Ponyville Fire Department

by Rescue Sunstreak

5 - Breaking ground

Up early every morning as always, Rescue found it hard to believe a week had passed already since his meeting with Luna the night of the party.

Of course everypony knew him now, and he liked that. The Apples had pushed for him to come out to the farm and have a meal, and last night he shared dinner with them. He had been introduced to the matriarch of the Apples, Granny Smith. He had known older ponies before, but that one, while frail in body, was sharp as a blade in mind. He had taken an instant like to her. After dinner, Big Mac had quietly talked with Rescue out near the barn. He had expressed interest in signing up to become a volunteer firefighter as long as the schedule did not interfere with his family's farm.

It would be good to have another draft pony on the team, as the big heavy wagons required more than just raw strength to pull. One had to have control, and the understanding that five hundred gallons of water did not like to turn street corners without a fight. He had of course agreed to give the stocky apple pony a chance once the time was right.

Today he was doing what he did every morning: jogging. He was outfitted with heavy weights strapped around his hooves, and across his back lay a heavy canvas saddle bag loaded down with stones from the river. He had plotted out a good path to run on his second morning. The one he was on took him out of the village, to Sweet Apple Acres fence line, then down along it to a road, that in turn took him along the edge of the Everfree forest past Miss Fluttershy’s house. She was always up the same early time to feed her critters and always had a wave and a hello for him as he jogged past.

Huffing hard, thick transparent sweat formed on his flanks and barrel, dripping down his neck and beading up on his forehead. He gave a little half nicker and brought himself to a stop from the walking trot he was at the last two hundred yards, shrugging off the saddle bag and sitting down there before the boarding house. While he started to pull off the weights from his hooves with his mouth, he did not hear the bubblegum-colored pony come up near him.

“Good morning, Chiefy!”

Groaning inside his head, he put a smile on, dropping the last weight on top of the bags to dry. “Good morning, Pinkie,” remembering to call her by her first name. How that mare had so much energy that she always was bouncing up and down was anypony’s guess.

“Mrs. Cake sent me over to give you this!”

Out of nowhere she produced a bag, he could smell the fresh muffins inside and his eyes sparkled.

“She did not need to, but thank you Pinkie. Please tell Mrs. Cake I said thank you too.”

The pink party pony just gave a laugh. “Silly willy, of course she doesn’t need to. Just that her and Mr. Cake are so thankful for what you did for Big Mac at the party.”

Laying his ears back “Pinkie, I understand. But, could you explain to everypony I was just doing my job. The same job I would for everypony in need,” then he paused.

“Pinkie, perhaps you could help spread the word. I will be putting up fliers in the square in a few days. I am going to hold a class on how to do the Heimlich maneuver, as well as basic CPR and first aid. I would sure like to see parents like Mr. and Mrs. Cake there as well.”

She lit up with a smile. “Oh you got it Chiefy weefy,” and off she bounced.

Shaking his head. “That mare scares me,” turning to trot into the boarding house and shower before his meeting with the construction workers to lay out the foundation of the station.

An hour passed, and he stood with a stallion that was just an inch shorter than himself looking out at the lot. The table before them had the plans unrolled and held down with a couple of stones to prevent from flying away in the breeze. The big brick colored stallion next to him bore the cutie mark of a brick with a trowel half on top of it. The pony’s name was Red Brick, but he had already made it clear to Rescue he wanted to be called Red.

“So, Red, what do you think?” Rescue asked, looking over at him.

A thick Lower Manehattan accent came from the tan stallion. “I don’t see no problem, big job however. I am going to need ten ponies on this, plus another five once we get the walls up past the foundation work.”

Rescue frowned and thought about the budget. Looking out at the field, they had spent all morning laying out string and stakes to mark out the whole foundation. You could see where the big squad bay would be, the stairs up to the crew bay and sleeping quarters, the storage rooms, the locker room and showers. They had even laid out the area out back where the water tower, challenge tower, and stone burn building would go.

“Red, I can accept ten, the extra five, well, I don’t have that kind of money. How about we call it ten, plus two more, and I give you a extra week on the time schedule? I can push the framers up a few days, and that should do it.”

Red eyed the stallion at his side a moment then looked back out at all the stakes and then down at the plans. “Yous got yourself a deal there, Chief,” and turned lifting his hoof up he spat in the frog.

Rescue did the same and then clopped his hoof to the others. “Thank you for working with me on this, Red.”

---

“Okay yous guys, we got ourselves a job, a big one. One that is gonna make us look good, and we are doing something special for Ponyville."

Red looked over the crew he had pulled in. For this afternoon they just needed to start pulling weeds up, and getting the larger stones in the lot out of the way to get things ready before having the foundation trenches dug. He had four earth ponies, two unicorns, and two pegasus ponies. Of the last two, one of them was rather unique. He had large wings, much larger than most pegasus had. It didn’t make him good for speed, but he was plenty able to lift a ton in a harness. Ailan Sempar, he had worked with the big lifter before and never been let down by his work ethics.

“Ailan, you and Granite team up, start working on that big bastard there.”

Pointing the earth pony and pegasus to the huge boulder smack dab where the showers will be. He pointed to one of the unicorns.

“Point Break, you will help them once you get the ground burned down and cleaned up.”

The unicorn with the stone cracked in half and flames coming out of it gave a gentle nod. “Sure thing, boss.”

Watching as the earth pony helped the pegasus into his lift harness, Red gave a nod, observing the time each took to go over every strap and every buckle. It would not do to have an accident, a improperly worn harness could cause a stone to fall, or worse still cause the pegasus to crash down into the ground under full load.

Unnoticed by the whole crew was a green eyed dark brown stallion, standing over near Colgate's pharmacy. For that moment, he could not rip his eyes away from watching the tan stallion spread out his wings. Giving a slight gasp, he had never seen wings that large before, they rivaled even Luna’s wing span! He felt a blush creep into his face, before ripping his eyes away and turning, trotting away back to the group going to work, he muttered to himself and flattening his ears.

“Quit dreaming, he ain’t broken like me and even if he was... No, stop thinking like that, he ain’t.”

Jaw set in a frown, head down, he found himself a spot well out of the way in an alley. Banging his head into the wall once, lightly.

“Stop thinking about it, you are normal!” he growled at himself.

Author's Note:

WOW, two chapters in under a week. I don't know if I can keep this pace up but we will see. The chapters are just racing to get out of my head now.

Comments

[Nightspawn]

“Point Break, you will help them once you get the ground burned down and cleaned up.”

I bet he's got a mean swing...