Chapter Three: The SurpriseView OnlineThe FallChapter Three: The Surprise”Okay Dash. You ready?” ”As always, Twi!” ”And you know what you’re supposed to do?” “Uhh… No.” “Ugh. I’ll shoot. When I have shot, you go there and see what the bullet did to the target. If possible, bring both the bullet and the target back. Okay?” “All right!” Twilight used her magic to slowly lift the gun to the level of her eyes so she could aim better. “I’m firing in three…” “Two…” “One…” *BANG* Suddenly there were chips of wood everywhere. A big cloud of smoke and dust filled the room, setting visibility to zero. “Dash! What happened?” “Uh, Twi? Take a look at this…” The cloud was starting to vanish. And when it did so, Twilight saw the target. “What caused that? Did you crash into it?” “No, the bullet did it!” “What!?” “Yes. The bullet did it.” “Oh dear Celestia…” “…” The target was in millions and millions of tiny pieces. The whole 30cm circle. With the power of a single, badly controlled shot. “Dash?” “Yeah?” “Go hide this thing.” Twilight handed the gun over to Rainbow. “Why?” “You saw what it just did. Imagine if someone would shoot ponies instead of targets. We need to hide it. You need to hide it.” “Okay, I’ll do it Twi.” “Make sure that nopony finds it. And be careful!” Rainbow dashed off, leaving a worried Twilight after her. The world was going into a darker direction. ----»«---- Rainbow woke up. It was clearly morning. The birds were singing, the sun was casting its beams over the room and the banging headache was reminding Rainbow about the dangers of drinking. Rainbow tried to lift her head. Bad idea. Her own mixture was heavenly, but it gave a hellish hangover. It felt like she had just drunk three whole barrels of the worst version of the one and only straight Stalliongrad vodka from the years before the union served by that one certain bartender that loved to “spice” your drink up with a mouthful of smoke-ash-saliva mixture. In clear English, she was about to throw up. But she wouldn’t. The last time she threw up was when Applejack had had the little private chug-out party and Twilight had drunk a bit too much. Let's just say that the sight had not been pretty. All of a sudden the headache was starting to vanish. Yet another great effect of her mixture. Hangovers weren’t longer than a couple of hours. But the couple of hours were total hell if you were awake. She tried rising up again, with a better success this time. She was able to crawl out of the bed and keep her balance on the unnecessarily smooth floor. A huge accomplishment, considering the fact she still was a bit dizzy after the good night sleep. Rainbow took a quick glance around. Nothing had moved, save for the small beam of light that was now going past her, hitting the wall behind the couch. The time was exactly breakfast. Rainbow licked her lips. The thought of digging deep into that huge pile of goodies was taking her mind over, ordering her legs to take her to the kitchen. But when she heard some noises come from the door, she froze on her tracks, letting the thought of the breakfast escape her mind. She perked her ears up and tried to make out even some of the words. “So, Jay, what’s the deal with this place?” “I dunno Mike. But it looks fancy. It must have something to steal!” “Didn’t Sarge say that we shouldn’t be robbing stuff? We are fighting for the workers after all.” “Oh shut up John. You aint getting nowhere with that attitude. Without the Rebellion, you’d be frikken dead!” “Besides, haven’t you seen Sarge’s personal stash? That’s fucking tons of stolen stuff from doorknobs to booze and weed. He’s just trying to save something for himself to steal!” “Good point, Mike. So, your options are to come with us and take stuff or die.” Rainbow could hear a familiar click. A cheapo was loaded. “Okay, okay, sheesh. Imma come with you guys.” “Wise decision, kid. We’re not afraid to shoot ya!” Suddenly there was a loud bang. At first Rainbow thought that someone had got shot, but after another bang she realized that it was coming from the door. They were trying to break it even though it was clearly open. Either really stupid or really wannabe-macho. She was too dizzy to run and she had not enough time to find a hiding place. She’d have to get her hooves dirty. She quickly reached out for the saddleback and dug the still-reloaded pistol and the knife out of it. She then made her way towards the door, hoping to make it there before the Rebels would come through. But she didn’t quite make it. Soon the door opened and she heard the familiar voices. “See? I told ya it was open.” “Oh shut up or I’ll shoot you.” Rainbow prepared to attack. Three against one. Seemed fair to her. She let the first one go past her. Luckily for her, he was too busy admiring the sight in front of his eyes. When the second one came visible, Rainbow jumped. She landed in front of the cream-colored earth pony stallion that had been admiring the sight just like the first one. And before he could realize anything, Rainbow lifted the pistol up to her eye-level and shot two accurate shots between the eyes of the stallion. He fell to the floor immediately, not even able to scream. The bullets had made their way through his head and missed the third one by inches, spraying the blood of the second one over him. The sudden shock made the third one an easy target. He was too concentrated on trying to process what just had happened to react to the cyan mare moving towards him. Rainbow came face-to-face with the stallion, gave him a frightening glare, placed the pistol beneath his chin, waited for a few seconds for him to finally realize what was going on and pulled the trigger thrice. The large bullets made their way through the thick skull, impaling the brains of the poor stallion and came out from the top of his head, causing a stream of blood come out of the hole and spray on the floor. Another instant death. Rainbow knew that the third one was right behind her. He seemed to be the boss of the small group. And bosses deserve special treatment. Rainbow acted like she was completely unaware of the large stallion behind her. She threw her pistol to the floor and crouched to investigate the two fallen Rebels. The stallion behind her realized that this was his chance. The enemy was completely unaware of him, giving out a nice view of her back where a knife would fit perfectly. The stallion slid his pathetic little jackknife out of the small combat-bag he had with him and prepared for a stab. And just as the stallion raised the knife up, preparing for a stab, Rainbow turned around as quickly as she could. She knew that the stallion was ready to kill her. She knew that she had a huge risk of at least getting wounded. But this was war. Risks had to be taken. She swung her knife up in a swift motion, dodged the incoming strike and jabbed the sharp blade of her personal combat blade into the throat of the surprised stallion. After making a nice cut to the arteries of the throat, Rainbow yanked the knife out, causing a stream of blood come out of the now-open throat of the stallion. The battle had taken only about ten seconds. Yet still there were two dead bodies lying on the ground, one barely living stallion holding his throat standing on the floor and big puddles of blood all across the hall. Rainbow had always been an effective mare. Soon Rainbow could hear a heavy thud, giving out the fact that the last stallion had fell, leaving Rainbow all alone yet again. She had just killed three soldiers without getting even a slightest scratch herself. “You kill my friends but you just won’t kill me?” she asked from the roof, receiving no answer. “Well, I guess I’m late for the breakfast,” she said out loud, trying her best to blame it on the three lifeless stallions lying on the ground. And so she started walking towards the kitchen, the thought of the sweet, sweet breakfast coming back to her mind, making her mouth water. ----»«---- Rainbow was drooling. A thick string of saliva was hanging from the corner of her mouth, desperately trying to reach the ground. The sugary pile on the table seemed even more attractive than before. The thought of consuming everything on the table felt heavenly and completely bearable. But Rainbow had to control herself. She’d either have to clean the bodies and the blood from the hall, or live with them. And either way, her stomach would definitely try to push its contents back up, making the task even harder. So she was forced to settle for a simple hay-daisy sandwich with some water to drink. Both her brains and her stomach protested loudly, but she knew better. Eating such a small pile of food was something new for her. She had always liked to eat a bit more than her friends, to say for the least. But being an athletic mare, it had never been visible, save for the sudden energy-spikes after eating too much extra-sugary-special-Pinkie-Pie-cupcakes. Pinkie always made the best cupcakes… Rainbow snapped her mind back into the reality. The past, the memories, her friends, it all hurt. And living with a never-ending pain was hard enough without the constant reminders of the past. Rainbow consumed the tiny breakfast quickly. She had a lot to do today. In order to make sure that she would remember every single thing, she had to make a checklist. But luckily for her, she still remembered something about Twilight’s long, somewhat boring lectures about writing a perfect checklist. She had already grabbed some paper from the living room table. It had some vague markings on it, but it’d have to do. Rainbow began scribbling down the things she’d have to do. ______ First, eat breakfast. She immediately checked that. Second, secure the door. No more surprises. Third, clean the hall. The mess is starting to stink. Fourth, check the watching-point. Move the window and see what you can do. Fifth, if you have time, take a look at the folder. ______ Rainbow took a quick look at the list. It would do. She left it on the table next to the pile of food, made sure that all the windows were closed and walked to the living room in order to get tools from her saddlebag. ----»«---- The beam of light had moved slightly. It was now casting its glow over her saddlebag, making the bullets in the open ammo-bag reflect smaller beams all around the room. Securing the door would be easy. She’d just need something to block the access through it. But the problem was that she was in a bit of a weak condition. She wouldn’t be able to move anything heavy. She’d have to find out another way to block the door. The bag had nothing that could solve this problem. Her pistol was still lying on the floor next to the dead Rebels and her knife was always with her. She wouldn’t need anything else. So she was forced to go and face the death in order to retrieve her pistol. Rainbow had no options. She carefully moved the saddlebag out of the light so the foods would stay good and left to the hall. ----»«---- The stench of death was present. It had been a mere half an hour and yet it was already there, reminding her about the little surprise. And the fact that she’d have to clean the mess up didn’t make looking at it any easier. The puddles of blood had dried up, giving then marble floor a crimson glow in the midday sun that was coming through the many windows of the house. The bodies of the three Rebels had also dried up. There