Death Fillies from Above

Death Fillies From Above
Chapter 4
By CDRW

"Aw come on Zecora, please?" Applebloom looked up at the zebra with eyes wide and an adorable pout on her lips. Unfortunately for her, Zecora was immune to cute. That was a big part of why she was in charge of looking after the three fillies. Also unfortunately for Applebloom, giving Zecora a beating wasn't an option either. Unfortunate accidents tended to happen to ponies that came after her.

It wasn't that Zecora was dangerous or anything. The only thing she could do to get somepony back directly was to spike their dinner with one of her more specialized potions or something like that, but whenever somepony tried to hurt her they would trip over an exposed wire and break their neck, or have a loose crate fall onto their head and break their neck, or start choking on a piece of carrot, try to give themselves the heimlich maneuver and break their neck. Somehow.

Sweetie Belle thought Zecora was giving sexual favors to Lady Luck. The weird stuff.

"Don't bother with your wiley charms. I won't give you any firearms," Zecora said as she turned to her shelf of potion ingredients and pulled down a few jars.

The zebra's quarters and workshop were just off the aft cargo bay, which was convenient for them because that's where they made their jumps from. The room they were in resembled nothing so much as a witch-doctor's hut on the Marengetti. Mostly because that's exactly what it was, just transferred to the Celestia. Sort of.

Zecora had never been to the Marengetti. She'd lived her whole life in that tree-hut in the Everfree forest (which if anything was more dangerous than the deep dark reaches of Zebrica). Scootaloo had once said that meant Zecora wasn't a real witch-doctor right to her face. Somehow, a baleful polymorph potion found its way into her dinner that night and she spent the whole next week as a chicken, trying not to end up on the menu for some griffon.

When Zecora turned back around to face her general direction, Applebloom waved her hoof at the weapon locker that took up one entire wall of the room. "But flamethrowers aren't firearms," she countered with perfect logic. "They don't shoot bullets or shells! No risk of puncturing anything with shrapnel or a lucky shot. An' I won't use it inside, so there's no chance of hurtin' the big mysterious box thingy!"

Zecora completely ignored her. Instead of responding, she walked straight over to her cauldron and started mixing ingredients. Applebloom followed right behind her, gesticulating wildly and in general getting in the zebra's way. "Come oooooon," she whined.

Zecora whirled around and practically shouted, "No! No no no I say! I'm trying to mix your potions, so go away!"

And that was all they needed. Zecora couldn't see the door or the gun cabinet from where she stood. While she was busy yelling at Applebloom, an orange filly wearing a black sweater darted silently behind her back and made straight for the other side of the room. Pulling her goggles down over her eyes and switching them to their high power magnification setting, Scootaloo set about working on what was quite possibly the most dangerous mission she'd ever undertaken, breaking into Zecora's weapon locker.

***

"Here's your flamethrower Applebloom." Scootaloo passed an object about the size and shape of a stubby pen to her fellow Crusader while the two of them huddled behind one of the crates in the aft cargo hold. "You owe me big time for this," she hissed. "You almost got me killed, staring at me like that! What if she'd noticed and turned around?"

"Jeeze Scootaloo, you always turn into such a chicken when Zecora's around," Applebloom retorted as she checked the extra-dimensional fuel reservoir level. At the low blow, Scootaloo's eyes narrowed and she reached her head around to draw the knife she kept on her utility belt; but Applebloom waved the flamethrower in her face threateningly. "Uh uh uh." She pointed to a little green indicator on the side. "It's full. I got enough fuel here to incinerate your flightless butt and then melt through three or four bulkheads behind ya."

Scootaloo slowly drew her head away from the knife handle, but she didn't drop the glare.

"That's better. No don'cha worry your pretty little head. I'll pay you back. Always have before, right?"

Scootaloo let her glare linger for another few seconds, and then let out a sigh and slumped back against the crate. "Yeah, you have." She adjusted her sweater and then peeked around the edge of the crate to see what was going on in the rest of the hold.

The aft cargo hold was teeming with activity. Even without firearms, it took a lot of work to prepare the fillies for a jump, mostly Applebloom.

There was a big square by the outer door marked on the floor with yellow paint. That was Applebloom's staging area. Normally it was kept all clear except for a large stack of wooden crates against the wall, but now there was hardware and tools strewn all around it as half a dozen ponies huddled around something in the middle.

Occasionally one of them would move out of place to get something from one of the crates or off the floor, affording Scootaloo a view of the thing they were working on; a filly-sized suit of magitech power armor.

"So how are you gonna do this Applebloom? There ain't no way even I could sneak into the middle of that, and I wouldn't know where to attach it anyways. Can't hide it in mine or Sweetie Belle's stuff either. They're gonna search us so thoroughly we'll still be walking funny a week from now." She ducked back behind the crate when one of the workers glanced her way.

"Oh come on Scoots," Applebloom teased her with a grin on her face. "You're the sneaking expert an' you can't guess how a pony could hide a little thing like this on her person?"

Scootaloo stuck out her tongue. "Well I can think of one way, but even you aren't stupid enough to swallow a flame..."

Applebloom's grin grew three times wider and thirty times nastier. "You're right. That would be stupid because I'll be shut up all tight in that there tin can. What am I gonna do, upchuck it in my helmet?"

"No." Scootaloo said flatly. She knew where this was going and wasn't going to have any part in it.

"Aw come on." Applebloom sidled up to Scootaloo and put her foreleg around the other filly's neck all buddy-like and gave her a friendly hug. "Be a pal Scoots."

"I said no, and no means no means no. And don't think I won't kick your butt six ways from Sunday if you try. I don't care how strong you are, hoof to hoof fighting is my specialty."

"Poo buckets." Applebloom pouted at her. "Well, what else are we gonna do then?"

"I don't know and I don—"

"There you are!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed as she walked around the corner of the crate. "I've been looking everywhere for you two. Zecora says it's time to start taking our potions... Why are you two looking at me like that?" She took a step back as the matching evil grins on Applebloom's and Scootaloo's faces threatened to split their heads in two.

"Oh, we were just tryin' to figure out how to solve a personal issue." Applebloom said casually as she stepped up to Sweetie Belle's right side and put her foreleg around her friend's neck, just the same way she had done to Scootaloo.

"Yeah," Scootaloo said, appearing at Sweetie Belle's left. "We just couldn't figure out what to do, but now you've come along and volunteered!"

Sweetie Belle's eyes darted back and forth between the two of them and her breathing started to speed up a little when Applebloom's leg tightened its hold. "Hey, I didn'—"

"Thanks Sweetie Belle!" Applebloom said with loads of enthusiasm in her voice. "You're a real pal, you know that? Not everypony would do something like this just to help out their friends. Now hold still, okay?"

Sweetie Belle tried to bolt, but Applebloom's foreleg tightened around her neck like a vise, stopping her dead. "Hey! Let me go! I didn't volunteer for a—rghlaak!"