Under The Rainbow

by CommissarVulpin

Chapter 3

Abandoned Warehouse
Somewhere in the San Palomino Desert
10:09 PM

How hard could it be?
Agent V’s words echoed in Johnny Recon’s head as he rode the sand buggy over the sands of the San Palomino desert. Celestia’s sun had been behind him, but it had recently set, leaving Luna’s stars to twinkle in the dusk. The buggy’s magical engine made almost no noise at all as he leapt the massive dunes. Skidding to a stop, he pulled out his camera. Using the zoom lens, he snapped a picture of the warehouse in the distance.

It certainly didn’t look abandoned. Lights from within cast a glow over the surrounding sands and illuminated a convoy of covered supply trucks. One by one, the trucks were pulling into the warehouse and then leaving some time later.

He pulled forward, stopping about two hundred meters from the warehouse, and hid the buggy behind a dune. He used his camera to snap more pictures of the trucks and of the guards milling about. Slipping on the stealth suit, he crept through the darkness over to the warehouse.

As a truck rolled right past him, he seized the opportunity to leap into the bed. It was a large, covered cargo truck, of the kind used by the Equestrian military. They were designed to be driven by anyone, even earth ponies, and were reliable and simple to service. The trucks were constantly being replaced by the military as they wore out, and the older ones were sold to civilians.

The truck pulled into the warehouse, and Johnny leapt out and rolled behind a stack of crates. Snapping more pictures, he could see that the trucks were being loaded with more of the unmarked wooden crates. Careful to avoid the guards’ glances, he snuck over to an access staircase against the wall. There was a single guard watching over the stairs, but he was falling asleep.

Easily slipping by, Johnny ascended the stairs and found himself in the rafters of the warehouse, enveloped in shadow and in perfect view of the trucks. The staircase continued upwards, giving access to the roof. As the trucks continued to be loaded, he snapped more pictures of them from above, and then noticed a smaller military car that pulled in out of line. It stopped in the middle of the warehouse, where a large white pony was waiting.
Out of the car stepped a jet-black pegasus stallion, with an equally black mane and tail. The most shocking feature of him, though, was his left wing – it had been replaced with a mechanical one, made of polished metal and sporting razor-sharp ‘feathers’. He could overhear him talking briefly with the white one.

“Is this it?”

The muscular white pegasus turned to a metal crate next to him and hefted it up into the car “Ya. Ze Rainbow Core, safe und sound.”

“Excellent. I just need the last of these supplies up at the Peak and I can finish construction.”

Fastening his magnetic belt buckle to a steel rafter, Johnny silently lowered himself down towards the black pony’s car. But with a roar of its engine, it pulled away, leaving Johnny dangling in midair.

“Hey! What are you doing here?” One of the guards called out as he spotted him.

Johnny planted his hooves on the floor as a circle of guards gathered around him, pointing assault rifles at him, their teeth on the trigger bits. Pushing through the crowd, the muscular white stallion he had seen earlier walked right up to him.

“Vell, vell, vell. Who do ve haff here?” The huge pegasus stallion towered over Johnny, large muscles tensed in an intimidating stance.

“Quite the operation you have here, Franz.”

“Silence! I did not giff you permission to shpeak!” He turned to a guard. “Take his camera. He is obviously a shpy.”

One of the guards grabbed the camera from around Johnny’s neck.

“Open it.”

The guard fumbled with the backing, and then popped it open. “There’s no film in –“

Johnny screwed his eyes shut as the flashbang detonated, leaving the guards reeling. Pressing the button on his belt, he zipped up his tether and into the rafters. He quickly detached the magnetic hook, then sprinted over to the staircase and onto the roof. He ran along the crest and was able to see a truck beginning to pull out.

He gathered some speed and jumped off the roof, falling several meters before landing onto the soft covering of the truck bed. He slid down onto the hood and yanked open the door, and pulled the shocked driver out of his seat. Taking the wheel, he mashed on the gas pedal and passed another truck, ramming it out of his way.

Once he finally caught up to the car, he attempted to rear-end it and force it off the road. But the car was just as fast as the truck and more maneuverable, and managed to evade Johnny’s attempts. He could see the jet-black pony in the driver’s seat making frantic glances over his shoulder.

