(21) Rescue Mission
To say that breakfast after that was awkward, would be an understatement. Twilight found her eyes constantly drawn to both Applejack and Rainbow Dash. The purple princess meticulously watching everything the pair has done since she first saw Rainbow leaving Applejack’s room. It was… extremely enjoyable. Twilight kept on watching Rainbow’s eyes shift between Twilight’s smug grin and Applejack’s lighthearted smile every few seconds, Twilight, giving said smug grin at the rainbow maned pegasus and the there was Applejack, oblivious to what was going on, more focused in on the other situation. If times were different, if they were better, she might have enjoyed teasing her friends about being together. But… Twilight sighed, ‘this is not the time.’ Twilight’s smile faded.
The Princess sighed as she turned her back to her friends and walked towards her former students. They were all talking in a circle around Gallus, trying to pry more information out of the blue recruit. Yona, in particular, grabbed him in her front hooves and began to shake him violently.
“YONA WANTS TO GO HELP, Gallus will tell friends everything now!”
‘Well,’ Twilight thought as she sighed, ‘I guess some things never really change,’ Twilight recalled the many outbursts that Yona had during her time as a student at her school. “Yona,” Twilight butt in, gaining the yak’s attention, “Maybe put Gallus down, then he’ll be able to tell us?” Twilight suggested.
The yak begrudgingly put the blue Griffon down with a huff. “Yeah, maybe next time you can try to tickle him until he finally gives,” Smolder chuckled at Gallus, who was wobbling around after Yona let him go. Gallus, after recovering from nearly throwing up, glared at the orange dragoness. “What? Ticklish much, I remember what you and S-” She caught Gallus’s glare, “Uh… never mind.”
“Yes, Never mind,” he turned to Twilight, “We were all just about to head to the hospital to see Silverstream after her parents.” He told the princess. “Then… well…” he rubbed the back of his golden helmet.
“After Yona figures out where Sandbar is, Yona is going to get him!” The yak exclaimed.
“That might be a bit hard for you, Yona,” Ocellus said, walking up to her yak friend before turning to Gallus, “Silverstream said she was under a city?” Gallus nodded.
“Yes, and she washed up on a beach.”
Smolder walked up in her right, trying to follow what her friend was saying. “So… a coastal city?” Smolder asked.
“Yes, coastal, the ocean. Why else do you think she asked Sandbar to go with her?” She asked the group.
Twilight knew where this was heading, “Because she can turn him into a sea pony…” Twilight answered, “I’ll send a letter to Queen Novo asking for some seapony volunteers… and I guess I’ll have to tell her about… Terramar…” She shivered at the thought, ‘To lose somepony so close to you…’ she thought about if one of her friends were killed or turned into some sort of zompony, she shivered again, ‘No. it’s not going to happen. I won’t let it.’
Twilight stiffened and sighed, “The girls and I will help you in any way we can,” she pivoted off to another subject, “Is there… anything else, that you need?” She asked her former students, “A boat maybe?”
“I don’t think so…” Gallus said rubbing his chin with a talon, “I think we just need to talk with Silverstream and see where she and Sandbar were.” Gallus suddenly turned to look at Smolder, who was looking at Gallus accusingly.
“What?” Gallus asked, “What did I do?”
“Gallus,” Smolder said, she crossed her arms.
“Yeah?”
“We can’t breathe underwater,” she turned to the Princess, “Got anything for that?”
“AHHHHHHHHHH-!”
The scream practically shook Luna to the core. And she knew who it had to be. ‘Cadance…’ She ran.. ran as fast as she could, using her horn to push the thick mist out of the way. The Lunar Alicorn tried to retrace her steps back to their campsite, but she found it increasingly harder to focus. But she continued to push on, trying to find her bearings in the increasingly fogged-up facility. ‘Maybe this infernal mist was what they were containing here,’ she walked towards what was probably the fifth door she checked.
Luna’s magical reserves were dangerously low. She had wasted much of it breaking down that metal door. At best, she had a fifth of her magic. ‘It will have to be enough,’ Luna stiffened as she prepared to fight. Her magic grasped the door. She breathed in.
And ou- a cough ripped through her lungs. One that brought tears to her eyes. She shook her head as she tried to regain focus on her magic. As she finally brought her head back up, she saw the door before her, opened up. And two figures moved towards her. Two bipedal dark figures. ‘Humans…’
She bared her teeth, and lit her horn, intent on attacking the two approaching forms first. But another series of coughs ripped through her body, forcing her down. “Get her inside!” Another Human, this one was inside the room, ordered. The two humans, both wearing their strange masks, closed in on the Lunar Princess.
