Harmony Co.

After going up the river for a good few minutes Applejack slowed down realizing that they were out of harm’s way for now. She turned off the engines and walked out of the cabin. Once out she saw Rainbow Dash clutching a bloody wound on the inside of her thigh, Fluttershy curled up next to her and Osborn leaned against the railing while a stream of blood was running down his head. She immediately walked over to Rainbow Dash and pushed down on her wound. The cyan growled in pain.

“You okay Oz?” Applejack asked.

“Yeah, just a minor headache.” he answered while putting his hat back on.

“Then fetch the med kit” She kept pushing down on the wound with her left hand while shaking Fluttershy´s shoulder with her right. “Hey, you okay?”

Fluttershy looked up. She saw Osborn walking into the cabin before looking up at Applejack. “W-what happened?”

“Looks like your company decided that killing you was cheaper than paying up. Dammit, I should have known, a company would never pay that much for one person.”

“We all should have fucking known.” Rainbow Dash said, trying to sit up but Applejack pushed her down.

“Don´t move, you will just hurt yourself more.”

Osborn came out of the cabin carrying a white box with a red cross on top of it. “Alright, let´s get started.”

“The bullet went clean through and missed the bone, you got lucky Rainbow. One inch the other way and you would have bled to death by now.” Applejack gave Rainbow Dash a reassuring slap on the shoulder.

“Will it make any difference?” Rainbow Dash asked with a melancholy tone. “We stuck here and those fuckers will either wait us out or come here and blow us up.”

“One thing at the time RD, we will fix you and then deal with those assholes.”

“Um… I was just wondering if-” Fluttershy paused when Applejack turned to her “Couldn´t we continue upriver and come out on the other side?”

“Nope, it gets real shallow up river and there is only one way out is the way we came in.”

“Alright, Rainbow I’m gonna clean out the wound and it´s going to hurt” Osborn moistened a rug with rectified spirit. “Here bite down on this.” He handed her an orange hard plastic tube.

She put the tub in her mouth and nodded her head towards Osborn. The rug sent a burning pain in her leg and she gave of a muffled scream has she bit down on the tube. Rainbow Dashes teeth started digging into the plastic and while it resisted, she could still feel her jaw closing.

“Do you have any idea of how we are going to get away from here?” Fluttershy asked.

“I´m thinking we throw out everything we can spare and make mad run for it.” Applejack responded.

“Do you really think that´s gonna work?” Osborn said while holding down Rainbow Dash. “We already know that the wankas got heat seeking torpedoes. Do you really think we can outrun it?"

“If you got any other ideas I would love to hear them, sugarcube.” Applejack responded.

“I bloody don´t but all it will take is that on torpedo nudges us and we will be going straight to the moon.”

“Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh” Fluttershy clutched her head and felt her fingers shaking.

Osborn turned his attention Towards Rainbow Dash and cleaned her wounds. “Done.” Osborn put the bloody rag away and picked up a small curved needle and a clear string. “I am gonna stitch your wound, it´s also gonna hurt.”

Rainbow Dash spat out the tube. “Just get it done.” She knew that the needle was going to feel like a mosquito bite compared to the fiery pain in her leg.

“Hey, Fluttershy you still got your lighter?” Osborn looked up at Fluttershy.

“Yes.” She stopped the shaking and started digging around in her purse for when something occurred to her. “Fire… heat.” She mumbled.

“Yes, fire produces heat. Could you give me the lighter so I can fix up RD?” Osborn said with a stern tone.

“Oh, sorry” Fluttershy handed over the lighter and played with her hair as she kept mumbling. “Fire… heat… torpedo.”

“What are y a thinking, Fluttershy.” Applejack asked.

“You said that they have heat seeking torpedoes, Osborn?” Fluttershy looked at Osborn has he cleaned needle with fire from the lighter.

“Yeah” He responded has he started to clean the surgical thread with alcohol. “So?”

“And we still have Alcohol?” Fluttershy turned to Applejack

“Yes, we still have 3 bottles of tequila. Why do you ask?” Applejack said.

“What if we sent their Torpedoes back at them by making them warmer than us?”

“And how in tarnation do you suppose we do that?” Applejacks crossed her arms and her eyebrow jumped straight to the middle of her forehead.

“We set them on fire with a Molotov cocktail.” Fluttershy answered confidently.

“Oh, that´s just great, fluttershy. Now how do you propose we get close enough to them to throw a Molotov cocktail at them without us blowing up?” Applejack rolled her eyes.

