Wolfhound: Secret Heroes

After getting whatever info they could out of the guy, Allen and Jackson carried him to the police station, where he'd get sent off to spend a long time in a cell in the Canterlot dungeons.

A letter from Celestia herself stated that we could use the base we'd just taken over as our own base of operations.

"So, we're almost like a PMC?" I asked Allen when he finished reading it to us.

"A small one, yeah."

Welp. Fun.

We settled down to wait for anything to come in. We didn't know any other locations to hit, and the guy didn't know of any other attacks.

I passed the time talking to Amber. Turns out she was a local who decided to go Vigilante after hearing about a bunch of crimes being done, and no one being caught. She'd heard a rumor from a drunk that there was a "Crimson Base" out here, and she decided to check it out.

Having already seen more than her share of crimes, she recognized the uniforms of the base's occupants to be uniforms of some people she'd seen committing some of the more terrible crimes in Appleloosa.

"I decided to investigate." she said. "Apparently, they were allowed trips once a week or so to go into town and do whatever. Unfortunately, some of them decided to do some less moral things than shopping or buying each other drinks."

:So, you'd been watching these guys for a while?" I asked.

She nodded. "Two months. Kinda coincidental that you guys happened to take it out the same day I was gonna start hit-and-running them." She chuckled.

I chuckled a little, too. "Well," I said after a bit, "I'm gonna go off and do something. See ya later."

"See ya."

I walked around for a while, making a map of the place. My on-the-spot handwriting wasn’t very good, but I’d make another map with quality handwriting later.

I found Jackson in the armory, and he called out. “Hey Firestar, I found something!”

I went over, curious.

“Come over here and look closely.”

We walked to one of the few bare sections of the armory. Jackson pointed at the wall.

I looked. “I don’t… What’s that?” I noticed that a part of the wall was just barely further back than the rest, and shaped suspiciously door-like.

“There you go.” Jackson said.

I turned and saw him grinning. He walked to the other side of the room and pushed on a small square barely jutting out. I heard rumbling behind me, and I turned.

The door in the wall was moving. It opened downward. Almost like it was falling, but slower. There was light on the other side. I glimpsed dim lights, like a building on emergency power. I caught the odor of a tunnel that hadn’t been used for days. Stuffy.

After the door had gone all the way down, it sloped into the tunnel. Then, a section of the tunnel floor opened up, and something came out. Mechanized stairs.

I heard Jackson padding over next to me, and we watched. Once the stairs had fully extended, they stopped. The new staircase stretched from the now-open entryway to the floor of the tunnel. Nothing moved. I heard me and Jackson breathing, and a small echo from the stairs going deeper into the tunnel.

After a couple seconds, I spoke up. “Cool.”

Jackson snorted. “Not just cool, Fire. This extends all the way into Appleloosa, and even intersects with some of the ventilation of the official tunnels. These guys could’ve watched us coming, if they’d had people down here.”

I nodded approvingly. “So, we not only have our own base, we also have a secret exit slash entrance, too. Nice. Have you told Allen?”

“Not yet, I’ll go in just a second. Hey, can I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“I haven’t really seen much of you in action, but you strike me as a leader type. You’re at least a skilled fighter. I talked with Jackie. She said you did great taking the base.”

“Um… thanks.” I was never great at accepting complements, or giving them. It just didn’t come naturally, and I never know what to do.

Jackson smiled and chuckled. “I’m the same way, man. You don’t even have to explain it.” And then he summed up what I was feeling almost perfectly. Awkward, embarrassed, etc.. "Hey, I’ll recommend Allen consider you for a secondary squad leader. Celestia knows I can’t be one, and Jackie doesn’t like being one, even though she’s decent at it. So, I can tell Allen to consider you, or would you rather I not?”

“You’re-you’re fine.” I stammered, still internally glowing from the praise.

Jackson smiled, knowing what I was going through. “See you around.” He walked out.

After a few seconds of staring at the tunnel, I was conflicted. Explore the tunnel, or walk around some more? There might be other stuff I could do. Or even just people to talk with for a bit. I eventually decided to just walk around a bit more. I pressed the square again, and sure enough, the staircase unfolded and the entryway was obscured again.

I wrote a quick note on how to open the tunnel and left it there, so that Allen would see it when he came to check out our new entrance.

After a couple minutes, I found Jackie standing around. She called to me, and I came over.

“Now that we’ve got nothing to do, we could go back to Appleloosa and chill. Or even Ponyville. We can keep our earpiece radios, in case something comes up. You wanna go?”

I thought about it for a second, then shrugged. “Sure.”

And we were off.