Suddenly the truck Johnny was driving shook violently and lunged forward as it was struck from behind. Looking in the rear-view mirror, he could see that another truck was behind him, with the large white pony with the heavy accent in the passenger seat. It pulled up next to Johnny and slammed into his truck again from the side, almost driving Johnny off the road.

The black car with the Rainbow Core inside was all but forgotten as the pair of trucks followed it up into the foothills of the San Palomino Mountain. The smooth desert roads gave way to rough, narrow switchbacks as they wound up the side of the mountain. The two trucks rammed each other back and forth, scraping their sides against the sheer rock walls on one side, then the steel barricades on the other.

As Johnny’s truck was shoved up against a rock face, the white pony took the opportunity to leap onto the hood, aided by his wings. He wound up and punched Johnny in the face through the windshield, shattering the glass. Swerving the truck, Johnny managed to get the other pony to roll over to the other side. He rolled through the broken windshield into the passenger seat, and proceeded to pummel Johnny in the head and chest.

As he rounded another switchback, Johnny pulled the wheel hard to the left and kicked the white pony simultaneously, causing him to roll against the passenger side door. The door suddenly flew open and he was left dangling over the edge of an almost vertical drop. After the road straightened out again, Johnny slammed on the brakes, causing the white pony to lose his grip and tumble onto the dirt road. Instantly, he leapt onto his hooves again and dove at Johnny, and the two struggled with each other in the cab. Without his hoof on the brake pedal, the truck began to roll backwards down the hill as they fought. A well-placed punch to the face sent the white pony reeling, and a final kick shoved him out onto the road once more.

“And stay out this time,” Johnny quipped to himself.

He suddenly realized that the truck was speeding uncontrollably backwards, just as it smashed through the barrier and began to plummet over the side of the cliff. He yanked on the handle to open the door, but the old truck refused to comply. As the air whooshed past and the ground rushed ever closer, he crawled out through the shattered windshield. Once on the hood, he pushed off as hard as he could and freefell for a moment before pulling the ripcord on his stealth suit. A small black parachute popped out, slowing his descent to a more survivable speed. The truck, meanwhile, smashed itself to pieces on the rocks below and exploded into a massive fireball as its fuel tank ruptured.

ESS Headquarters
Canterlot
4:45 PM

Agent D flipped through the photographs that Johnny had collected the previous night, displaying each one on the television screen behind her desk. She stopped when she reached a picture of the black pegasus in the car along with the muscular white pegasus.

“And there’s the Rainbow Core,” she said partly to herself, referring to the metal crate that was in the car. “No wonder we lost the signal; it was in that metal crate.”

She turned to Johnny. “Excellent work, Agent R. We’ve managed to identify the black pegasus here. His name is Night Wind. Former member of the Royal Guard, outstanding record.” She pulled up a photo of him standing amongst other guards, clad in armor. “He was pronounced missing, presumed dead, several years ago following an accident at Ghastly Gorge.” She pulled up a scan of a newspaper article on the screen, the title of which read, ‘Royal Guard Accident Leaves Cadet Missing.’

“I can say with reasonable certainty that he is not dead,” Johnny interjected.

“So it would seem. As for the white one, I can’t say. The angle it was taken from inhibits a clear view of the cutie mark.”

“Did you see the wing?”

“Oh, yes.” She summoned the picture of Night Wind once more. “Must be a product of that accident.”

“Quite the fashion statement.”

“Thanks to the intel you’ve given us, Agent R, I’m sending you to San Palomino Peak to retrieve the Rainbow Core and find out what Night Wind is up to. He’s got something planned, and I want to put a stop to it. Now, given the nature of the operation and the resources at Night Wind’s disposal, I’m sending you in with another agent.”

“And who might that be?”

“Agent C. She’s a few years your junior, but she’s shown outstanding performance in the field. Can I trust you to complete the mission without any…‘conflicts of interest’?”

“I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.”

She sighed. “You worry me sometimes. Now hurry along. Your flight leaves in fifteen minutes.”