were patches of dark red blood in their fur. The bullet-holes had gained a deep black color, followed by a streak of a bit brighter red. The cream-colored one, Mike, had lost an eye. There was only the deep socket of the eyeball left, marks of the accurate shot visible on its side. His skull was badly damaged, two large holes going through it from face to the back of the head. The bullets that had caused the holes were inside the wall next to the large wooden door. The yellowish, clearly smaller stallion, John, had been the second. He had three big holes in his chin, but only two on the top of his head. One of the bullets was still stuck in the brains of the poor guy. His face had the look of surprise mixed up with a slight wince of pure pain. Rainbow felt sorry for this one. He had clearly been an intelligent one. The third one, a deep black, muscular stallion, apparently called Jay, had obviously been the leader. He had the Rebellion tattoo on his chest. That meant that he was at least a corporal and most likely the leader of his squad. But he didn’t look so tough while lying on the floor, throat sliced open by a single mare. His head was leaning back in a sickly angle. It was stretching his throat, causing the cut to slowly grow bigger and bigger and giving a nice view of his insides. It was only a matter of time when his head would fall to the floor. The three had no valuables with them. This house had been the first one on their route. The only somewhat useful items were the jackknife and the grenade-looking thing that the leader had had with him. The jackknife was basically worthless due to the fact Rainbow’s own knife was far better. But the grenade-like thing could come in handy. If it really was a grenade, it would make a great weapon that could be utilized in the future. But Rainbow would investigate it later. She had a door to block. She grabbed her pistol from the floor and walked to the door. ----»«---- Even the door had some dried-up blood on it. But unlike the patches on the floor, these were small and brighter red, creating a somewhat nice contrast against the dark brown door. There was no way to block the door. It was too big to be blocked by something like a small table and Rainbow couldn’t move any of the bigger and heavier tables or pillars. But she had alternative ways. The lock of the door was simple. It was easily breakable. So simply locking the door was not an option. The doorknob, on the other hoof, was a bit more complex system. The door would not open if the know was turned even slightly wrong. That’s when Rainbow got an idea. She reached out for her knife that was hanging from its temporary sheath she had found. She hit the knife to a spot just under the doorknob, where the wood of the door should be the weakest. The knife got stuck, just as she had planned. She took the pistol to her hoof, raised it up and hit the knife with the grip of the pistol. The knife dug deeper into the wood. After a few successful hits, the knife came through on the other side. Rainbow pulled the knife out. There was a now a small hole just under the doorknob. She repeated the process, first on the left of the doorknob, then on the right of it and finally just above it. The knob was now surrounded by small holes. Rainbow pulled the knife out and put it back into the sheath. It had done well. She turned around, lifted both her rear hooves up to the air and accurately bucked the knob which immediately broke loose of the door and fell to the ground on the other side of it. There was now a huge hole on the spot where the doorknob had been. Rainbow took a quick look at the hole and tried to push the door open. It was stuck, just as she had suspected. The lock-system that held the door in spot while the door was shut could not be controlled anymore. This made it much harder to open. In order to get in, one would have to either skillfully remove the lock-system from the door or just use brute force to buck the door in. And either way was hard. The door had been a success. The house was now a bit more secure, easing Rainbow’s mind just a bit. No more surprises. Rainbow checked the second task of the small list. She was making good process. The next thing was to clean the hall. Rainbow would have done anything to avoid cleaning the mess, but she knew that the stench would attract Rebels. They knew that three of them were missing and they sure would start to look for them. So she was forced to enter the hall yet again and drag three dead, stinking stallions to just some place where they wouldn’t be found from. Plus she’d have to clean the dried-up puddles of blood that were taking the marble floor over. Knowing that she had no way to avoid the task, Rainbow admitted her defeat and went looking for some cleaning equipment. ----»«---- For some strange reason the cleaning equipment of the house were in the basement. And for some even stranger reason the basement had a huge hole on its floor with the stench of rotting rising up from the depths. But it was just good for Rainbow’s plan. She had found the equipment she needed to get rid of those puddles of blood and she had found a perfect place where she could dump the dead corpses. The task would be a lot faster than she had thought. Things were starting to look good. ----»«---- Rainbow dipped the mop into the bucket of water-soap mixture, lifted it up soaking wet and began swiping the floor with it. The dried-up blood was starting to turn back into a liquid form, making it easier for the mop to absorb them. But the mop wouldn’t be able to absorb every smallest drop of the blood. That’s why Rainbow had also grabbed some towels from the basement. Whenever a patch of blood turned back into the liquid form, Rainbow threw a towel over it and wiped the floor all clean. Whenever a patch had been completely cleaned, Rainbow would throw the towel away, take a new one from the pile she had next to her, dip the mop back into the bucket and move on to the next patch. The pattern was simple yet effective. After a good while almost the whole floor was clean. The only marks hinting about the recent battle were the three dead corpses that were lying on the floor, all piled up. Rainbow put the mop back into the bucket. It had done all it was supposed to do. The very next thing was to drag the dead stallions all the way to the basement door, down the narrow stairs and into the dark and stale atmosphere of the ground-floored basement. One by one. And there she’d have to dump them down to the mysterious hole and just hope that it was deep enough to hold the secret. But this was the best way that had come to her mind. Therefore it was well worth trying. She grabbed the smallest one first. Despite being about her size, the stallion was three times heavier. And the fact that Rainbow’s wing was still extremely sensitive didn’t make the task any easier. So she was forced to bite her teeth into the left forehoof of the yellowish stallion and drag him down the long hallway towards the small door that led into the basement. The taste of death was trying to take Rainbow’s tongue over, making her gag every now and then. She’d have to wash it away with some wine later on. After an eternity, she finally reached the door. She immediately let go of the hoof of the stallion and quickly opened the door. She wanted to do this as fast as possible. She didn’t want to taste the hoof of the stallion again, so she positioned herself behind the stallion and began pushing him forward. When she reached the stairs, she just simple pushed the stallion down, causing him to stumble down with a series of sickly cracks. Rainbow could literally hear the spine of the poor stallion snap into two. She hurried down, just to be greeted by an unpleasant sight. All fours hooves of the stallion were twisted into unnatural positions. His head was tilted far too back, hinting of a broken neck. There were ribs poking out of his left side, allowing a clear view of the insides of the stallion. Rainbow just quickly ran over and pushed him into the hole. It took five whole seconds before she could hear the thump. At least the hole was deep enough. She quickly trotted back to the stairs, climbed them up and went to fetch the next dead body. ----»«---- Rainbow repeated the process with the two others. The black one had been a bit tricky, but she had managed to get rid of all three. Now the hall had no visible evidence of the deaths of the three Rebels. She checked the third task of the list. The hall seemed a lot nicer now when all the blood and dead corpses were gone. She took a quick look at the window. The beam of light was nowhere to be seen. The time was already over dinner. She decided to skip dinner. She’d just take a small sip of wine in order to get the bad taste out of her mouth and eat something after she had moved the window in the surveillance room. She went to the kitchen, drank half-a-bottle of wine and headed upstairs, towards the office that she had oh so cleverly named “The surveillance room”. ----»«---- The beams of light could hardly touch the back wall of the room. The sun was already a quarter behind the horizon, coloring the beams slightly orange. The sight reminded Rainbow about the long summer nights with her friends, just lying down on the long, soft grass and looking at the amazing act where Luna’s moon would slowly replace Celestia’s sun. And sometimes they would meet in the middle of the sky, greeting each other and causing a heavenly beam of bright silver light illuminate the deep night sky. Rainbow let out a small, sadness-filled sigh. A single tear escaped from her eye and rolled down her check, causing a slight chill run through her spine. The tear kept going until it reached her chin, spent a few seconds there and dropped down towards the floor. Rainbow let out a sob ever so slight, and walked over to the window. Now she had yet another thing to avenge for. The window was just as light as it had been yesterday. Rainbow could easily slide it out of its spot and carefully place it on the floor. She turned her gaze towards the hole in the wall, knowing that she could not stand the sight. The glow of the setting sun was now freely getting into the room, casting shades into the wall behind Rainbow. A temporary painting of a Pegasus, standing all alone in the heavenly orange glow of Celestia’s sun was now occupying the wall, bringing up some mixed-up feelings. The sun was focusing on her and she was focusing on the sun. She just stood there and let the glow paint her fate into the wall, just to destroy it when the one last beam would finally fade away. And when the one last beam finally faded away, Rainbow lost it. She was crying openly, tears freely streaming down her cheeks. And when the silver glow of the moon illuminated the room, the tears stopped. Rainbow fell asleep quietly sobbing into her forehooves, Luna’s moon watching over her, painting a portrait of the lonely little Pegasus into the wall behind her.
