Scootaloo shouted.

Two thoughts came to the orange stallion downrange as he glanced at the source of the shout. The first being, Oh, I did hear my daughter’s voice earlier. And the second thought was accompanied by his eyes going wide and was along the lines of, oh crud! Flapping his wings hard he turned and bolted for the fastest way out of the logical line of fire.

With his opponent fleeing for the wall ninety degrees off of where a filly was pointing a silver medical brace, the griffin was beyond confused. But with his rival fleeing like his life depended on it, the griffin figured it was best not to stand his ground, so he bolted in the opposite direction.

Scootaloo’s dad was out of the way now. And more importantly, Scootaloo had counted off a full second since her dad reacted to her and she had yet to hear him say anything like ‘No! Don’t!’ or ‘Wait!’ And since he hadn’t forbidden her clearly broadcast intention he might as well have commanded it.

Scootaloo pushed the small white button.

To Scootaloo everything before her became a wall of light, as the beam that came from the silver device was easily twenty feet across. The beam itself was made up of seven colors of light, pure white plus the six colors of the rainbow, weaving through each other like ethereal streamers blowing in the wind, yet contained in a clearly defined cylinder of their own light.

And as the beam rushed across the room it dug a trench in the floor before Scootaloo and even cut a small channel in the roof as it scraped the high overhead. The war golem vanished as the beam of prismatic light washed over it, seemingly unimpeded on its way. It took only a fraction of a second for the beam to reach the far wall and when it did it tore through said wall with an explosion that sent a shockwave through the room.

The shockwave rushed back through the room, tossing those caught in it like rag-dolls in a hurricane. Ironically enough the continued discharge from Scootaloo’s weapon cut through the shockwave, rendering the spot where she stood and the cone of space behind her to be the most shielded from the sudden torrent.

The wall itself crumbled instantly, revealing that this was the one wall of the basement that wasn’t actually underground. Around the edges of the massive hole in the wall it could be seen that the beam was now sailing freely across the wide valley. When the beam hit the mountainside on the far side of the valley a sphere of prismatic light began to grow at the point of impact.

Even though Scootaloo had only pushed the button down for a fraction of a second, the beam continued to flow from the weapon for at least a full second, maybe even two. When the discharge finally finished, the tail end of the beam rushed out across the valley and disappeared into the growing sphere of light. When the last of the beam had joined it the sphere suddenly pulsed outward in an even more massive explosion.

The prismatic explosion dissipated in a brilliant flash, leaving a massive crater in the mountainside. The shockwave from this explosion radiated outward, knocking over the nearby trees just beyond the edge of the flash itself. As the shockwave radiated outward it weakened enough to only make a visible line in the trees from rustling them as it rush outward, across the valley.

When the shockwave reached the bettered villa and rushed back into the basement through the hole in the wall, the room was blasted with another powerful gust. Thankfully by the time it reached the room it was weaker than the blast wave from the wall’s destruction, and only made manes and tails flap like flags on a windy day for a second or two. That and the gust forced Scootaloo into a sitting position to keep herself from falling over.

With the light show over the fate of the war golem could be seen. The top half was missing entirely, and what remained seemed to be a molten husk. With one noteworthy exception, the setting that held the shadow crystal seemed perfectly intact, sitting atop the sundered remains of the golem.

Not that Scootaloo noticed, as her eyes were still locked on the avalanche crashing into the crater in the distance beyond the golem.

“My… My war golem… How could-” the griffin began to ask, only to be interrupted by a white hoof to the back of his head.

“I’m pretty sure that’s classified,” Cloud Wall pointlessly answered the now unconscious griffin.

After Scootaloo’s father had picked himself up and dusted himself off, he noticed something that compelled him to walk toward the remains of the war golem.

“What are you doing?” Cloud Wall questioned his friend.

Drawing close to the shadow crystal, the orange stallion said, “Do you see this?”

Cloud joined his friend in looking into the shadow crystal. His eyes grew wide as he saw that among the swirling purple and black there was now a point of white light, like a lone star in the darkness.