‘I won’t let some meager cold bring me down!’ Luna told herself. She lit her horn and fired off a blast of blue magic, knocking the humans back into the wall. She sprung back up and burst into the room.
Her eyes quickly scanned the room. Three of her guards lay on the ground, blood pooling around their helmets. Cadance was nowhere to be seen, and she saw more discarded night guard armor everywhere else, strewn about. There were spears and swords, her guard’s weapons, on the tables, on the ground, and next to the discarded armor. “Murderers!” She bellowed as she saw four other humans standing about the room, their strange weapons resting at their sides. “You’ll pay for what you-“ she stifled another cough, “For what you did!” She charged her horn, intent on incinerating them all in one swoop.
Three of the humans raised their weapons, but one, she assumed it to be the leader, stepped in between them and her. He instead raised his hand at his subordinates. “Wait!” He yelled, his soldiers kept their weapons up, but did not fire at her. Luna kept her horn charged and kept her eyes on their leader. Her eyes focused on the human.
“Is that all you have to say, beast?” She asked mockingly, “To wait?” She kept her horn trainer on him.
“No, I just think you don’t understand the gravity of the situation.” His voice was muffled by the mask, but she could understand it well enough. “This mist…”
“What, you think I am afraid of some-“ *cough* “light fog?” One of her ears twitched.
Even with his mask on, she could feel the human smirk. “Light fog?!” He laughed. He actually laughed at her. “That is no light fog.”
“Then pray tell, what is it human?” She coughed again, feeling nauseous and sick. She breathed in and felt dizzy, off-balance. “Some sort of sickness, perhaps?”
“Something like that,” he replied, “And, well…” he chuckled again. “Your whole troupe got it, ya know. You too if I had to bet,,” Luna growled at the human, “And-“ something caught his vision, off to Luna’s right. “Corporal Rose, take care of that please.”
One of the humans put up her main weapon and pulled out something else, ‘the smaller weapon they used on Sunburst…’ she identified. ‘But what…?’ Her head turned to the corpses of her ponies. ‘Or… not?’
One of them was getting up, but he was off, there was something missing in his eyes. They used to be bright, lively, but now… now they were grey. “Soldier…?” She tentatively asked. Her voice was hoarse. He turned his head away, toward the approaching human. There was a hole in the guards head, blood and other matter was oozing out of the small circular hole. Luna could only watch with wide eyes as the human placed the weapon against the guard’s head and fired the weapon. Sending more blood and viscera onto the ground. “What...how…?” She coughed again, sending her to the ground with a groan and breaking her concentration. She groaned in pain as Luna felt her stomach lurch. When her eyes reopened, she realized that she had just coughed up blood. It stained the ground at her forehooves.
Her hooves refused to function. Her brain refused to think. She was stuck, paralyzed. Her eyes continually roamed along the crimson edges of her own blood. Luna only began to breathe again as she began to pass out. When she finally began to function again, her mind reeled ‘Did I… what have I…’
She looked up, the human leader waved its hand at her. “Hmm… don’t worry, we’ll take good care of you.” He looked past her, “If you would, captain.” She barely had time to look back. Another human had snuck up behind her and had raised something over her head. She hung her head, closed her eyes, and waited.
“I take it back, I hate it,” Smolder said as she swam even further down, “This bubble thing is so… weird.” She kept swimming downwards, right behind the seapony guards, and right next to her friends. ‘Seriously, how does this thing even have enough oxygen?!’ Then she got the chills, “and It's freezing down here!”
Ocellus swam up to her left, “Oh come on Smolder, you’re a dragon, you can…” she waved with her fin, “breathe fire and all that, can’t you just do it internally.”
“Yeah, if I want to cook myself,” she shot back.
Gallus spoke up to her right, “Tell me about it, my Sergeant is going to kill me if I get back smelling like the fish,” the five seapony guards all stopped and glared at the blue griffon, “Uh… no offense?” Their leader, waved them all back to him.
He looked around at all the sand, “And it’s going to take me forever to get all the sand out of my fur…” he groaned.
The orange dragoness turned to Ocellus, Ignoring Gallus, “Silver said it was this way, right?”
“Yes,” The Changeling replied, “I just hope that we’re not too late. He’s must be exhausted.”
“If he can breathe…” Smolder added pessimistically.
Gallus was about to chastise or hit her, if it were not for one of the Seapony guards putting a fin up, “It’s this way,” He said, “I can taste the blood in the water.”
