PONYVERSE

by TopWanted

Infiltration

Infiltration

/^(*vv*)^\

Flutterbat and Rarity stood by themselves on the observation deck. After a brief argument about the stupidity of Rarity’s plan she wore her down with the addendum that Rarity should take a back-up. The first to volunteer was Mare Do-Well and Applejack since they were the most skilled in stealth, but Rarity had other ideas. “We need to find Suntrix fast. For that I’m going to need a tracker.” Thus the two now stood in wait to be transported.

Flutterbat agreed to the mission without question but Rainbow found it a little worrying. She went up to her as Rarity prepared her spell. “Are you sure about this? I can probably go instead. I’m fast enough that finding her would be a snap.” Flutterbat nodded with a smile, telling her she wanted to do this. Rainbow nodded as well. “Alright. If you’re sure. Just come back safe.”

Rarity finished her spell, a cloud of white enveloping her and emerging as her normal pony self. Pinkie walked up to her. “Rarity of this world lives in Manehattan since that’s her domain. I’ll send you as close to there as I can.” She bit her lip and looked off to the side.

“What is it?” Rarity asked.

“It’s… um… This Rarity has a… let’s say… bit of a stranger fashion sense than you. Just so you know.”

Rarity waved a hoof in dismissal. “Oh, darling, if she’s me then I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that.”

“I’m just warning you. Be prepared.” Flutterbat returned to Rarity’s side and Pinkie stood between them and handed Rarity a small round device with a “PP” on it. “I’m going to just drop you two off and get back here before somepony notices me. That’s a Power Ponies signal watch. It should give me your location on the computer when you’re ready to be picked up.” She paused and Flutterbat saw a hint of doubt edging in. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Flutterbat and Rarity smiled. “As long as your safe, that’s all that matters,” Rarity said. Flutterbat’s smile faded and she looked at Rarity. This was the first time she was this close to her. Her words. Something in them made her animal instincts yell. She decided she would have to keep a close eye on her.

“Then let’s go!” Pinkie shouted as she grabbed the two of them and began to vibrate. A sonic boom echoed out around them and before she knew it, Flutterbat saw that they were in a deserted alleyway. Pinkie let go of the two and took a few breaths. “Sorry. Specific transportation takes a bit of a toll.”

The three peeked their heads out of the alley. The city was a big metropolis and yet the sidewalks and roads were close to empty. There were some pedestrians but each one kept to themselves, their heads down and what appeared to be orange uniforms on them. Flutterbat saw Rarity wince. “Ugh, that color does not go well with a lot of things.”

Pinkie gave Rarity another furtively worried glance. She pointed to a tall skyscraper with banners depicting a sun draped down the sides. “Rarity should be there. Top floor.” The sound of hooves marching in sync came from down the street and Pinkie backed up into the alley. “I need to go now. Remember the watch! Find Suntrix and I’ll get you out as soon as possible!” Then in another sonic boom she was gone. The sound of marching stopped and then quickened its pace in their direction.

Rarity deadpanned. “In hindsight, maybe she should have done that when we were further away.” Flutterbat acted fast and scooped up Rarity flapping her wings and carrying her to the top of the building they were near. “Whew, thank you, darling.” She looked over the edge to see a bunch of ponies in black body armor and batons run into the alley and search it. The pegasi among them began to search the walls. “We’d better keep moving.”

The two flew as inconspicuously as they could until they reached the skyscraper. Rarity rubbed her hooves together as she wondered how to approach this. “It can’t be as easy as walking through the door, can it?” Flutterbat shrugged. “Either way we should probably do something about your… ahem, look.”

Rarity’s horn began to glow and a wave of magic washed over Flutterbat. After a moment passed she was now a light green normal looking Pegasus. She gave Rarity a questioning look. “I may be able to pull off myself but it’s probably best if we didn’t tempt fate with you, darling.”