“Shadow crystals don’t do that.”

“And yet this one is… I wonder,” Scootaloo’s father pondered aloud. Turning to his daughter, he said, “Hey Sport, come here and blast it again. This time from point-blank.”

The filly twitched as her mind remembered that there was more to life than watching an avalanche miles away, on the other side of the valley. Her mind wandered as it processed her father’s words. The crater was still the focus of her thoughts, namely the shear size of it. And although she was guessing, her immigration couldn’t help but to paint an image of her hometown in the crater, and then to imagine two more craters of that size overlapping with the rest of the town.

Slowly rotating her front right leg, Scootaloo finally looked away from the destruction outside, and gazed through the crystal, into the liquid rainbow indicator. She saw that about one seventh of the rainbow fuel had been used up in the shot, and her body locked up again as it dawned on her that the weapon strapped to her leg could destroy Ponyville twice over and still have a shot to spare.

A soft whistle, a waving orange hoof and the word ‘Sport?’ made Scootaloo shift her gaze back up, to the father now standing by her side. A part of her wanted to rip the weapon off of her leg, run away and find some corner to curl up in until she could forget that the world was a dangerous place. The part of her desperate to please her father and win back his full trust wanted to march up and do as he asked.

In the end she slowly raised a hoof, pointed to the silver weapon on her other front leg and said, “You want me to fire this-” Then pointing her hoof at the crystal no bigger than her own youthful hoof, she finished, “-at that?”

Even though her hoof pointed to the shadow crystal her eyes were focused much too far away to be looking at anything in the room. Following his daughter’s gaze, the destruction on the far side of the valley dawned on him. He blinked as he considered his next move. If his theory was right this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something truly good with the family secret, to finally give all these years of lies and secrecy meaning, a good meaning. Yet his daughter was right, firing it wasn’t exactly a low-key event. Were the risks worth it? What were the risks? They were… nothing.

“Yeah… we’ve already made a crater, I doubt anypony will notice if we make it bigger.”

The stallion placed a wing on his daughter’s back, gently pushing her forward, and though hesitant she let him lead her up to the side of the molten slag that used to be the war golem. Standing behind her, he wrapped one front leg around his daughter and placing his hoof on her chest he lifted her up, helping her stand upright. Looking over her shoulder, he found his daughter’s weapon arm unsteady, unable to keep on the target now less than a foot away. With the soft touch of his wing on her shoulder Scootaloo’s aim steadied, and with one last nudge he had her aiming through the shadow crystal, at the center of the crater on the other side of the valley.

“There, fire.”

Scootaloo swallowed hard, pushed the button, and once more beheld the beauty and destruction the weapon attached to her leg was capable of.

When the discharge had finished and the blast of wind had passed, the three ponies opened their eyes, and they saw that the last remnants of the war golem were gone. The shadow crystal that had once been a shape of an elongated cube was also gone. But in its place was a radiant white gem in the shape of a four-pointed star. The star-like gem hovered in the air for a moment and then fell to the ground.

Scootaloo’s dad stepped forward and reached out for the gemstone.

“What are you doing? Touching a shadow crystal is dangerous!” Captain Cloud Wall protested.

The orange stallion shook his head and answered, “Can’t you see it? It’s physically transformed. Can’t you feel it? The aura coming off of it isn’t menacing anymore. It’s comforting. I don’t think it’s a shadow crystal anymore.”

There was no denying the physical change, and stepping forward Cloud joined Scootaloo and her dad in feeling the difference in the very presence of the crystal. Cautiously Cloud Wall gave a small nod, as if to retract his complaint.

Scootaloo’s dad once more reached out and gave the crystal a quick tap. With nothing more than two stallions raising an eyebrow in response, he touched it again firmly this time. Then scooping the gem up he held it on top of his hoof and said, “You realize what this means right?”

Cloud Wall nodded. “It means the legends are wrong, and that shadow crystals can be purified.”