‘Did you really have to add that last part?!’ Gallus thought. Before he could raise a talon to what the seapony guard just said, both Smolder and Ocellus followed the guards’ light into the cave. ‘Oh this is going to be fuuuuun,’ he stewed as he swam behind them, ‘I thought we were supposed to be careful.’ He sighed, ‘At least we were able to convince Yona to stay with Silver, I don’t think I would’ve been able to keep a straight face with her falling to the seafloor.’ He visualized the thought, and stifled a laugh, ‘Stay focused Gallus; We go in and get Sandbar, and we get out.’
With the light of the sea lanterns, Gallus idly looked at the stone of the cave walls. He watched, and as he and the group of progressed through the cave, as the ragged and grey walls flattened out into a moldy and flat black. ‘We must be a mile in,’ Gallus thought, ‘Have they not…’ He glanced at Smolder and Ocellus.
Smolder had her claw on a sword that the local Royal Guard Garrison had loaned her. He could see that her arms were shaking, a sign of nervousness, something he rarely ever saw from the Orange dragoness.
His eyes shifted to Ocellus. His Changeling friend was always cool under pressure, always has a solution or an answer to any situation. He looked at her face’s expression whenever she glanced back at Gallus or their changing surroundings. She was scared.
Gallus looked back at the now completely flattened cave walls. They were dry recently, he looked down at the ground, there were less mold and fungus than he had observed earlier. ‘If what Silverstream said to us was true… we should be getting close.’ He looked at the wall, alongside the various doors, there were holes. Small and circular holes.
Luna was rocking, or being rocked. She could feel the vibrations rocking her body. Like some sort of massage, or a moderately violent train ride. ‘I wasn’t on a train…’ Luna thought as she struggled to remain asleep, ‘We were… in the north, it was a long flight, we all must be resting…’ Concern wrapped her mind, ‘I don’t… remember going to sleep.’ Her face scrunched up as she began to stir.
When she opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed that she was not in the base anymore. She was in some sort of non-circular tube. The next thing she noticed was that there were a number of her Nightguard around her, all stripped of their weapons and armor. The last thing she noticed was that there was this loud… sound. It was like some pegasus was constantly slamming wind against the walls of Canterlot Castle.
“She’s awake,” one of the Nightguard, a corporal Pitch Black, whispered to somepony outside of her peripheral vision. She blinked several times as she attempted to wake up, but it was like she had received a direct blast to the face. Pitch turned to his left, Luna’s neck followed. The Lunar Alicorn saw two of her Sergeants, Bright Night and Dark Shield, appear. She opened to her mouth to what had transpired, but all that came out was a croak. Just, how long had she been out?
Bright Night looked off and asked, “May we have some water?”
“Sure, I guess.” A gruff voice replied. She saw a metal canteen pass into her hoof.
Dark Shield looked at Pitch, “Thanks Corporal, you can get some rest.” He nodded. Luna looked at the corporal. ‘He must be on some sort of watch,’ She attempted to get up as the Stallion walked away.
“Whoa,” Both Bright Night and Dark Shield loomed over her, Bright Night tried to push her back down, albeit with little effect, “Take it, easy Princess, you’re going to be a bit… woozy for a while.” The Sergeant said as Luna got up into a sitting position. She offered the Princess the Canteen of water, “Don’t use your magic,” Bright Night cautioned. Luna took the canteen from Bright Night with her forehooves and drank from it greedily.
AS she brought it back down, she saw several humans all arrayed on the floor and benches, sleeping. With one looking at her and holding its weapon. She gulped down the last of the water and was prepared to fight, but. ‘If they wished to hurt us, then they would’ve done so already…’ She turned to her sergeants. She could see the nervousness on their faces. “Where is… everypony else?” She asked, “And what happened?”
Dark Shield sighed as she began to explain, “Princess Cadance and Sergeant Stone’s team, along with what’s left of Time Wise’s team…” Luna felt her stomach clench, “are in a different one of…” She gestured around with her hoof, “these.”
“As to what happened,” Bright Night said, “there’s a lot to go through.”
Luna looked back at the lone human still standing, who eyed her back. “We… I believe we have more pressing issues… where is your armor, your weapons?” Luna asked.
“They… um… made us leave it all behind,” Dark answered, “They told us it was contaminated and we had to leave it all behind.”
“Yeah, apparently there was a very good reason as to why they abandoned the place,” Bright Night commented, “We really stirred up the hornet's nest apparently.”
