Infiltration Impossible

Chapter 4 - That Next Step

When the coffee was done, Rainbow poured herself a cup, then asked Twilight if she wanted one.

“Yes, please. Thank you, Rainbow.”

Rainbow shrugged, and opened a cabinet above the coffee machine and pulled out a ceramic jar and a bottle of pills.

“Uh, Rainbow? What are those pills for?”

“These are for you, Twilight. YOU’RE CRAZY!”

Twilight’s mouth dropped open, but then she laughed.

“Oh, you’re joking, right?”

Rainbow rolled her eyes and put the pills back in the cabinet before closing the door.

“Typical naive Twilight. Seriously though, why do you want to take down the Wal-Mart? Wait, an even better question: HOW do you plan on doing it? Those guys that run the place are loaded; anything you can bring against them they’ll bring back to you a hundred times over!”

“I know, but I have to try. What about the ponies that used to run their own businesses?”

“Well, they have jobs at Wal-Mart now.”

“That’s the problem, Rainbow Dash! They’re working for the company that just tore their livelihoods apart!”

Rainbow rolled her eyes.

“So what? It’s their choice, Twilight, and there’s nothing you can do to change that.”

“No, there is something we can do about it! If you’re willing to help, of course.”

Rainbow was about to speak, but suddenly a loud noise came from outside.

“What was that?!” asked Rainbow, as she and Twilight ran outside to see what happened.

Two doors down from Rainbow’s house was the Cloudsdale Gym, where she spent more than a few of her off time hours training, and the building was being torn down!

A wrecking ball was being swung into the building, over and over again. Rainbow furiously flew over to the operator of the machine; strangely enough, it was a human!

“Hey, wise guy! What do ya think you’re doing?!”

The operator turned to look at her, then pointed at his ear protection and shrugged, signaling he couldn’t hear her.

He turned the machine off, took off his ear protection and faced the angry mare.

“What is it, ma’am?”

“That gym is where I train! Why are you tearing it down?!”

“Orders from corporate, ma’am. This building and the land, err, clouds, around it, are now the property of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.”

Rainbows eyes flashed angrily, then turned to Twilight.

“Tell me what I have to do.”

Twilight smiled.

“First, let’s get out of here. We need to get back down to Ponyville and we can discuss our plan of action there.”

Rainbow nodded.

“Fine, then hold on Twilight.”

“Wait, what?!”

Rainbow grabbed Twilight and threw her over her back.

She flew away from Cloudsdale with a screaming Twilight, zooming past the clouds of her home. Shortly after leaving, they arrived at the Golden Oak Library, proving once again that Rainbow was the fastest Pegasus in Cloudsdale.

“Hey, we’re here, Twilight! You can let go now!”

Twilight’s mane hair was frizzy, and her face was stuck in one of sheer of horror.

Rainbow tried to pull her off, to no avail.
“TWILIGHT!!! GET OFF!!!”

Finally, Twilight loosened her grip just enough to fall off sideways.

“Rainbow...?”

“Yeah?”

“Please....please don’t do that to me again....”

Rainbow smiled.

“Sure, crybaby. Now c’mon! Tell me about this plan of yours.”

Twilight stood, brushed herself off, then led Rainbow into her library. Spike was dusting the bookshelves when they walked in.

“Hey, Spike! I’ve found someone to help me!”

Spike turned to see Rainbow and his eyes got big.

“Rainbow?! Did she tell you what she’s planning?”

Rainbow nodded.

“Of course she did! Those guys tore down my gym to build a new Wal-Mart in Cloudsdale! I’m not letting them get away with that!”

Spike shook his head in disbelief.

“How many gyms are in Cloudsdale? It’s a pretty big city....”

“It doesn’t matter! That was MY gym! I went there almost everyday for my whole life! I have a lot of memories in that place....”

“Spike,” said Twilight, “can you please go dust upstairs, now?”

“Sure, I don’t want to be an accessory to this thing anyway.”

Spike went upstairs, and left the two mares alone to plot.

Twilight turned the projector on, and a map of the Wal-Mart store floor plan showed up on the whiteboard. Rainbow sat down on one of Twilight’s many wooden chairs, and started leaning on the back legs.

“Now Rainbow, I haven’t done any reconnaissance work yet, but I know that the back room, ironically located in the back of the store, is where everything is that’s of interest to us.”

“And by that you mean....?”

Twilight face palmed.

“Rainbow Dash, if we’re looking to shut this store down, we can’t do it by force of strength; it’s like you said, they have so much wealth they could hire a private army if they needed to stop us! So the only way we can stop these guys is through espionage and sabotage.”

Rainbow smiled.

“Ok, those are two words I’m familiar with! So, what’s the plan, exactly?”

“Like I said, I haven’t done any major reconnaissance work yet, but the backroom is where we need to get to. The terminals in the backroom hold the information we need to shut down the store. But they’ll obviously have security, so we have to be cautious.”

“So the plan is we don’t have a plan?”

“Not yet! But we do have the skeleton of a plan! We just need to fill in the pieces between the start and the end goal.”

“Well, so what are we waiting for, then?”

“Night, Rainbow Dash. We’re waiting for the cover of dark, then we’ll bust in. The store is open at night, I know, but I’m willing to bet there are fewer workers at night than there are during the day.”

“Sounds good, Twi. You got anything for me? You know, like dark clothing?”

Twilight smiled.

“I have more than that, Rainbow. I have flashlights, motion sensors, night-vision cameras and goggles, and boots with soft soles, to make us quieter in our movements.”

“Alright, then! So we wait for night, then we make our move?”

Twilight nodded, and smiled.

“That’s the gist of it. For now, we wait.”