Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego

by MagicS

A Mammoth of a Problem XXXII

Larkon and Abalun stepped over to the nearest stack of boxes and checked them over. They were completely unmarked and gave no indication of what was inside. Larkon tapped one on the side with his trunk to hear the dull echo come back from the wooden boards. Whatever was in the box it was filled up completely on account of the reverberation. They looked up at the top of the stack, too high to take the top box off and look inside, and too heavy for Rainbow Dash to fly up there and bring it down for them. Larkon frowned and chewed on his lip as he glanced over the rest of the filled up warehouse.

“I don’t even know where to begin here. There are hundreds of these boxes and they all look the same,” Larkon said.

“We need to find some individual ones or some smaller stacks that we can take down,” Abalun said.

He began walking down the ramp and Rainbow Dash followed above him, with her superior vision and eyes maybe she could find some boxes to investigate. Even on the sides of the warehouse out of the lowered area there were crates and piles of boxes that went up nearly to the windows in some places. Dash also made sure to keep a single eye on the front door and her ears open so they wouldn’t be surprised. At least there would be a lot of boxes to hide behind if someone suddenly came in.

Larkon came down with them too, although he was also looking at the door that would take them into the adjacent warehouse. “Where does that door go?”

“Oh, sorry,” Abalun said. “The three warehouses are connected, that door will take us to the middle one. We should check it out after we’re done here.”

“But if there are any mammoths in there we might not be able to go in there unseen. We can’t even really check to make sure beforehand,” Larkon said.

“At this time of night I doubt there’s anybody working for Karkona in here,” Abalun said.

“Actually I don’t think that’s true,” Rainbow disagreed with a frown as she looked squarely at the front door. “If they’re fine with just leaving the backdoor locked and without any guards around then why wouldn’t they be fine with doing that for the front door too? The only reason those guards would need to be there is if the door isn’t locked and they need to stay there and watch while other mammoths come in and out.”

“So you think there are others working in these warehouses all day and night?” Abalun raised an eyebrow.

Rainbow Dash nodded. “I’m willing to bet on it.”

“Then we should probably be extra careful,” Larkon said.

“Yes. I wonder though, if no one is in here then what are the other mammoths working on and doing while they’re in these warehouses?” Abalun said.

“I dunno,” Rainbow Dash admitted. “Remember we saw those guys with the overalls coming in here last time? Maybe there’s more than just boxes being stacked up in the other two warehouses.”

“We’ll have to see but I think we should still fully explore this building first,” Larkon said.

“Right,” Rainbow said and resumed her search for boxes they could look through.

It was practically a labyrinth of stacks down on the floor and the two mammoths had to be careful not to accidentally knock into any and upset them. It also made it difficult for them to squeeze around it all together though. Only Rainbow Dash could really easily maneuver around the stacks. Now if she had a crowbar or something she could at least go up to the tops of some of these stacks and see what was in these boxes…

“Wait, hold on,” Abalun said as he walked around a few stacks of boxes. “I think we’ve got something here.”

“What?” Rainbow Dash said as she flew to him.

“Boxes,” Abalun said, grinning as Rainbow Dash came up by his head.

In front of him was a small stack of just three boxes nestled in the corner of the lower holding area. It must’ve been the newest stack or one of them at least. Larkon came moving around a few pillars of crates to join them, at last they could open up these and see what Karkona was holding in here. With any luck it was something bad enough that they could fly back to the senate with and end this whole thing.

The two mammoths carefully grabbed the two boxes on top and put them on the ground next to the other one. Now unfortunately with them all still being nailed shut they had the task of opening them up without making a huge mess or too much noise.

Fortunately, even though they may not have been fighters, Larkon and Abalun were still two incredibly strong mammoths and tearing off the lids of these crates was easy enough for them. Larkon gripped the edge of the lid with his trunk and yanked, the wooden top popping out with the nails still attached to it, and discarded the lid on the ground. The three spies gathered around the open box and looked on in with curiosity.

“Uhh… what is all this?” Rainbow Dash said.

Abalun grabbed a bag of something and pulled it out. It was clear plastic and looked pressed to be devoid of any air inside. “This is dried kelp.” Abalun said as he looked at it.

“There’s a lot of it in here,” Larkon said as he pulled out another bag of kelp.

Rainbow Dash stuck her hooves in and pulled out a big jar of pickled vegetables, another few bags of dried kelp, a sack of grain, and so on and so forth. “It’s all just food.”

“It’s preserves,” Larkon said as he held up a jar of jam in his trunk. “Food that’s stored in a way to last ages.”

“So what? He’s storing food here?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow at him.

Abalun then pulled out a large carton of water, and the three of them together spied five more identical cartons sitting at the bottom of the crate.

“Not storing… stockpiling,” Abalun said. “Karkona must be planning something big in the future.”

“He’s always said he wanted us to reclaim our empire and planned to go to war. Perhaps these are the provisions he’s kept for that?” Larkon said.