Chapter Four: The VisitorView OnlineThe FallChapter Four: The VisitorThe warm summer sun was setting, causing several tones of orange and red paint the horizon and turn it into a piece of art no living being alone could create, even if one would have all the time in the world. But for most of the ponies this was just a sign to get in their cozy little homes and into the warm beds that would keep them safe through the long and scary night. But a group of six ponies and a single baby dragon was heading away from the small town, clear plans of how to spend the warm summer night without just lying under the layers of blankets all alone. The small group was heading towards the small hill that was just outside the town. It was well known for its incredible view over the city and towards the sunset and had gained a mighty reputation amongst the couples of Ponyville. But the main objective of the group was not to just stare into each other’s eyes for hours, occasionally letting out a small sigh just to let the other one know how much you cared about him or her. The main objective was to have fun. Twilight had gathered a good load of books into the small cart Spike was pulling, Rainbow and Applejack were running up the hill, having a little race of their own, Rarity was having a wonderful little chat with Fluttershy and Pinkie was just bouncing up and down, happily as always, a huge basket filled to the top with goodies hanging from her mouth. The night was going to be perfect. When the others finally reached the top of the hill, they could see Rainbow and Applejack lying on the ground, panting heavily and occasionally arguing about who won the little uphill run. But when Twilight placed the red-white checkered cloth to the soft green grass, possible disagreements between the seven friends were forgiven and everyone would just enjoy the night filled with great food and the best of company. And when the basket was fully devoured, they’d just sit down and admire the night sky, letting their thoughts run free and their emotions take them over. ----»«---- Rainbow woke up to the bright beams of the morning sun coming right through the now-open hole in the wall known as a window. It was early and resisting the urge to go back to sleep was overwhelming. But something was going on outside. There were a number of small things giving that out. First off, the birds were all quiet. Not a single smallest chirp could be heard. Secondly, the trees near the main road were gone. They had been easily visible last evening and now they were all gone. And thirdly, a huge amount of pure noise was taking the town square over. Rainbow slowly got up from the cold marble floor and walked over to the window, eager to see what her not-so-friendly neighborhood Rebels were up to. When she got to the window, she immediately felt a slight sting in her chest. The leader was there, riding his fancy golden chariot amongst the regular ranks. All part of the propaganda. The regular ranks were excited as ever, of course. Their leader, their god, was sitting in his chariot in the very same town they had so bravely conquered, making sure not to save any of the poor and innocent residents of the peace-loving community that had occupied the town. ‘Criminal scum’ Rainbow thought to herself. The power behind that stallion was based on lies, propaganda and the support of the paramilitary forces led by a couple of the embittered officers of the Royal Guard. But that didn’t make him a fair leader. Whoever said a word against him or his forces would be executed. Rainbow had been there to witness that. And there he was, lazily waving his hoof at the crowd of over-excited privates trying their best to touch their god, hoping to achieve such powers as he had. If Rainbow would have had a chance, the dictator would already be lying in a bloody puddle in his fancy little chariot. But the distance was too big even for her faithful pistol, she was not too much into straight kamikaze knife-attacks, and she certainly was not strong enough to throw the grenade-like thing that long. So she was doomed to just watch as the worst criminal of the whole world just rode past the window. The stallion in the chariots was responsible of the murders of the Princesses Celestia, Luna and Cadence, plus the captain of the guard Shining Armor. Even harming a Princess was worth of twenty years in the dungeons and killing another pony was automatically a death sentence. If justice would ever happen, that guy surely would be deep in his own shit. The serious-looking stallion that was walking on the right of the chariots was the leader of the Rebellion army, simply called Matt. He looked like a private with the almost non-existent muscles and a small and weak-looking body, but the reality was completely different. He had gained his position by fighting. He had one of the first to sign up when the Rebellion was formed up. He had fought in every single bigger battle that the Rebellion had won. He had always been in the frontline, taking down stallion after stallion, never even slightly changing his expression. Or that’s what the tale told. But Rainbow wasn’t so completely convinced about the almighty power of the stallion. She had never seen him anywhere, save for the one single poster an unlucky Rebel had nailed into her door. On the left of the chariot was a mare that was wearing a deep dark suit that covered her whole body, including the face. One would have thought that she was some kind of an agent or an extra-special soldier. But yet again Rainbow knew better. She was a slave. A war slave. She was forced to walk with the dictator and do whatever he said until he’d either release her from the duty or kill her. And all of this because she happened to be a mare. Suddenly the chariot stopped. It had reached the center of the town square and soldiers were packing closer to see what had happened. All of a sudden the door of the chariot swung open and a chubby, hickish stallion with a stalk of hay in his mouth stepped out. The crowd began to cheer immediately. Rainbow felt a sudden urge to just run over there and shoot the sick little bastard. He wasn’t so tough now when he was out of his bulletproof chariot. But the crowd was blocking the way effectively. If someone would try to murder any of the higher officers of the group, the regular ranks would block the bullets or grenades and the “more important” members of the party would be safe. Yet another example of the way how the Rebellion took a good care of their soldiers. The stallion was known as Rob. Nobody knew his real name. The Rebels were forced to change their names when they joined the army. A stallion named Blue Flower would become Matt. A mare named Bright Skies would become Jessica. The names were blank, telling nothing about the owner. Rob was about to start a little speech. Rainbow still felt the urge to sabotage his plans somehow, but refused to listen to it and pushed it far back into her mind. Rainbow perked her ears up and listened as closely as she could as the stallion started his speech. “Dear Rebellion comrades. I have come a long way to visit your temporary camp, just to congratulate you of the successful battles of the last two weeks. You have made a great job and the lead of the Rebellion appreciates your hard work. "Therefore, we give you every right to loot this town. You can also do whatever you want if you happen to find a live enemy or a live civilian. If they are not part of the almighty Rebellion, they belong to the Rebel who finds them. "Also, if you for some reason want, you can burn the houses down. If it’s not useful for the Rebellion, it can go. "Stay strong and keep fighting for a better future, dear comrades!” The crowd exploded into a wave of furious cheers and stomping. Rob was standing on the temporary stage, absorbing every single cheer sent by his “comrades”, a look of enjoyment on his face. He loved to be in the center of the attention. And all of a sudden a strong, deep voice could be heard. “You’ll never win you sick motherbucker! Death to Rebellion!” An explosion shook the ground. A huge cloud of black smoke appeared out of nowhere and a series of terrifying screams could be heard. A minor attack against the Rebellion had been committed. The cloud was slowly starting to vanish, allowing a somewhat clear view of the now burnt ground. Rainbow could even see chunks of flesh and a couple of charred bones from her observation spot. Soon enough some of the Rebels found the courage to go and investigate the small hole the bomb had left behind. A circle of curious Rebels surrounded the spot, leaving Rob without any attention. He tolerated that for a good five seconds, coughed slightly and began speaking yet again. “Yet another spineless Princess-lover tried to murder me. How rude of them. But they should know that I have been chosen. I’m immortal. I can’t be destroyed. No living thing can take me down, no material in the world can harm me. That’s why we, the Rebels are the winners. Once we clear every single Princess-loving sissy from our beloved kingdom, we shall rule forever!” The crowd cheered yet again. The big fat hick had done it again. He had managed to recover from an attempt of murder in mere seconds and had managed to cherish his “comrades” even more, making the Royal Army look like a bunch of sissies. Plus, he had managed to make Rainbow hate him on a completely new level. Rainbow turned her gaze away from the cheering crowd around the “politician” and let out a small sigh. The Royal Army had lost yet another loyal soldier on an unsuccessful suicide bombardment. Why were they still doing it? Haven’t they noticed that suicide bombing led nowhere? It would just show them in a bad light, decreasing the chances of actually achieving something bigger. Yet still they were sending innocent stallions and mares into the field with a belt full of sticky, hoping for the best. And the stallions and mares wouldn’t protest. It was for a good purpose. They’d be remembered as heroes among the Royal Army soldiers. And sometimes a single stallion or mare would just go and grab something that could be used to cause some havoc and just go out to the streets and start firing, throwing or just swinging with a knife. These were acts of desperate ponies. They wanted a way out, but they didn’t want a coward’s way out. Rainbow turned lifted her head up and glared at the blank wall in front of her. Her past was haunting her mind. Her mind was begging for relief. But she, by herself, wanted to perform at least a single act of bravery in her life. She’d help the Royal Army. If she’d die helping, she’d be able to finally rest. She began walking towards the door. Breakfast was waiting for her, luring her towards the kitchen, making her hooves do all the work for her. And when her hooves were doing the walking, her mind could roam free. ‘The war is an insane thing where insane and power-hungry ponies utilize regular, peace loving ponies as weapons again the ones who you don’t like.’ ‘And for some strange reason the peace-loving ponies do it. They leave everything behind. They just listen to the orders their leader gives them and go to the field. ‘Why? Nopony knows. One might be seeking an adventure. One wants a relief. One is looking for something to rob. One is just doing it because the leader told so.’ ‘Whatever the reason, a pony that enters the field will slowly turn into a wreck. It may be physical. You may get wounded on the field. It may affect you for the rest of your life. ‘Or it may be mental. The acts you did on the field will haunt you for the rest of your life, slowly driving you insane. You will live your life in constant pain that has no relief. ‘Either way, a war does horrible things to ponies everywhere in the world, no matter who you are, how old you are or what’s your sex. Even if you didn’t participate. ‘A war is a horrible thing. And everyone who joins such horrible thing will slowly become insane.’ Rainbow stepped into the now brightly lit kitchen and let the sight of a table full of food take over her eyes and mind, causing a slight rise in the amount of saliva in her mouth. ‘Good thing that I already am.’
