New to Equestria

New to Equestria - Chapter Three: Flames Make It Go Faster

"What do you mean we can't just go directly to Canterlot?!" Heckler yelled.

"Bandits are all over the railway between us and the capital, the train won't even run that route now." The grey earth pony replied impatiently.

"Look Heckler," I said, rubbing my temples. "I don't get caught by a horde of angry bipedal foxes, we can worry about Canterlot later."

"Fine." He hissed as I bought our tickets.

"Have a safe ride." The ticket master said sarcastically. I replied with a rude finger gesture he didn't understand.

The train had already begun to depart by the time we jumped aboard. It looked ridiculous, honestly, and I felt ridiculous just to be riding the thing. I thought I heard barking, but the steam whistle drowned out any other noises as it blew. Before we even managed to our seats the lights of Vanhoover had disappeared and all that was outside was darkness.

Heckler flopped down in his seat while I stood for a moment, trying to decide whether to sit or stand.

“So where is the train going now?” He asked.

“Some town named Ponyville, not too far from Canterlot apparently.” I replied.

He hummed and closed his eyes, I figured I wouldn't  be able to get much out of him for the rest of the night, especially not about the Night Shift thing. I guess that meant is time to mingle with Equestria’s more nocturnal citizens. I would have just left my rifle in the seat beside Heckler, but I wasn't necessarily sure if I wanted to run the risk of having to regret it later.

I wasn't really at the point of hunger, but decided to head for the food-serving part of the train anyway. Most of the passengers were asleep at the moment, but the ones that were still hanging onto consciousness were a little more surprised by me that the tavern folk, maybe even startled.

I’m not sure why I was surprised to see only one passenger in the train car that served food and the whatnot. The pony hadn't noticed me, but I was a little surprised by her. I’d seen pegasi before already but this one was different. As in it had leathery bat wings instead of feathery bird wings. Her coat was grey, mane two shades of greyish blue, one dark, one light.

When I began to walk towards the bar she sat at, her ear flicked once and she calmly turned to look at me. Her irises were a sort of brass color, a black slit forming the cornea. I almost hesitated, but found it in myself to keep moving.

She looked at me curiously with big eyes, I hated to admit it, but she looked laughably cute with that expression. A piece of fruit impaled by her sharp batty teeth, it was either a mango or an orange, I wasn't that great telling the difference.

When I waved and gave off a nice smile the bat pony became a little more relaxed. While I pulled a seat up she literally pulled all the juice from the fruit, slightly unnerving, but she had the decency to eat it instead of spitting it out.

“Wow. Never thought i’d see a hairless monkey, tall too.” Her words felt like silk to my eardrums. It took me a second to realize what she’d just said.

I recoiled slightly. “What?”

“I… Wait… Oh.” She stammered.

I just blinked in reply.

“I. Am so. Sorry.”

“I’m not even sure what kind of comeback I should use for that.” I said, stealing one of her fruit and popping it in my mouth. Mango, should’ve known.

“I’ve… It’s just that i’ve never seen…”

“Humans.” I interrupted with a smile, lifting up a gloved hand and wiggling the fingers.

“That’s weird.”

“Do you like to put down all exotic species down like this?”

She tilted her head left and right, a devilish grin on her face. “Maybe.”

“Figured.” I said with a chuckle. “And just what are you?”

She gasped and mocked distress, putting a hoof to her chest.

“I’ll have you know,” She said in the most cliched, prim voice. “I belong to the thestral race.”

I looked at her with a “what” sort of expression and she laughed.

“Everypony calls us bat-ponies.”

I tossed the phrase around in my head a few times, not a very creative name, but... “Makes sense.”

She extended her wings fully in an almost dramatic fashion. “I guess.”

“Where do bat ponies come from, anyway?”

“Well…” She started, twirling her hoof on the desk. “When mommy and daddy love each other VEEERY much…”

“No, I don’t need the birds and the bees lecture. Forget I asked.”

“Suit yourself, what’s your name?”

“Silver Tongue, you?”

“Hmm… Not sure if I want to say…”

I knew one of these ponies would exploit that card eventually, just didn’t think it would be so soon.

“But surely such a beautiful young mare would want her name to be known.” I said, leaning over a bit.

She chuckled. “Nice, could use some work though. I could see annoyance flash in your eyes when I asked. The name’s Echo.”

She held out her hoof, it looked like she was expected a handshake, but I was suddenly in my Suave-mode, so instead I gently took the back off her hoof in my hand and kissed the front of it, more-or-less how’d you’re expected to kiss the back of a lady’s hand.

“I’m honored.” I told her. That’s about the time I realised I just kissed a pony’s hoof. At least she wasn’t a wild animal, right?

I managed to see her blush, wasn’t entirely sure how that worked, what with the coat covering her body, but I did. She drew her hoof back and looked slightly sheepish.