A few minutes later they were on the ground. Rarity gave Flutterbat a warning look. “Now just keep quiet and follow my lead.” The two walked toward the door. Flutterbat was completely calm, figuring if anything happened she could just screech and get away. But Rarity seemed less in control. Flutterbat could smell the nervous sweat on her.

A doorpony waited at the gate to the tower, straightening up as Rarity approached. She straightened herself and walked right on through, Flutterbat in her disguise following close behind. “Hold on,” the doorpony said, then hesitantly adding a “ma’am.”

Rarity froze, seemingly too afraid to turn around. “Um, apologies, your fabulousness. But you’re not wearing your dress?”

Flutterbat could hear Rarity’s heart beat and she prepared to act in case something happened. Then the white unicorn turned around with a haughty look of indifference. “It got wet so I must return for another. Do you expect me to walk around in anything less than stunning?” She added a slight sneered curl to her lip at the end. Very nice, thought Flutterbat.

“N-No, ma’am!” the doorpony shouted with a salute.

A few minutes later and one elevator ride, which Flutterbat found simply amazing, they were at the top. “Okay,” Rarity muttered to her. “Who knows what we’ll be facing in there. There could be servants. Guards. Soldiers. Who knows, maybe even high society folk. Regardless let’s be on our toes.” Flutterbat nodded. The doors opened to reveal the other Rarity’s penthouse and the two stepped inside, Rarity’s mouth falling open. “Oh no! It’s worse than I thought!” Before them hung an enormous portrait of Rarity only with a very garish and clashing dress made with an orange vest and green frills for the skirt. “I look like I just took a bath in seaweed!”

Flutterbat rolled her eyes.

===E8DB

Rainbow sat by the computer terminal tapping her hoof. “How much longer do you think this is going to take?”

Mare Do-Well sat with her eyes closed on the ground in some kind of meditative pose. “This isn’t a snatch and grab. What they’re doing takes time. It could be another few days. Maybe even a week.”

“A week!” Rainbow shouted. “You think Flutterbat can handle herself for a week?”

“Flutterbat’s proven that she can be calm when confronted with danger,” Applejack interjected as she cut away at some paper in her seat by the big round table. “Just have a little faith, Rainbow.”

Rainbow stopped tapping and took a deep breath. They were right. She was disregarding her friend’s abilities. Flutterbat was nothing like Fluttershy. She wouldn’t fall or be coerced by anything unseemly or evil. As far as she’d known the bat winged pony, she had been nothing but brave and bold. A far cry from the Fluttershy she knew. Then why did Fluttershy change so much, she found herself thinking.

She shook her head as she freed herself from that line of thought. Pinkie sat by the computer terminal with her, another look of worried anticipation on her face. She considered trying to talk to the mare since she was probably the one, besides Flutterbat, she had gotten to know the most since coming here. But something about what Applejack was doing caught her eye.

“So what are you doing?” she asked as she walked up to her.

Applejack looked up in surprise. “Oh, well, Ah’m makin’ a paper doll.” She lifted the craft she had made and showed it to her. It was cut in the shape of a pony with ink lines on its face for expression. It looked kind of sad, yet still had this elegance and beauty to it.

“That’s really nice,” she praised. “Is that something you learned back home?” She paused as she thought she had tripped up and made a faux pa. They had all known each other for a month now yet none seemed to talk about home, especially Applejack. The samurai simply nodded though.

“Yeah. In fact, Ah learned it from Fluttershy. Back home she was a great ally to me and showed me all kinds of techniques for fightin’ things Ah couldn’t understand.”

“So she was brave like Flutterbat?”

Applejack smiled. “Ah wouldn’t say that. She was still a bit timid at times. The only reason she knew those things was cause of her background. Nature vs. Nurture and all that, Ah guess.”

“Yeah… yeah.”

Suddenly Pinkie cried out in pain. Everypony dropped what they were doing and rushed to her side as she fell on the ground beginning to convulse. “Pinkie!” Rainbow shouted trying to grab her, but her hoof seemed to phase right through.