“Wait a minute…” Osborn said after a few moments of consideration while he patched up Rainbow Dashes wounds. “I it could work. Think about it, they should be positioned at the opening of the bay in order to block our escape. When they fire another torpedo we could avoid it by following the shore of the bay until we get close to them.” He made a semicircular gesture with his hands. “It will probably take the torpedo a few seconds to turn and by that time we should have gotten close to them.”

“Hm…” Applejack mumbled. “Maybe, but when we get close they are going to start shooting at us with all they got.”

“If Fluttershy throws the Molotov, I could do some covering fire.” Osborn answered. “I mean RD can´t do anything with her leg.”

Rainbow Dash stood up and tried to hide her pain. “Fucking hell!” She fell down and clutched her leg. “Oz is right, I am going to have to pass this one. Shit.”

Applejack looked over her crew while rubbing her chin until her mouth formed a somewhat confident smile. “Alright, let´s do it. Oz, you make a Molotov, Fluttershy help Rainbow Dash below deck and I will load up the M16, alright? Any questions? Good, get to work.” She walked into the cabin and Osborn Followed her down.

Rainbow Dash leaned against the cabin and looked at Fluttershy with the same cold eyes has on the ferry. She waved her hand for her to come closer. “Help me get down”

Fluttershy put the cyan mares arm over her neck and tried to hold her up. She was heavier than Fluttershy expected and she almost tripped when they walked down the stairs into the cabin.

“Go to the right.” She pointed towards a gray metal door. “Open it.”

Behind the door Fluttershy found a small bed and beside that a sink with a mirror cabinet over it. She helped Rainbow Dash sit down on the bed. The cyan mare lay down on the bed and pointed at the cabinet. “Get some Painkillers.”

Without a word Fluttershy opened the cabinet. Inside, she found multiple white pill bottles. All of them with strange names that she couldn’t pronounce or make sense of, except one Analgesic. She knew that these were painkillers. She grabbed the orange bottle hand handed it to Rainbow Dash.

The cyan mare yanked the bottle out of her hand, took out three pills and swallowed them without water. Fluttershy decided to leave Rainbow Dash alone, partly because she thought that she wanted to rest, but mostly because she was afraid of her. Before she could walk out the Rainbow Dash grabbed her arm and clutched it tight.

“If you miss up there, you little fuck. I´m going to make sure that the last few seconds before we blow up will fell longer than your entire life.” Her tone was cold has ice and her eyes were sharper than needles.

Fluttershy felt her heart jumping in her ribcage, she tried to move away, but Rainbow Dash held her firmly in place. She wanted to scream for the others, but all she could get out was quiet whimpering.

The cyan mare let her go and Fluttershy sighed heavily when she got out of the room. Not knowing where anything was on the boat and afraid of disturbing any of the other crewmembers she walked back to the rear of the boat and sat down with a heavy thud. Her breaths felt heavy and she lighted a cigarette. The warm smoke felt good in her lungs, but she could still feel her heart drumming in her ears.

Applejack and Osborn walked out of the cabin, holding a metal gray rifle and a brown bottle with a white rug pushed into the bottleneck respectively. Osborn walked up to Fluttershy, took the cigarette out of her hand and threw it into the water.

“Be careful with fire around Molotov’s.” He pointed on the rug. “When this starts burning, it´s gonna take three minutes until the rug´s gone and then we’re gonna have real problems.” He put the bottle in her hand, Applejack handed him the rifle and walked into the cabin. Osborn sat down next to her, looking down the barrel of the gun and checking the sights. “When we get out into the bay Applejack´s gonna drive along the right side of the bay and the torpedo will follow us. Once we get close to them I´m gonna start giving you covering fire. Now, this next bit is really important: when I say “now” you are gonna stand up and throw the Molotov at the boat. Until then you will stay down and don´t look up, got it?”

“Are you sure this will work?” Her voice shacked nervously.

“No idea.” He said calmly while disabling the safety on the rifle. The familiar sound of the engines started humming and Harmony slowly turned. Osborn gently pushed Fluttershy of her seat until her head was just below the edge of the boat. He down on his right knee and pointed the rifle out of the boat. Harmony turned until it was facing the opposite way and then moved forward. Before rounding a corner Osborn used the lighter to set the rug on fire. “What are you going to do when I say “now””? He asked.

Fluttershy took a deep breath and let it out with a slow sigh. “I am going to throw the Molotov at the boat.”

“Good, and don´t do anything until you hear me say that. Ignore everything else you hear. Now grab a hold of the railing.” He pushed the rifle against his shoulder and his eyes narrowed.