“How many did we lose?” Luna asked Grimly, “I… saw Time Wise… am I correct in assuming it is some sort of Zompony virus?”
“Yeah…” Dark rubbed the back of her neck, “You are… as to how many we lost. Three including Time Wise.” Luna felt a pang of guilt. ‘If only I had not been so… rash… they might still be here…’ the guilt began to build up in her.
Luna stiffened up, ‘Its my fault… if we had just stayed… if I had not been so rash….’ her mind repeated. “I’ll need…” she paused, “Is there any way I can speak to their leader?”
Colonel Nye was in the cockpit of his currently grounded helicopter. The snowstorm had made it impossible to take off, but the communications were still coming through, just barely. If only they could be coming through a bit faster.
“No Operator,” Nye was once again reiterated, “We are still downed, whoever you have on your scope, it is not us…” he paused, “I say again, it is not us, over.” The operator on the other end had a hard time understanding what he was saying.
“Say again Colonel, did you say that- *bzzzzzzt* -ot on approach? Over”
“Affirmative Operator.” He sighed. Technically, this was the pilot’s job, but the pilot had long since stopped trying to repeat herself. “We’re not inbound, over,” he repeated, trying to cut down on words that could cause confusion.
“Okay,” the man on the radio replied, “You are -ot inbound, over” Nye sighed with sweet relief. “Then these choppers must be…” there was confusion in his voice, “Hey, sir,” Nye could tell he was speaking to his superior, “I can’t identify the type of helicopter these two are.” A pause, “Uh Huh… yeah, it isn’t-*bzzzzzt* What was tha- *bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt*”
Nye kept listening in on the radio, “Hey, operator?” He asked.
Static.
“You there?”
Static.
“Anyone?”
3 hours before…
Commander Shawns has received the mission report, read, and reread it twice. He looked at 05-2 and 05-4. Or as he knew them, Doctor Alana and Doctor White. “We have to move now,” he said, his voice held a sense of urgency, “If these other things get back to the rest of the 05 council… Us and the savages will reach an understanding.” He seethed, "And then all of this will fall apart real quick."
“Yeah,” White put his hands to his glasses and took them off, cleaning them on his shirt, “No doubt about it. This is our last, best shot.” He looked around at the assembled conspirators, mainly the members of the Alpha task force and some disgruntled security personnel, “Are they ready to move?”
“They are,” Shawns replied, “The others will fall in line when it goes down.”
Alana sighed, “They better Shawns,” she said, “The others won’t go down without a fight, and if this turns into a prolonged conflict, I can't guarantee we'll win."
Shawn sighed and looked out at his men, "We're doing this doctor. After it’s done, we’ll send out our attack choppers to Site 13, kill everyone there who’s spoken to or even seen the damn ponies… We can’t have any loose ends and Site 13 doesn't have any dangerous objects.”
"What about the other administrators," White asked, "We can't count on them, any of them, the old man stuffed them with his cronies."
"Then we kill them, and anyone who could oppose us. Then we rebuild humanity in our image and take back our world."
Gallus saw it first. The bloated and bloodied body of the creatures. They must’ve laid dormant for years, the bodies were overgrown with plant life, vegetation and fungus. An iron scent was in the air of Gallus’s bubble. He could only imagine how much worse it tasted to the Seapony guards.
Interestingly enough, they were all looking and pointing their arms up at something.
Something moving.
Gallus, Smolder, and Ocellus all began to make their way up to Sandbar, but they were stopped by the guards, “Don’t,” the leader said, “It's too dangerous with all of them, they might grab you.” He turned to the rest of the Seaponies, “We take them from behind, ready?”
A Nod and one of the seapony guards moved forward, thrusting their spear at the head of one of the creatures. The water began to turn a dark crimson as the gash spewed black blood and mixed with the water. The soldier tore the spear out of the creature, causing even more damage to the thing.
For a moment, it did nothing. It kept on reaching upward at its moving target. Then, as if it’s pain finally reached what was left of its decaying brain, it turned around and began to reach for the guard. By all accounts, it should have died with the amount of blood that it lost should have made it at least pass out, but now it kept groping at the water for the seaponies. Given that it couldn’t really walk that well while underwater, the guard went in again, this time under its neck and through the roof of its mouth.
The water grew darker as more blackened blood spewed into the water. Then it went limp and floated in the water. The others went down just as easily. Each one they fell made the water more and more deep red.
When the last bipedal creature finally fell, Ocellus, Gallus and Smolder bolted to the surface of the water. Ocellus lit her horn as she closed in on the minty green Earth Pony.