“AAAAAaaaaHHH!” Pinkie shouted as her body began to fade in out of existence.

“No!” Mare Do-Well shouted as she grabbed onto Pinkie when she was solid. Rainbow and Applejack managed to hold her as well just as Pinkie’s body finally shifted and disappeared, along with everypony in the Veloci-Lair.

A sonic boom echoed out from their location and the four ponies slumped on top of each other. Rainbow wearily lifted her head and looked around. Their surroundings had changed to an open field. In the far distance past a hill she could make out lights approaching them. “What in the hell happened?” Applejack asked as she came to.

Mare Do-Well lifted herself as well and tried to rouse Pinkie to no avail. “She’s out cold.”

“Ah think Ah’d rather be her right now.” Rainbow looked up to see what Applejack was talking about only to see that those lights on the hill were closer than she’d thought. Black armored ponies with a symbol of a sun on their shoulders marched stalwartly toward them.

“We need to get out of here!” Mare Do-Well shouted. Even she couldn’t take on that many.

She and Mare Do-Well grabbed Pinkie by the shoulders and began to drag her away, Applejack in front. Suddenly she stopped. “Looks like we got even more trouble,” she muttered.

In front of them was an equally large platoon of armored ponies. Rainbow and Mare Do-Well skidded to a halt, the latter cursing to herself. “What now?” she asked.

The two platoons surrounded them and raised their spears toward them in a circle. “The most logical course of action would be to surrender,” Mare Do-Well said.

A grin crept up Rainbow’s face as she turned to her. “Yeah, and what are we going to do?”

For a moment she thought she saw Mare Do-Well smile under her mask. “Kick as much flank as we can before they take us.”

Rainbow pounded her hooves together and cracked her neck. “Now we’re talking!”

Applejack sighed. “You two must be the most downright thick-headed ponies Ah ever met.” She pulled her katana from her scabbard and brandished it in her mouth. “But Ah guess you’re better than goin’ down alone.”

Mare Do-Well pulled out her shuriken and got into a battle stance as well. The moment seemed to freeze as the three faced off against the insurmountable odds. Rainbow took in a breath to do a battle cry but a voice cut her off. “FIRE!!”

From far off the sound of something like a firework could be heard. Several of the armored ponies turned around to see a spout of flame shoot up from the tree line not too far. A glowing projectile shot into the sky as everypony seemed to follow its trail. Mare Do-Well was the first to react. “Get down!”

She pushed Rainbow and Applejack down as the projectile completed its arc and fell fast towards the crowd of armored ponies. Some reacted but not enough as the glowing shell hit the ground and exploded on impact sending a bunch of them flying. Other rockets soon followed and the tight circle trap the armored ponies had made fell apart as they tried to respond or run.

Rainbow kept her head down as Mare Do-Well said but looked up to see the carnage around them. Far off by a set of bushes a face popped out. It wore a scarf around its mouth and goggles that hid its face. The face nodded its head, telling her to come over there.

“Hey guys,” she nudged the others who looked up as well. They saw the face who was now blatantly waving its hoof to tell them to come over. “We should go.”

“Probably better than right here,” Mare Do-Well agreed.

They began to crawl and drag Pinkie’s unconscious body behind them, staying out of sight of the confused and scattering soldiers. When they finally made it to the bushes the masked pony was already in a hole beneath it. It lifted a small disguised lid, ushering them to enter after it.

“We sure this is safe?” Applejack asked.

“They’re not trying to kill us yet,” Mare Do-Well said. She didn’t entirely find that thought comforting.