Chapter Five: The EffectsView OnlineThe FallChapter Five: The EffectsRainbow ran. The scenery swished past her eyes as her hooves drummed the lumpy path that led to the hill just outside Ponyville. Her chaser, an annoyed Rebel with a knife in his mouth, was running just as fast as she was, making sure that Rainbow wasn't going to get away easily. The hill was getting closer and closer, but so was the Rebel. He wanted to avenge for his comrades that had just gotten killed in a Royal Army attack. He had nothing else in his simple mind than running after the rainbow-maned mare and stabbing her to death if he would be able to catch her. But Rainbow had plans, too. On the very top of the hill was a small stash of weapons. She had been there hiding them so the Royal Army would have a back-up plan. Now they would come in handy. She forced her hooves to pick up the pace as the uphill started. Her hooves protested, but she ignored the pain and just kept running. Better have aching hooves than get stabbed to death. But the pure hatred boiling inside her chaser was encouraging him to stretch the limits of his body in order to get revenge. Rainbow was losing her lead slowly but surely. Even if she would make it up before the Rebel would catch her, she would not be able to reach the weapons in time. But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t try. The Rebel might trip, he might suddenly run out of stamina or he could just give up. The possibilities were limitless. So Rainbow forced her hooves to make the final push towards the now-visible trunk that held the weapons. Just as she was about to reach out for the small pistol lying on the ground, the Rebel tackled her, causing her to painfully fall to the ground. It took mere seconds for the Rebel to recover from the jump. Soon he was standing over Rainbow, holding a sharp knife on her throat. “Any final words, bucking traitor?” The voice was deep and filled with pure hatred. “Burn in hell, Rebel scum!” Rainbow shouted. She would die in an honourable way. “Very well then.” The Rebel raised the knife up, preparing for a stab. “But you’re going to burn first!” Just as the Rebel shouted those words, a large, sharp spear came through his forehead. His eyes rolled back in their sockets and he let out a small moan. The death was almost immediate. Suddenly the spear got pulled out of the head of the now-dead Rebel, causing his lifeless body to fall on the ground with a soft thud. The grass got all bloody in no time, causing it to get a sickly colour compared to the surrounding, pure green grass. Rainbow lifted her head up and saw Pinkie slowly walking towards her with a familiar spear in her hooves. “Whoa Pinkie, that was close. Thanks for saving me,” Rainbow said in a surprised tone. Pinkie wasn’t a regular killer. As Pinkie came closer, Rainbow could see that something was wrong. The eyes of the pink pony were deep and emotionless. Her usually poofy mane was now flat and flowing down the sides of her head, coloured in a slightly darker tone of pink. As she was just inches away from Rainbow, she opened her mouth and spoke in a deep, sad tone. “I guess I’m a natural…” ----»«---- Rainbow’s usually huge appetite was nowhere to be seen. The small chocolate-chip cookie that she called “breakfast” was lying on the table, half eaten. Every now and then Rainbow would slowly try to push her snout against the sugary cookie that would restore her energy, but just as the tip of her snout touched the surface of the cookie and the sweet scent that had a hint of dark chocolate in it reached her mind, her brains forced her to pull back. It had been like this for a good twenty minutes by now. A try, a refusal and a five minutes break. The rhythm was yet again the simplest. The big bosses of the Rebellion had already left. Rainbow had managed to overhear some parts of a discussion between two Rebels that had lurked out of the camp to have a quick smoke. “Big dealies in the capital city-thingy” were the exact words. Those two were going to have a hard time trying to explain their actions to their sergeant later on. The houses were going to be raided. It was just a matter of time. The Rebels might come tomorrow, they might wait a week. But they would come and Rainbow had to be ready. But when your blood sugar is on dangerously low levels, defending yourself gets a bit harder. That’s why Rainbow was feeling a tiniest bit depressed. But depression was an old friend of hers. She had gotten used to it years before the deaths of her friends. She could overcome the effects and live normally, tolerating it with no visible problems. And eventually it would fade out, leave her alone, just to come back another day. There, yet another simple pattern that was defining her fate. She was bound to these small things that still were the most important pieces of a lifecycle. They were not visible, yet they were always there to remind you about their presence, making sure that you would not forget what you were designed to do. Rainbow believed in cutie marks, unlike the Rebels. A simple, magical mark defined their destiny, yet it was not permanent. One would be able to change it if one would want. Rainbow had seen this happen. Colgate, the town dentist, had changed her fate. She had overcome the blessing- or curse- of a cutie mark. She had left her job as a time-keeper and set up the very first dentist’s office in Ponyville. It had been a well welcomed upgrade to the town ran by sugary businesses. But Rainbow had never felt the urge to change her destiny. She had always loved the look of the mark in her flank. It was full of awesomeness, making it clear that the carrier of the mark was just as awesome as the mark. She was bound to go fast since her birth. The other patterns were different. They appeared and disappeared in completely unpredictable order. One was alive for a couple of minutes, while one would follow you for the rest of your life. They were fascinating, yet still so annoying. A thing that could be both overestimated and underestimated. Rainbow had the ability of sensing these patterns easier than the other ponies. She was able to tell when a pattern was affecting her current move, when one was born and when one was torn apart, released from its duty. And at this very moment, the patterns were crushing her under an incredible weight that was still light as a feather. She could easily lift it up and throw it away, but at the same moment it felt like she was carrying a mountain on her back. There was pain, but then again the pain was not there. The memories were flooding into her mind, infecting it with pictures that she immediately recognized, but yet she still hadn’t seen them in her whole life. On the other end the memories were torn apart in order to make room for new ones. The cycle was endless, yet simple. Five minutes had passed. Time for a try. Rainbow opened her eyes, locked them to the unfortunate little cookie on the table and began slowly lowering her head. The cookie was growing bigger and bigger as she kept going, making the half-consumed treat look too big to fit in her mouth as a single piece. When her snout finally touched the cookie, it didn’t immediately pull up. Her snout was just millimetres away from the chocolate-y surface of the cookie, sniffing softly. Rainbow inhaled the scent and let her brains consume every single bit of it. It got copped down into smaller bits that got absorbed into her brains, causing an immediate alert. Rainbow’s mouth opened. Her head dropped to the table and the cookie got caught inside. It was trapped. There was no place to go anymore. As Rainbow realized what had just happened, she quickly yanked her head up from the table and began chewing furiously. Loud cracks could be heard as the poor cookie got ground into pieces small enough to swallow. The incredible taste of the cookie mixed with creamy filling took her tongue over, causing a sudden spike in the amount of saliva generated. Soon enough Rainbow’s mouth was filled with a mixture of chocolate-chip cookie dust, creamy white filling and pure saliva. The feeling was familiar, yet it was still so far away. But that didn’t matter. The most important thing in the whole surrounding world was that she was consuming the cookie. She had won the battle. She was the winner. Suddenly the taste left her mouth. A slight surprise hit her, as she was trying to understand what had taken the wonderful feeling away. But soon she realized that she swallowed. It was completely usual for a pony, yet still she wasn’t sure if she could do it again. Rainbow licked her lips. The downside of such amazing thing as a chocolate-chip cookie is that it tends to leave your mouth all dry. But luckily, a cure has been invented. It’s a simply fascinating thing called “drinking”. But what was it what you drank? Rainbow let her thoughts wander for a few seconds. When she called them back, she got a pretty mixed-up answer. Some told her that there was no such thing as drinking. Some were trying to convince that you were supposed to drink more cookies. The rest were strenuously trying to tell her that she should drink something that was in the liquid form. Rainbow wanted to believe all of them. They were her thoughts after all. Not believing them was like not believing the thing you said to yourself. But apparently some of her memories were trying to lie to her. That wasn’t a very nice thing to do. Rainbow was the reason they even existed, and now they were lying to her. It made her a bit angry. It was up to her to choose the right answer. She took her time thinking about every single littlest thing her memories were feeding her brains in tries of providing at least some proof to their suggestion. After a good while of thinking, she had made her decision. The first answer was a bit weak. Sure it could be possible, but she had so many memories about drinking in general. It could not be a fake memory. The second one was a bit stronger. But as she scrolled through her memories in order to understand the size of cookies, she had to reject that theory too. Cookies were too big to stream down your throat. So, number three was the answer. She’d have to find some liquid. She knew what liquid was. She had loads of it hidden into the closets of her cloud house, out of the reach of the sharp eyes of the bad police ponies that wanted to steal her precious liquid. And as she dug deeper into the veil of thoughts, she remembered that she had even more liquid here in her temporary house. They were hidden into the leftmost cupboards of the room she was in. She couldn’t remember the name of the room, but it was not necessary. So, she sent out a series of commands that ordered her hooves to lift her up from the chair she was sitting on and take her to the liquid. Her hooves took their time, but eventually she stumbled up from the light-brown chair and her hooves started taking her into the direction of the stash. Stash, a brilliant word she just found from