“He must be looking far into the future then, since he doesn’t have control of the city or know where the Sacred Spring is yet,” Abalun said.

“Or he might even be keeping all this food to go to war with you other mammoths,” Rainbow Dash suggested.

Larkon nodded, a grave look on his face. “A possibility as well.”

“The problem is that there’s nothing illegal about keeping food like this. No matter what our suspicions of its use might be it doesn’t exactly incriminate Karkona of anything,” Abalun said.

“That’s true,” Larkon said. “We have to keep looking for more.”

“Do you think all of the boxes in this warehouse are just food?” Rainbow asked.

“I wouldn’t be surprised. He may not have a city’s worth of followers but he still has a lot. If that’s going to be his army he’d need this much to feed them all. Especially if for some reason he loses access to the farms,” Larkon said.

“Let’s check another to make sure though,” Abalun said and broke open another with his trunk.

As could be expected it was more food and water, this one had a lot more grain in it though. Each single bag was about the size of Rainbow Dash herself and she wondered how much breadstuffs could be made from each one. How long had it taken to acquire all of this? And how did they get all this extra food into the slums? It seemed like something Abalun and Larkon would’ve been suspicious about in the first place…

“Hey so, are you guys wondering how he got all this food into here? Like there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of food in the slums or anything so how’s he getting all this extra food and stuff?” She asked the two of them.

“Unfortunately I believe that may be the cause of some unknown friends he has in the city and at the farms,” Larkon said.

“Friends more than willing to secretly give him more food than the senate would be happy with,” Abalun said.

“Oh, great,” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “So that’s another problem we’ll have to deal with someday?”

“Possibly, but not right now, we still have more important issues directly ahead of us.” Larkon said.

Abalun wryly grinned at his friend. “Like putting these boxes back in order so in case anyone comes in they won’t know we were here.” He said and begin picking up bags of food with his trunk to put them back.

“Ugh, great,” Rainbow said and started picking up what she could as well.

It took them a few minutes but they did eventually get the work done. Mostly. The nails wouldn’t go in perfectly so the lids were kind of just mashed on and a little sideways. But unless someone really looked at them they wouldn’t notice at just a glance, which was fine for them, they only needed a day or two at the most to not cause a ruckus. Larkon and Abalun then stacked them back up and the three spies looked at each other.

“So now what?” Abalun asked.

“We go into that second warehouse,” Rainbow Dash resolutely said and fluttered up with her wings, looking over the edge of the lower area towards the door on the side of the wall.

“Rainbow Dash is right, we have to look for more,” Larkon said.

The two mammoths went back and walked up the ramp so they could follow her on the side of the building to the other door. It was a much simpler set of double doors that pulled open, no lock, and no windows either. They hoped that there at least weren’t any mammoths in the connecting chamber or that could end their little adventure real quick. Larkon and Abalun both grabbed one of the door handles when they reached it and Rainbow Dash floated between them. With a single nod in unison the doors were pulled open.

It was empty. But the doors leading into the next warehouse were only a few feet away. And they couldn’t just recklessly charge through them.

Larkon and Abalun walked slowly and quietly with Rainbow Dash gliding along with them. They stopped right at the doors together and Larkon leaned in to whisper.

“Well? There isn’t a window for us to look in there.”

“We should just listen at the doors for a second to see if we can hear anyone moving around in there,” Abalun said.

“And if we do?” Larkon asked.

“Then we enter as quietly and sneakily as possible,” Abalun shrugged.

The three pressed their ears against the doors (gently enough to not accidentally push it open) and listened in.

Muffled voices. The sounds of footsteps and carts being pushed along the floor. Things being moved. That answered that question, the central warehouse had far more than just boxes inside it. Rainbow Dash was kind of confused as she listened in harder, it sounded like there were voices and noises coming from way below the floor, deeper than the dugout area of the first warehouse. And she was pretty sure she heard heavy footsteps going down what sounded like metal stairs. There was definitely something special up with this next warehouse.

“Okay, so how should we handle this?” Larkon asked.

“Let’s put our hoods up first, sorry Rainbow Dash but I think you should crawl into Larkon’s robe again,” Abalun said.

Rainbow Dash stuck her tongue out. “Yeah, I know.” She flew into it again without much protest, having to uncomfortably shift around until she was basically hugging his head again.

“I’m going to open up the door just a crack to peak in, as long as no one is right there watching I suggest we just walk in like it’s something normal. Like we’re mammoths Karkona has ordered to come in here,” Abalun said. “Don’t make eye-contact, don’t look shifty, just confidently walk in and see what’s going on.”

“I think there’s like a basement or something in there. We should check it out,” Rainbow said.

Abalun. “Okay, and let’s keep our hoods over our faces as much as we can, just in case.”

“Got it,” Larkon said and pulled the top of the hood down until Rainbow couldn’t see at all and he could only see by looking down at the floor.

Abalun put his trunk to the door on the left and gulped. “Here’s to our luck.”

Comments

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

Great chapter!!

is Abakan going to betray them?