Rainbow was the last to enter as she pulled the lid closed behind her. Immediately all sounds of shouting or cries ceased as if the lid was soundproofed. They followed the hole down a set of ladders and dropped into what appeared to be a series of underground tunnels. Rainbow dropped down last to join her friends who were confused seeing as their savior was nowhere to be seen. “Hey, where’d she-”

Mare Do-Well moved too fast for her to see but the superhero swung her hoof in the air and somehow wrapped it around a pony. It was the same one that had helped them. Three others seemed to appear out of thin air as if pulling off some kind of invisible cloak. Except these ones wore armbands with a crescent moon on them. “Damn, you’re fast,” the pony in her arm lock squeaked out.

“You’ve all got five seconds to explain what’s going on,” Mare Do-Well shouted. “Five! Four! Three! Two!”

“STOP!” One of the masked ponies removed her mask to reveal a pink unicorn with a purple two toned mane. “We just need to be sure that you’re you!”

“What does that mean?” Rainbow asked indignantly.

“You do look like the Elements of Disharmony, can you blame us for being cautious?”

“Disharmony?” Applejack asked.

The pony reached into a satchel by her side and pulled out a small stone saucer filled with a greenish mud. “Put this on your skin.”

“And if we don’t?” Mare Do-Well asked keeping her arm lock on the pony.

“Then we’ll have nothing more to discuss.” Rainbow felt a cold shiver at those words. “So who’s first?”

Applejack and Mare Do-Well seemed apprehensive, but Rainbow couldn’t help but feel that these ponies meant them no harm. “I’ll do it.”

She took a dollop from her and slapped it over her wrist. The mud immediately began to glow. All the ponies in masks took a huge breath of relief. “Will you two try it now?”

The others reluctantly took the mud and the same glow appeared for them. “So what is this stuff?” Rainbow asked as she slapped some on Pinkie.

Before the pink unicorn could answer Mare Do-Well spoke. “Revealing Magic. Some kind of concoction used to reveal traitorous intent?”

“Close,” the unicorn replied. “It was developed by a witch doctor to be a revealer, but it has a strange side effect for ponies from outside our reality.”

“So how does getting it to glow make us trustworthy?” Rainbow asked.

“As I said, it proves you’re not who we feared you were. That’s good enough for us. Now come on, our leader’s expecting you.”

“Leader?”

She turned around and began to walk. “Come on, she’s been expecting you.”

Mare Do-Well let go of her hostage who coughed a little but mostly seemed floored by her coolness as he asked for her autograph. The other two ponies with them volunteered to carry Pinkie, Rainbow staying between them and the others to keep a close eye on them.

They walked down a long tunnel dimly lit with glowing subterranean rocks carved into moon and star shapes. As they went deeper they began to pass other creatures as well. Dragons, diamond dogs, and even a few griffins.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but how long are we gonna be here before you explain what’s goin’ on?” AJ asked.

“The leader will explain it a lot better than I could.”

“And just who is this leader?” Mare Do-Well asked.

Something about all this had been nagging at Rainbow. The moon symbol on the masked ponies. The sun symbol on those armored ones. Not to mention the fact that despite the ample amount of light in these tunnels it kept feeling like darkness was encroaching more and more. Her eyes widened in realization. “Guys, I don’t think we want to be here!”

Before she could explain the unicorn pulled back a curtain into a large round stone room with a table in the center. Ponies sat around it in similar uniforms as her, all except one that stood quite a few heads higher than the rest. “Alright, ponies. Meet the leader of the resistance.”

She was about as tall as princess Celestia with a coat as dark as hers was white. Her mane was an ethereal blue that twinkled like the night sky. She would also have the royal air of the princess around her if not for the fact her horn was made of metal and her wings were shredded. They seemed to be patch up jobs in an attempt to hide scars that appeared all over the alicorn’s body. Her wings were especially terrifying to look at since the feathers were ripped off revealing skeletal appendages. The patches made here were of some kind of stretchable leathery tarp wrapped around her wings that gave them a bat like appearance more than a Pegasus. She raised her head to the four and seemed to look down on them. Rainbow grit her teeth. “Nightmare Moon.”

Comments

[raven618]

Dun-dun-duuuuuuuuwait wasn't she killed?