the depth of her mind. As soon as she reached the “stash”, she was forced to face yet another riddle: How to open the solid barrier between her dry mouth and the sweet, sweet relief. Luckily for her, her hooves knew a way. Her right forehoof got pulled back in a swift motion and suddenly rocketed into the centre of the barrier. A loud crack could be heard and the barrier crumbled. Her hoof got pulled back and placed to the floor. It had solved the riddle in mere seconds. Rainbow was proud of her hoof. She reached out for the bottles filled with the sweetest nectar that the world had ever witnessed. She grabbed two and pulled them out of the cupboard, almost smashing the rightmost into the frame of it. But as the bottles came visible in her eyes, she was disappointed yet again. They were sealed with a simple brown holey-thingy that was not letting anything through. She had some more digging to do. The result was found a bit faster this time. A few non-related thoughts passed by, and there it was. Uncork it. Rainbow slowly and carefully uncorked both bottles and let the sweet aroma take over. She felt a sudden urge to chug down every single drop. And in her current condition, she was no-pony to resist such urges. Soon both bottles were lying on the floor, every single drop consumed by the apparently very thirsty Pegasus. But drinking can be dangerous. As soon as Rainbow took her first breath of oxygen after the load of alcohol, her brains decided to switch to safe mode. The last thing she saw before collapsing to the floor was a cyan Pegasus mare, playfully running around with a certain orange earth pony mare that seemed a bit too familiar to be a creation of her own mind. Rainbow smiled for the first time in days as the pleasant memory took over.
Chapter Six: Yet another painful wake-upView OnlineThe FallChapter Six: Yet another painful wake-upRainbow was looking into the eyes of the distant pony. The afternoon wind was sending shivers through her body. The other pony was having the same effects, visibly shaking in the sudden breeze. Suddenly, the other pony took a step closer. As Rainbow realized this, she followed the example. Soon both ponies were running towards each other, eyes still locked into each other’s. It was only when they could hear each other breathing when they finally stopped. Applejack’s body shapes were easily visible now, though Rainbow kept her concentration on the face of the orange mare. Applejack was doing the same. They just stood there, looking at each other, not even trying to break the magic of the moment. And all of a sudden the clouds moved out of the way and let the beams of Celestia’s sun reach the ground. Those beams reflected from the eyes of Applejack, showcasing the deep green in them, making Rainbow’s sense of reality slip even further away. The breeze was still present, taking a hold of Applejack’s blonde mane and swinging it in the air. The sight was heavenly. And just as the moment was reaching its peak, Applejack leaned in and locked her lips with Rainbow’s. The two ponies stood there, sharing in a passionate kiss, the afternoon sun illuminating their bodies against the small field filled with golden wheat they were standing on. And the reality faded away as the two mares shared their special moment. ----»«---- A little-out-of-tone chirp of a bird woke Rainbow up from the first happy dream in weeks. She was annoyed by this, of course. She had been living the best moment of her short life again, getting to feel all the emotions that were rolling in her head as the kiss just kept on going. But this certain bird just had to chirp when she was having the worst of hangovers. The sharp pain was a bit late, but after a good two seconds the feeling of millions of tiny needles penetrating your skull came. As the pain took over, Rainbow collapsed to the floor. She had apparently tried to get up during her sleep. That was new. But this wasn’t the best of moments to think about what she had done while she had been asleep. The pain pulsing in her head was a much more important thing. Rainbow was starting to regret whatever she had done in order to get such pain. She had drunk something, but she was not sure what. The taste in her mouth reminded of two-weeks-on-the-table cider mixed up with a fresh batch of puke from the floor of the worst pub in the town. In other words, she hadn’t tasted anything even near that bad in months. Water was the best friend of a drunk. You could drink gallons of straight vodka fresh from Stalliongrad, getting only a ruined liver, a couple of hours of blank in your memory, possible unpleasant memories and a semi-bad hangover if you drank the same amount of water after drinking the alcohol. But when you had a hangover up and running, there was no way to stop it. You’d have to submit to the fate of living with it for a couple of hours. But you can make the suffering more tolerable if you just manage to get up from your bed, the floor or wherever you just happen to be lying. It was brilliant. Go do some chores and BOOM! Hangover gone. There was only a single problem. It’s incredibly hard to get up when you have a pistol pressed against the side of your head. “Rise and shine, dearie!” shouted a somewhat high-pitched voice. It was coming from her side. Rainbow was pretty sure that the source of the voice was holding the pistol. “How was sleep?” it asked. A regular pony would have answered, but Rainbow knew better. “Ah, you’re a little smart-ass are ya? Well, let’s see about how smart you are with your brains on the wall!” Rainbow knew she had no choice. She was slowed down so much by the hangover that she wouldn’t be able to take the stallion down. At least from this position. “What do you want?” she asked. Better keep the conversation alive. Rebels are simple. If they are speaking, they can’t shoot. “Oh, I was just having a little walk around the town and saw this nice little building. Well, I don’t fight for free. So, I came in in hopes of some treasures, but found you on the floor instead. “But, as I’m a good stallion, I didn’t run back to the camp and tell that we had a Princess-loving traitor here. No, I decided to have my own fun with you. “But, you were out cold. Drinking is dangerous, you know? It might destroy your beautiful body.” Rainbow was starting to get pissed. She knew exactly what the Rebel meant by “own fun”. But she wasn’t going to go down without a fight. She was a soldier. She knew tricks. The best way to make a stallion completely harmless? A well-aimed kick to the jewels. “So, what are your plans?” she asked. A distraction was needed in her current condition. “Are you really that stupid? I’m a stallion and you are a mare. It should be completely obvious that I’m going to-“ Rainbow pressed her forehooves tightly to the floor, used them to rocket herself up, lifted her left hind hoof up and bucked as hard as she could while mid-air. Judging by the sudden stop in the little speech of the Rebel, she had hit her target. She heard the Rebel collide to the floor. Her plan had succeeded. The gun was falling freely through the air. With a swift move of her hoof, Rainbow caught it mid-air, spun it around, landed perfectly to the hard floor and aimed at the Rebel. But the poor stallion was still in such pain that he was unable to do anything. He was just lying on the ground, a painful look on his face. Rainbow could actually see tears forming up in his eyes. “Not so tough anymore, huh?” she asked. Mocking her victim was always fun, especially after she had surprised him. The Rebel was only able to form up a small, high-pitched squeal. “That’s what you get for sneaking around stealing stuff and stalking innocent mares while they are asleep.” “B-buck you!” Rainbow was surprised by the fact that the Rebel had managed to form up two complete words. “What was that? Didn’t quite catch you there,” she said while waving the gun in front of the face of the Rebel. He got the hint and kept his mouth shut. “Now, I really don’t like killing ponies. But, I can make an exception with you…” Rainbow said and put on her evil grin. “No! Please! I’ll do anything!” The Rebel had recovered quickly. “Anything, eh?” Rainbow asked and placed a hoof on her chin, as if she would be thinking. “Yes! Anything!” The Rebel was starting to sound desperate. “Okay then. First off, you’re going to answer some questions. How did you get in? The door was supposed to be secured.” “Duh, a house has windows!” Rainbow skillfully spun the gun in her hoof and pulled the trigger. The bullet missed the head of the Rebel just by inches. “Oh just how did I miss like that? Well, I’ll probably be more accurate next time…” Rainbow said to the now-shocked Rebel. Seeing that the Rebel realized to keep his mouth shut, she continued the little quiz. “Secondly, what are the plans of the Rebellion?” All of a sudden the Rebel got all serious. “I’m not letting the Rebellion down, motherbucker!” Rainbow had got enough of this. She lifted the gun up and shot again. The bullet hit right where it was supposed to hit; to the left forehoof of the stallion. “Aah!” Was all the stallion could say. He winced in pain and collapsed on the floor, holding his now-injured hoof. “I repeat. What are the plans of the Rebellion?” Rainbow said while pressing the gun against the right hind hoof of the defenseless stallion. “Okay, okay! I’ll tell!” He shouted in panic, knowing that he had no option. “Well?” Rainbow asked. “I’m not a very patient mare, you know.” “The lead is finally going to take Canterlot over. They should have no resistance now when the princesses are gone. Right for those namby-pamby “love everyone”-bitches.” Rainbow shot another bullet, into the right hind hoof this time. “Aaagh!” Rainbow could see the tears that were forming up in the eyes of the Rebel. ‘Not so tough’, she thought to herself. “So, any more info? Or should I try your left hind leg?” “They will take the palace as the command center! They will live there until the war is officially over! The great and almighty leader loves hayrolls! What do you want to know!?” “I guess that was enough. Now come on and I will take you to the cellar in order to get you something for those hooves.” Rainbow said. She certainly wasn’t going to clean any more Rebel-blood from the floors. “Oh thank you, thank you!” said the Rebel, a small glimpse of hope lighting up in his eyes. “Okay. Grab my shoulder.” Rainbow instructed after making sure that he had no hidden weapons. The stallion obeyed. He grabbed Rainbow’s shoulder and she began escorting him towards the awaiting doom. ----»«---- As they reached the cellar door, the stallion’s normally green fur was soaked in blood and sweat. Yet he was still conscious and doing his best trying to keep steady, trying to ease Rainbow’s job. She almost felt bad for what she was going to do. Almost. “Okay, you go first. The door tends to shut a bit fast and we don’t want you to stumble, do we?” she said. “Well, at least I don’t,” the stallion answered happily. He waited aside as Rainbow forced the heavy door open. “It tends to get stuck every now and then,” Rainbow explained. The stallion suspected nothing. He just happily smiled at her as he walked through the doorway and started walking down the stairs. Rainbow moved to the door, swung the pistol up, made sure it was loaded and aimed at the back of the head of the Rebel. For a