As their heads burst through the waterline, they all had smiles plastered on their faces. Their smiles each fell apart as they took in the poor state of Sandbar.
Sandbar was the first to speak, his voice was on the verge of breaking and coughed and sputtered regularly, “I was w-wondering when you guys would show up,” Sandbar said with a shaky and dry voice. “I knew you all would have to come to kill me yourselves when I didn’t show up.” He gave a dry laugh.
“Aww crap, you’re bleeding,” Smolder said as she took one of his treading hooves.
“I’ll get it,” Ocellus said as she lit her horn. “Are you hurt anywhere else?” She asked, her voice a mix of relief and concern.
“Yeah, my pride,” he croaked, his eyes were all droopy, “I had to get rescued,” he laughed.
“Come on,” Gallus said, “They’ll be time for poorly timed and inappropriate jokes later. Let’s get him out of here.” Ocellus nodded and lit her horn as they all dunked their heads underwater. Bubbles formed around their heads and pushed the water out. Ocellus took the lead and dove back down the guards while Smolder and Gallus grabbed Sandbar in their claws and talons and followed behind at a much slower pace.
“Let’s get your home,” Smolder said as she and Gallus began to drag Sandbar through the water. “Just hang in there a bit longer.”
“WATCH OUT!” Both Gallus and Smolder looked at each other. That came from the front. They moved faster.
“Is that-?” Gallus and Smolder faintly heard Ocellus say.
“Aww Damn he bit me!”
“-Terramar?”
“Finally, let’s get moving!” Colonel Nye said with a sigh, “We’ve waited too long!” He pokes his head out of the cockpit and began to walk to an open seat. Most of his team was already up, but the ponies were all still asleep. “Alright men,” he addressed his troops. He turned to the ponies, “Ponies, we’re taking off.” He waited for their leader to rebuke him.
She stood up, “And just where might that be?” She asked, “Another one of those places?”
‘Huh, it’s almost like she’s realized that she doesn’t have a choice,’ he thought happily, “Yes, and once your there, our leaders are going to want to-“
A panicked voice called, “Colonel?” That came from the cockpit. Bye sighed and turned around and walked back.
His voice showed little patience for the pilot, “What is it, Captain?” He seethed out.
“We may have a little problem.”
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Containment mission, kinda.
10368290
Yeah, pretty much
What is with these 2 paragraphs being cut off? Seems a bit odd to me.
10369295
Fixed
Things are about to get fubar! Xd
This is gonna be a slaughter once 008 spreads. They did kill one underwater so that's gonna bite em back litteraly
has he—>as he
10379053
Given everything that has happened, yeah, she probably shouldn’t be acting so calm. I am trying to give the impression that she is just barely holding it all together.
Nice job, I applaud your ability to produce such a high quality story.
10379523
it is probably giving the image of in-shock-after-shock kind of thing. Ya know, like trying to normalize a catastrophe by acting like a normal day but with a slight difference in how you do, the difference is because one can’t always control themselves even if they are truly convinced of otherwise.
For example, if you see a car crash in my city or a Mafia thing happened, most folks in my city would not give a fuck for the accident or the event itself. My folks do know about morbid curiosity and when to hold it and shut it before it causes problems.
Yep, trying to normalize things by acting like nothing happened is something ‘normal’ to do on those occasions.
If you are trying to do what you said was your intention, then it will probably be less correct of an idea than what is working right now. People can rationalize what behaviour or line of thinking she must have, even if we don’t have it like her. It is more about showing than telling but it works if you want to keep a nice narrative with less dialogue.
10386858
I guess I sorta did that (I think). To me it is clear, but it might not be clear to all the readers. I’ll try to add more descriptions of Twilight in the story.
Hi there. Just joined because of this story. I want to say one now thing real quick.
(Wait a second need to get my microphone)
DONT LET THE HUMANS LOSE.
I have seen so many stories where subject to ponies! I really want humans to come on top and kick some booty(keeping it family friendly).
I can't wait for more this story is so intriguing on how it is handling the foundation's interactions with the ponies. Usually, stories are just all-out war but this, no this is a whole new bucket
I don’t think attempting to mess with the groups would work at this point. Luna would just take it as justified hostility for her actions, seek a peaceful resolution or maybe surrender, and then be met with confusion from the SCP and the truth would be known.
It was well-written but jumped around way too much.
Ah yes the good ‘ol pony belief that group guilt is wrong unless it’s directed at humans. And extreme self-righteousness that the audience is supposed to sympathize or empathize with and see as reasonable behavior.