That’s when I heard the howling, Echo and I looked around confusedly until Heckler burst through the door.

“Silver! The train’s under attack!” He shouted.

A bottle of whiskey with a rag in it broke through the window for emphasis, apparently the attackers had forgotten to light it though. The bottle shattered uselessly on the floor.

We both just stared at it for a moment.

What a waste. I thought.

“At first I thought they were the Füchse from the bar, but it must be diamond dogs because I know my kin are not that stupid.” He deadpanned. “They’re also moving hella fast.”

“Woah, what’re you?” Echo asked.

“Eh, maybe later.” I said, readying my DMR. Now I knew it was right to keep it on me, the bat-pony was just noticing it apparently but didn’t bother asking.

“Do Equestrian’s have fire-extinguishers?” I continued, chambering a round and savoring the lovely metallic sound that accompanied it.

“Yeah,” Echo replied. “I’ll go warn ponies.”

I held out my hand to stop her. “Stick behind us, it’s not exactly safe.”

The look on her face told me what she thought about that, but the bat-pony didn’t say anything. When Heckler turned and opened the door he was immediately tackled by a lunky dog, at first I thought he’d need help, the diamond dog obviously had superior mass and the quarters were tight. Somehow though Heckler managed to pull off a sort of reversal and get it into a choke-hold.

“Shh…” Heckler shushed the dog, I was a little more than scared of him because of the way he did it, after thirty or so seconds of struggling and the mutt went quiet.

“CQC. Real big boss huh? Let's go." I told him as he got up.

“Ja, mein Kapitän.” He said sarcastically, taking point.

All of the passengers in the next car were scared and confused of course, waking up to an attack. There were a few shouts and I heard more howling just outside the train car, close enough that we heard it over the steam engine. Then there was a loud thump, immediately drawing my attention. There was a diamond dog grappling at a window, hissing and barking at a passenger on the other side of the glass. I immediately took aim. Ending or threatening another life had become less hard to take after my time as a marksman, especially if they were trying to burn us alive.

With a loud crack, the lead projectile was launched from my weapon, breaking the sound barrier. The bullet wound I knew would not be lethal, it struck his shoulder and had the force to make the dog lose it’s grip. The fall however, I was not sure. To my surprise, none of the ponies screamed in fear, rather, their attention was on me, trying to figure out what the hell I just did. It pretty much answered my question concerning whether they had firearms or not, luckily I didn't see any children aboard.

I motioned to my little group to keep moving, it wasn't question time for these ponies. We made haste through the aisle, arriving in a new passenger car, where Heckler made a brilliant observation.

"The whole damn things going up in flames!"

"You don't say?!" I retorted, raising my voice to overcome the noise.

There wasn't much oxygen left to breath inside, so I gave Echo my scarf to wrap around her face so she didn't breath in the thickening smoke (ladies first, right?). Heckler and her had already acquired extinguishers and were trying to combat the flames wrapping around the train car while I watched their backs.

There were still ponies trapped on the cars behind the one we were in. I had already decided that the best course of action would be get rid of the fire and try to evacuate the lower cars, simply detaching them would leave the passengers at the mercy of the bandits. It came at an annoyance to me that Echo happened to be the only pony on board who was even remotely capable of operating during combat.

"Silver!" Said mare called. I looked over in her direction, two passengers, they weren't responding, but hopefully just unconscious. I rushed over to the two and managed to get them on my shoulders. My vision was completely clouded with smog now, I could hardly see five feet ahead and it didn't help when sweat continued to drop in my eyes. I pushed into the train door and actually broke it down this time, I didn't stop at the first and ended up sailing through the door on the other car. It took me a second to remember that they were meant to slide.

I heard a yelp of surprise and realized there was a diamond dog on board. I set the unconscious ponies down just in time to block an oncoming claw-swipe from the scruffy-looking bastard. I returned with a punch across his snout, it spun around, holding it's nose. Not wasting a second I grabbed the back of it's tattered vest and threw the dog into the wall of the train.

And the whole thing just fell off, the diamond dog with it.

"These trains are well-built!" I said sarcastically, shaking my head.

"You just knocked down the entire wall!" A incredulous unicorn observed.

"Yeah. I guess I did, can you see to these ponies? They need help. You might wanna consider changing cars too." I replied.

He nodded and the rest of the passengers followed by example. I took a deep breath, and charged into the burning car again, the flames were almost controlled, but large chunks of the train were seared and some even missing.

"I'm going to the other side." I exhaled.

"Goddess be with you." Heckler grunted.

I'd never played hopscotch before, but now I could totally see the appeal. After my leg fell through the floor twice and the railway nearly dragged the rest of my body through I just started jumping past the scorched pieces of wood and hoped I landed on the stable pieces. Apparently luck was on my side for now, because I found myself on the other side of the car. Opening the door quickly I stepped out into the night for mere seconds before disappearing into the next section of the train.