second, she hesitated. The stallion seemed really nice to her. But when she recalled the earlier events, she decided that this was the best solution. She shot three accurate shots into the back of his head. He fell forward on the steps, nastily hitting his forehead to one of the hard stone steps. Rainbow could hear the skull crack. She trotted down as fast as she could. The faster the body would be dumped into the hole, the faster she would be able to forget. As she reached the body she could easily see half of the brains of the stallion sticking out of the huge hole he had in his skull. The bullets had made their way through forming up three round holes, weakening the skull. When he had hit his head to the step, the weakened skull had cracked. The result was messy. The cerebrospinal fluids were flowing through the hole, diluting the blood and causing a pinkish puddle form up. This managed to make Rainbow feel sick. She quickly pushed the stallion with her front hooves. The hole was getting closer and closer. After a good minute of pushing and gagging, the Rebel finally fell to the depths of the hole. A sickly thud and a series of loud cracks could be heard. Rainbow 4, Rebels 0. But she wasn’t too happy about it. Two of the four had been good in some level. This was why she hated war. ‘Oh how I hate the sound of the broken pieces,’ she thought to herself, the cracks still haunting her mind. She trotted back to the cellar door, took a one final look back and shut the door for good. ----»«---- The sun was already setting. The same old and boring beams casted shadows on the wall behind the window. The sight was starting to bore Rainbow. It would have been a great moment to share with someone, but when she was all alone, everything felt so dull and gray. She used the small hammer to hit the one last nail, causing it to sink deeper into the hard wooden plank she had found from the upstairs. Why did the owner hide wooden planks into his house? But Rainbow didn’t care. All the windows were now blocked and no-one could get in. She could sleep safely. But it wasn’t sleepy-time yet. It would take good two hours for her to fall asleep and the thought of waiting those two hours with all kinds of memories running in her head, constantly trying to hurt her wasn’t too tempting. She’d need something to do. Something to keep the thoughts away. Food or drinks were no option. Rainbow still remembered the hellish headache she had had after killing the Rebel. She was also pretty full from that half-a-sandwich she had eaten before blocking the windows. But the answer to her problem was lying on the floor, next to her saddlebag. The mysterious folder she had found from observation room. A good read would make time pass easily. Rainbow trotted over to the folder, picked it up and threw it to the couch. After making sure that everything was well blocked and that she was in good enough condition, she followed. She made a few adjustments to her position, opened the folder and started to read.
Chapter Seven: The FolderView OnlineThe FallChapter Seven: The FolderThe notes of doctor Plasma Cannon, the leader of Equestrian Scientific Centre. So, these are my research notes I have scribbled down during my work at the Equestrian Scientific Centre, or ESC for short. These notes and entries I write tend to be somewhat diary-like, but it should not matter. These notes are only the most interesting things. I won’t write an entry every time someone finds a new material that can absorb water nearly a half as good as a cloud. But first, I’m going to tell you a bit about myself. Just to bore you to death, that is. As I already said, I’m the lead researcher of ESC, having complete control over the whole facility and its resources, including the occupants. How come a single pony has this much power in his hooves? I have made much work in order to achieve this position of mine. I have given my word to the princesses themselves that I will be a good leader. In addition to that, they have made simple rules that I have, and will, follow. If one of those rules is broken, I will lose my job, my facility and my title as a doctor of physics and electronics. Therefore, I have fairly good reasons to follow these certain rules. One might think that being a boss of such a huge facility is easy. This certainly is the current stereotype the movies and literature are feeding us. The popular movies of the last five years show bosses as fat and lazy, sometimes balding ponies that just relax and let their minions do the work. But one should not believe everything one sees. The work is hard. I personally supervise every single experiment done in this building, just to avoid accidents. I personally sign every single paper that comes into or leaves the building. If you want to do a test and you need resources, you have to ask me first and I have to fill out some papers and watch over you as you do your test. And of course, I take part in designing a better future for the country. A future powered by electricity and magic together. But that future is still far away. We need to be reasonable. We have made some breakthroughs in our tests, but that still doesn’t mean that we will invent anything great today. But over time, such inventions will happen. For example, a couple of months back we finally, after years of research, managed to find and prove the existence of these tiny building blocks we call “atoms”. That invention was such a huge accomplishment that the whole team got personal congratulations from princess Celestia herself. That moment was one of the best of my life. The princess shaking my hoof, congratulating me from the incredible work. Well, I guess that that’s enough of boring you to death. If you have gained access over this folder and can understand what I’m saying, feel free to read through. Some of the greatest inventions of the history of ponykind may reside between these covers. Always be eager to learn, my friend! - Doctor Plasma Cannon, the leader of ESC. 12. February: Interesting times are upon us. We are closing on what we hope to be the final breakthrough on discovering the borders of material and what’s beyond existing material. Everyone in the facility is literally holding their breath as I walk over to the machine that is supposed to take atoms apart and expand the fabric of space and time. We are so close. If this works, the future is suddenly closer than ever. 14. February: A minor error in the machine managed to stop the process as something was about to happen. You can’t possibly imagine how awkward it felt to stand there in the best possible spot, the success of the whole test lying on your hooves and to see it fail due to what turned out to be a badly wired circuit. A thing that could have been fixed in mere minutes, maybe even less, managed to ruin a year’s work. Luckily, we were able to save the machine before the certain circuit caused any internal damage to the machine. We’re going to try again tomorrow. Hopefully things go a little better this time. 15. February: It worked! For a small amount of time, there was a little notch in the graph. If it’s not a magical error- which is extremely unlikely- we have managed to breach the limits of time and space. Even though this was only for a time that one’s eye could barely notice, it’s still incredible news. Imagine. We dig deeper and deeper into this. Eventually we will find a way to make that time longer, maybe even seconds. If “the wormhole”, as we call it, would stay open for as long as a second, a unicorn would be able to try to control it with magic. If the unicorn would get a hold of the wormhole, he or she would possibly be able to hold it down for a longer time and in the best case scenario, pin it down. Therefore, we would be able to investigate what’s beyond the visible matter. A time of change may be upon us. And I, for one, welcome such change open-heartedly. 24. February: We have done series of test with “The Holemaker”. I know, I know. We aren’t that good at naming stuff. But anyways, we have been able to see the small crack in space for multiple times and even have pictures of it. It’s like a clear winter sky; so deep and dark, but if you look really closely you might spot some small brinks of light. Those lights possibly mean that there is something down there. Something new. Something interesting. We are working on a basic prototype of “The Holeopener”. It’s basically a smaller and a less powerful copy of The Holemaker. If everything goes as planned, we can use The Holemaker to create a hole and The Holeopener to keep the hole alive. If this really works, we might be able to explore what’s beyond the hole. What are the mysterious lights? 4. May: A long break. From writing, I mean. We have worked non-stop since the first 3D-model of the “Portal Gun” came. Yes, we renamed The Holeopener to be Portal Gun. It sounds better, doesn’t it? So, that makes a total of three and a half weeks of 20-hour workdays. But I’m not complaining. Sleep is for the weak, especially now when we are nearing the breakthrough. The basic skeleton of the gun is ready. It is really only in development stages, but it has the basic methods to keep the portal alive. In a couple of days, the final pieces will be secured and attached, and the gun will be built. The excitement is killing me. 8. May: Well, the build got delayed by a day. One of the lead builders got sick and I had to connect the last piece of the gun. But all in all, the test was a success. Oh who am I kidding it was a fucking huge breakthrough! Not only were we able to hold the portal down for a couple of seconds, the Portal Gun actually managed to pin it! Now we have a small crack in the fabric of time and space located in a small plastic cube where the best scientist of our facility investigate it all day, all night. Any time soon they will manage to combine the data into a one huge chart and understand it. And when that time comes, history will be changed. 27. May: Well, it took long but I think it was worth the wait. We now have some basic data of the hole. First off, it’s not a hole. It’s a portal. So, seems like Portal Gun did its job, eh? Bad pun, I know. But anyways, it leads to a different dimension. A. Different. Dimension! Can you believe it? We, the regular ponies, have managed to create a tunnel between two dimensions, ours being one of them. This might mean that there are other dimensions, too. And if there are other dimensions, there must be other forms of life than the ones we know. Just imagine if we could go through the portal and explore the new world. 29. May: One of our designers just came in. She had a new model with her. The model was a basic prototype of a weapon that shot electric charges at the point where you were aiming at, causing it to get electrically charged. But at the same time it would de-charge materials that were already charged. As soon as I head this, I told the whole team to come over. We discussed, planned and made some adjustments and BOOM! There it was. Portal Gun². It should be able of opening and pinning non-charged portals that are supposed to be accessible. We are running beta-tests tomorrow. 