Harmony reached the end of the river and Applejack could see the other boat in the opening of the bay waiting for them. Her right hand tightly on the speed control and her left hand gripping the steering wheel so hard her finger nails started digging into the leather. She looked at the boat. “Come on… come on.” She said to herself. “Fire the darn torpedo.” Moments after saying that the familiar shape of a dark shadow followed by a stream of foam started heading right for them. Her right hand pushed the lever down and she yanked the steering to her right.

Fluttershy lost her grip on the railing and fell back. She expected to hit the deck, Osborn stooped her fall with his left arm. He didn´t give her any time to react, instead he pushed her back to the railing and placed her hand back on the railing. He then put his own hand back on the barrel of the rifle and prepared to fire. With a firm grip on the boat Fluttershy looked down at the bottle has the burning rug flapped in the wind, the little orange flame danced back and forth on the white cloth.

The boat was now in range and Osborn could see the stallions waiting, their guns pointing right at Harmony. He pressed the trigger and released a burst of 3 bullets at them. All of the stallions ducked in fear of being hit. He fired again to keep them down as they came ever closer to them. 100 feet away now. He shoot a third time when one of the stallions peeked out and started firing. The bullets hit Harmony, resulting in a combination of sparks and noise. Before returning fire Osborn took aim on his head and the stallion disappeared behind the cover. Osborn wasn´t sure whether he had hit his target or not but it made no difference has 3 stallions stood up at once, resulting in a storm bullets coming towards him. He didn´t duck instead he fired back and kept checking on how close they were. Only 20 feet now. He shoot 2 of the stallions before pausing to check the distance again. 10 feet now. “NOW!” he screamed and shoot at the final stallion.

Fluttershy immediately jumped up and threw the Molotov at the boat, using every ounce of strength she had. It hit the front of the boat and a blanket of fire wrapped itself around it. In a heartbeat Harmony went past the boat and the trail of foam turned towards the boat. A pillar of fire and smoke consumed the boat and Fluttershy felt the Shockwave hitting her a moment after.

“WOOHOO! That´s what fucking get ya bloody fruitshopowners!” Osborn screamed out with joy.

Fluttershy paused for a few moments before she joined him. “We did it!” She yelled. “Those motherfuckers never knew what hit them!”

Applejack walked out of the cabin. “Did we hit them?” Her question was answered when she noticed a burning wreck where the boat used to be. “Holy cowbells that was a close one.” She sat down and dried nervous sweat from her forehead.

Osborn sat down next to her and started fanning himself with his hat. “Really close one.” He looked at Fluttershy. “You were good there. Really good.”

Fluttershy felt a sense of pride and achievement has he said those words. She felt strong and brave before it dawned on them how close they were to being the flaming pile of metal now sinking into the ocean.

“Well, as nice as it is being alive and all we still have documents to deliver. Luna might get angry if we are late.” Applejack stood up and walked into the cabin.

“True.” Osborn put his hat back on and followed her with the rifle on his back.

Fluttershy stayed behind, still drawing heavy breaths and her blood still boiling with adrenaline. But only took a few moments for it to disappear and she found herself looking out over a giant blue ocean. The stream of foam and small waves they left behind disappeared just as fast, as if nothing ever happened.

They came to an old cargo port and were met by a tall, dark blue mare with sparkling hair of the same color. She wore an oversized military uniform over a purple suit and on her face you could clearly see a scar running from her forehead, over her left eye down to her cheek. She was accompanied by 6 stallions all wearing similar uniforms to hers.

Applejack walked over to her with the disk. The blue mare took it and looked at her wristwatch.

“On time as always.” She talked with a disturbingly calm voice. “But look a little beaten up, and may I ask where Rainbow Dash is and who is the new mare?” She looked at Fluttershy with emerald green eyes.

“Long story, Luna.” Applejack responded. “Let´s say we got greedy and got burned, but if it wasn’t for her you would have to fish that disk out of the mud at lighter´s bay.”

“I see.” Luna handed the disk to one of her stallions. “Well, if you got the job done, I couldn´t care what you did in the meantime. A pleasure as always.” She slowly walked away and sat down in the back seat of her car. One of the stallions sat into the driver’s seat and drove away while the other stallion went in other cars.

“Well, flytters.” Applejack looked over at Fluttershy. “What will you do now?”

“Hmm… I am not sure.” She responded hesitantly while kicking some gravel at her feet.

“Ya could get yourself home from here and get back to your job at Flim Flam Company, I´m sure they will be glad to hear that you are alright. Or you could start a new career on Harmony Co.” She nudged her arm with her elbow.

“Would you really?” She asked with anticipation.

“Yes. Do you take the offer?” Applejack responded.

“Yes”

“Well then, welcome to your new job on-board Harmony Co.” Applejack shacked her hand.