2. June: The tests got delayed yet again. We tried to de-charge the portal with it, but it didn’t quite work. It shot the same blue orb as always and the orb hit the portal just as planned. When it connected with the portal, it splashed. Several little orbs gathered around the portal, forming up a field. The field was floating around the portal, but as we tried to throw a ball through, it bounced back just as it had done earlier. Everything in the Portal Gun² itself is fine. It works just as it was supposed to, save for not making the portal accessible. Well, I’ve got a long night of fixing ahead. 3. June: I realized what had happened. I watched the tapes of the test again and again and again. After a good five hours of trying to fix the gun, I noticed a small detail we all had missed. When the portal was “charged”, the small lights were moving left. But when the power field produced by the Portal Gun² hit it, the lights started moving right. If I completely understand what’s going on, we have created a time machine. I’m going to investigate that tomorrow. I’m afraid that I’ll do mistakes when I’m tired. 4. June: Well, I tested it all right. One of the members of our team, Short Circuit, lost his dear pet rat we had used as a lab rat mere days ago. Well, I got his permission to test the gun on the poor little fella. If you are reading this Shorts, huge thanks for you! You and Louise made this possible. I positioned Louise (Short’s pet lab rat) on the table, right under the “tip” of the gun. She still looked so adorkable. The little fella had been our favorite. So smart and so cute. “Sorry Louise. I’m doing this for science.” Were my exact words as I made my final apologies and shot an electrically charged orb at her. It formed up a field, just like it had done with the portal. The field circled the white fur of Louise, actually going inside her. This went on for a good ten minutes. I was just about to kill the power as I saw her left hind leg twitch a little. You cannot possibly imagine the look on my face as she jumped up to her feet just the very next second. Yes, I just brought a lab rat that had been dead for two whole days back into life. We had just invented a gun that would turn time back, making you younger. This little gun that was attached to the “leg” we used to hold things up could change the world. It would change the world. How did I celebrate this? I went to see Shorts, Louise sitting on my shoulder. You should have seen his face as I walked and he saw Louise. I’m going to inform Celestia as soon as possible. Better future, here we come! 8. June: Well, I’m not a doctor anymore. I’m not in the lead of the facility anymore. Princesses Celestia and Luna themselves came to pay us a visit. Well, I took this as an honor. The rulers had come to congratulate us. But the truth was all different. They had come to shut the facility down. Every single pony lost their job. Every single one. I asked them why. Why had they done this to us? We were the force that kept Equestria going forward, towards better times. But the answer I received was the worst one I’ve ever heard. “Ponies are not meant to live forever. Playing a god is not a good idea, Plasma. We are shutting this facility down to prevent the misuse of the weapons you have created.” I was outrageous. They had taken everything from me. My job. My lab. My inventions. My titles. I was thrown out to the streets. The best known of the scientists that Equestria had ever witnessed. I became a laughing stock. Everywhere I went, everywhere they would laugh at me. Random ponies that walked past would point hooves at me and whisper to each other. “That’s the professor who got kicked out. They say that he did filly-testing.” Lies. Filthy lies. But I have nothing to do about it. They won’t listen. I’m all alone. This is the last entry of my notes. This day will be the last one of my life. If miracles won’t happen. And I don’t believe in miracles. 9. June: I guess I have to start believing. I was in the local bar, drowning my emotions into a mugful of the finest whisky the bar had to offer when a completely random pony just sat next to me and started chatting. “So, Doctor Plasma Cannon, former leader of the ESC, I assume?” I looked at him. He had that certain countryside accent, a Stetson-styled hat and a stalk of hay sticking from his mouth. The first thing I thought to myself was ‘How come a yokel like that knows me?’ The best way to find out was to ask. “Yeah, I am. And you are?” “I’d rather not tell. But you can call me Rob.” “So, Rob, how come you know me? And how come you know I’m a former leader?” “Let’s just say that I have connections. But enough chit-chat. Time for business. I’m offering you a place as a lead scientist in the Rebellion army that fights against the Princesses. Our main objective is to put a single normal pony to the lead instead of the “all-powerful” princesses that just happen to be eternal. So, are you in?” I knew that this dude didn’t have all the buffalo in the pasture. But this was the best possible chance for me to get appreciation and revenge. So, I took the offer. “I’d be honored to. I, by myself, happen to have something to settle with the princesses.” “Great! Shall we get to the labs immediately?” I chugged down the last drops of my whisky, wiped my chin with my hoof and rose up. “We shall.” And he escorted me outside where a simple wooden chariot was waiting for us. A better life is ahead. I can feel it. And someday, I will get my revenge. And that day shall be soon. Always be eager to learn, my Rebel comrade! - Plasma Cannon, leader of the Rebellion Scientific Group.
Chapter Eight: EncounterView OnlineThe FallChapter Eight: EncounterRainbow slowly put the folder down. She knew that facility. She had spent endless hours there whilst Twilight had been helping the so nice-seeming Plasma Cannon out with his projects. She had seen some top secret stuff, but had never suspected anything like this. They had a gun that could bring dead back to life. All of a sudden, she had hope. Hope that was radiating from the past. She could bring her friends back. She would meet them again, reunite after the countless days, feel their warmth and just let the pressure slide off of her. And together they would be able to stand up against the Rebellion. They would end the era of exploitation and cruelty. They would bring the light back to the citizens of the greatest of the nations. But that was a far-away dream. The gun was in Canterlot, in a shut-down, top secret and possibly already cleansed facility. And she was stuck here in Ponyville, blood-thirsty Rebels surrounding her. She had to get out. She had to leave this damned village and get to Canterlot, no matter what. There she would have even some hope. Hope of surviving, hope of ending this all, even hope of reuniting with her friends. But getting out wasn't so easy. The Rebels had tightened the security over the course of the last twenty hours. Rainbow had seen multiple patrols and a suspicious-looking shadow that was circling the streets. It was already late night, but she was afraid to sleep. Last night she had learnt a lesson: Nowhere is safe. She couldn't just go to sleep, completely unaware of the surroundings. So she stood up from the bed, grabbed the small flashlight she kept next to the sofa, turned it on and took a good look around the room. It was just as empty as it had been five minutes ago, when she had last checked. She sighed. All the hiding and killing was starting to get on her. Paranoia, insomnia, even slight amnesia. The darkness around her was starting to embrace her even more as the minutes passed by. The window. She could swear that the shadow had been there. She quickly trotted over to the window, killed the light and stared outside, trying to see every single detail of the surrounding camp. And there it was. The shadow. Flying in the skies over the surrounding houses. It was looking for something. The shadow was gray. Light gray, to be exact. Though, it seemed to be cloaked into the darkness, making it more like a deep dark, almost black gray. It had wings. A pegasus, maybe? But it was a Rebel. All Rebels were bad, no matter who he or she was. Rainbow felt a sudden urge to spread her wings, to take the skies from the sudden invader. The skies of Ponyville were hers and hers only. But the pain of the still-wrapped wing stopped her from doing that. She felt a single tear force its way out of her eye due to the mixture of pain, emotions and memories. She was doomed to be flightless. The gray pony was circling something. It was just across the street. Rainbow tried to see what was so interesting. And after a minute of zooming, she saw it. An apparently brown earth pony that was lying on the ground, holding his or her hooves over his or her head. The pegasus was a predator. A hunter, just like Rainbow. A lone wolf, all alone against the world. But at the same time it was an enemy, a threat. And threats need to be neutralized. Rainbow looked with a blank expression as the pegasus slowly started landing. It was slowly descending over the brown earth pony. Rainbow knew that the pony was doomed. If the pegasus really was an assassin, it would kill its target with no pity. The pegasus dropped down and landed agilely, not even causing a slightest thud as its hooves touched the ground. Now that it was on the ground, Rainbow could see its body shapes better. It was definitely a mare. The pegasus walked over to the earth pony that was visibly shaking. Despite the fact that the earth pony, apparently a stallion, was bigger than his hunter, he was completely helpless when lying on the ground under the silhouette of his doom. The pegasus seemed to say some words. Rainbow had no hope of hearing what it was, but knowing assassins, she could have sworn that it was a bloody insult. Few seconds passed by. Nothing moved. Every single littlest thing had stopped to look at the scene that was playing in front of them. A scene of life and death. A scene of destiny getting fulfilled. And all of a sudden, the pegasus dropped down, pulled something out from her coat-matching bag and made a swift motion with her hoof. The earth pony stopped shaking and his head dropped back. Although it was not visible, Rainbow knew that the blood of the poor stallion was flowing out from the freshly-made cut in his throat. The pegasus immediately pulled her knife back, cleaned it and put it back into her bag. Her job here was done and she knew that staying in the scene for too long was extremely dangerous. She let out a loud whistle, a signal for the stallions that had been hiding in the shadows. They came out of their hiding spots, had a few words with the pegasus, gave her something that looked like a bag of bits, put the body in a black bag and took the lifeless corpse of the brown earth pony away. The pegasus was an assassin. Rainbow had been right. No random pony kills with such a professional touch. But what Rainbow thought was wrong was that she got paid. She took lives for money. She was a lousy hit man. A true assassin takes no payment, as the respect from your comrades and the fear in the eyes of your victims is enough. Rainbow focused again. She had lost herself into the veil of thoughts yet again. It had to stop. It was not safe in such environment. Someday, if not now, someone would offer a fat bag of bits for her head. And when that would happen, she could not afford any mistakes. She looked back out of the window. The pegasus was gone. The scene was silent, empty and clean. The stallions had left no mark of the kill. Once again the work of a professional. Rainbow let out a little sigh. Things had been so different mere weeks earlier. The world had been in peace. The sun had been shining, the birds had been chirping as always and she had been taking naps and spending good time with her friends. Those times would still be here if she would just have made the right decision. It was her fault. Her and her only. She had caused the deaths of her friends. She had caused the rise of the Rebellion. She had caused all the evil in the world. She had caused the death of that innocent brown earth pony. She was responsible of all the pain and sorrow in this world. Rainbow let a tear drop from her eye. If she only would have chosen wisely, reacted faster… “Having a little moment, huh?” asked a cold voice. The tone dug deep into the insides of Rainbow, causing her to shiver. She tried to spin around, but a hard kick to her left hind leg forced her to face the window. She had been surprised. And in the middle of a deep moment. Not a good thing. She knew exactly who this pony who had managed to surprise her was. This certain pony had spotted her when she had let her concentration slip off. This certain pony had managed to get in from Celestia-knows-what little hole that was somewhere in this house, unblocked. This certain pony had waited for the perfect moment, mentally stabbed her victim and made sure that her victim wouldn't try anything. This could have worked for a regular victim. But Rainbow was an assassin, too. She had experience from stuff like this. She was agile, maybe even more agile than her enemy. She could do surprising moves. She could take the little knife out of the hoof of the other pony. And most importantly, she was fighting for something way more important than cash or neutralizing witnesses. She was fighting for her friends. She was fighting in order to change destiny. She was fighting for a greater good. Rainbow felt the feelings boil inside her. She was preparing for her attack. She would win. For the brown earth pony. For her friends. For Equestria. But she had to wait for a perfect moment. Her enemy was no regular pony either. One small mistake would mean certain death. The best way to distract a pony was to start up a conversation. That’s just what she tried. “Okay, you got me. Bravo. How did you get in? I thought that I had blocked all the entrances,” she said. “Do you really think that I’m that stupid?” the other pony asked in the same deep and cold, emotionless tone. Rainbow smirked. Just what she had been waiting for. “Yes,” she said, jumped high into the air, spun around facing to the other pony, who by the way really was the same light gray assassin, and swung her right forehoof directly towards the skull of the pegasus while on mid-air. There was a slight look of surprise and even awe on the face of the pegasus for a blink of an eye, but soon it was replaced by the same emotionless look as the pegasus dodged the swing by just mere inches. Rainbow stumbled to the floor. But knowing that it was dangerous to just stay there, she ignored the pain in her injured wing, forced herself back up and faced the pegasus. There was a second of silence between the two assassins before the light gray pegasus attacked. She aimed for the throat. Rainbow knew this well. It was the easiest place to deal a killing blow to after all. She swiftly dodged this obvious attack, trying to distract the other pony with her hoof whilst doing so. But she forgot about one thing. Her enemy was a pegasus as well. And she was capable of flying. The light gray pegasus unfurled her wings while she was still on air, changing her direction and giving her an open spot in Rainbow’s side where she easily could slice. Rainbow felt a sharp pain on her right side. She had underestimated her enemy. And now she had a wound on her side. But her experiences had taught her to ignore the pain. She swung her forehooves towards the gray pegasus instead, got a hold of her right wing and pulled as hard as she could. A loud crack could be heard, indicating that Rainbow had been successful. The other pony screamed in pain. The wings of a pegasus are really fragile and sensitive unless trained to a top fit. So it was completely understandable that the pegasus was in horrifying pain. When Rainbow had hurt her own wing, the pain had been so hard she had fainted. It was still present, never leaving her alone. The other pony fell to the ground, face still showing an emotion powered by pure pain. The effect had been an extremely hard one. Rainbow almost felt bad for what she had done. But a good assassin feels no pity. Respect, on the other hoof, is even encouraged. Rainbow walked over to the other pony that was still in so horrible pain she was unable to move. She put a hoof in front of her enemy’s eyes, indicating that she had something to say. The gray pegasus immediately snapped her attention to Rainbow. The next part was going to be hard and Rainbow knew it. But it needed to be done. “Do you want to live or die?” she asked. She was offering a way out. It was a sign that the enemy had been good and the winner respected her. The gray pegasus immediately nodded. She had lost her honor, she had lost to a completely unknown enemy, she had broken her wing, and she might never be able to fly again. To be honest, Rainbow would have made the very same decision in her condition. The other pony pointed at the small knife that was lying next to her. She wanted to be taken by her own, faithful weapon. Together, until death takes them apart… Rainbow nodded silently. She walked over to the body of the suffering pegasus, took the small knife that was lying next to her body and positioned it over her throat. The pegasus opened her mouth. Final words. “You… You were... An enemy too good… For me…” Rainbow took those words, absorbed them, let them embrace her. Pure respect from another assassin was rare nowadays. “Mara. I’m Mara,” said the pegasus, before putting her hoof at the knife, hinting about what had to be done. An assassin never tells his or her name. Never, unless it’s an extremely special occasion. Most of the assassins take their name to the grave with them, not letting even the closest ones to know it. It’s often seen as either a betrayal, cowardly action or as a huge sign of respect, even love. Rainbow knew what this was meant to be. “I’m Rainbow. You were a worthy enemy, Mara. May you rest in peace, free of the pain and sorrow of those whose your life you took. You die as an assassin, by the hand of another assassin. Your soul is clean.” As Rainbow said that, she took a final look into the eyes of the mare. She was looking in awe, but at the same time begging for the relief. She made a small motion with her hoof. End it. And so Rainbow pushed the knife into the throat of the gray-coated pegasus. She could see a single tear roll down the light gray cheek as life escaped the body, leaving it empty and limp. Rainbow made a small symbol with her hoof into the air. A fellow assassin had fallen, even if she had been a corrupt one. Rainbow put the knife down. She could not live in this house anymore. She had to leave. Too many memories. Too many deaths. Too many emotions. She’d leave the next morning. It was decided. No matter how safe this house would be, it was impossible for her to live in a place where she had taken five lives. She closed her eyes to prevent the tears from escaping, fell over to the ground and shortly after fell asleep next to the lifeless body of her latest victim.
Chapter Nine: Leaving The NestView OnlineThe FallChapter Nine: Leaving The NestRainbow focused on the small watchtower that was in front of her. It was about ten meters high, a small amount for a pegasus. Her target was up in that tower. She needed to take out the watchpony that was keeping an eye on for the case of invaders. It was her first mission. An exciting, yet still so frightening experience. She had never been on the field before. Theory and practice were all she had got before getting sent out to face the battle. But it didn’t matter. She knew the basics, and the Rebels were easier to kill than those hay-filled dummies used in the assassination-training. If everything went as planned, she’d be out of that tower in under a minute. She was still waiting for the signal that indicated that it was safe to go. It would be dangerous to just dash up in front of a well-armed Rebel that sure was not afraid to shoot. After a good two minutes of patient waiting, the words that told her that she was on magically echoed in her ear. The magical communicators Twilight had made had proven themselves to be an excellent aid. “All clear Dash. Go when ready.” She immediately got up from the bush she had been hiding in, careful not to make any sound. She had to keep the element of surprise, just to make sure that they would not lose anypony tonight. She silently unfurled her wings and took off, hovering about a meter above the ground. There was no fear of getting caught as long as she was in the shadows. Her black camouflage made sure that she was invisible to eye when there was darkness around her. As she reached the tower, she hugged the wall. Objective one was done. She was at the tower, still alive and unseen. Things were going on just as planned. The next thing was to get up the tower. Seeing that it was too dangerous to go inside, she just decided to slowly float up the side of the tower whilst still maintaining the advantage the shadows gave her. As she reached the top, she could see that the watchpony was facing the very opposite direction. Just as planned. She slowly moved her right forehoof towards the small bag she had strapped around her waist. There was only a single item in it. Her knife. She swiftly pulled it out, pointing the sharp blade at the completely unaware stallion that had been unlucky enough to be on duty this night. Rainbow silently moved over. Not even when she was right behind the stallion, so close that she could smell the fact that the stallion used some expensive products on his mane, did he notice her. Rainbow smirked a little, slowly moved the knife over the throat of the watchpony, put her left forehoof over his mouth and sliced his throat open. It was all over in mere seconds. She pulled the knife back and let the stallion fall to the ground. There was no fear of anyone hearing the small thud his body made as it met with the wooden floor. Her first mission, her first kill, it had all been a huge success. She put her hoof at the small microphone she had near her mouth. The presence of the hoof activated the microphone, magically transmitting her speech to the radio the main group had with them. “This is Dash, job is done. Route is clear, no bogeys on towers. Waiting for orders. Over.” There was a few seconds of silence before the main group answered. “This is base, good job Dash. We need you to return immediately for a regroup. How copy?” The sound was a little static-y and unclear at some spots, but Rainbow was sure that Twilight would fix that as soon as she had some time. “Solid copy. I’m on my way. Dash out.” She took her hoof off the microphone, ending the transmission. Her job here was done. She took a quick look around, grabbed the two shiny metal tags from the table nearby, walked over to the edge of the tower and jumped out, unfurling her wings whilst doing so, and silently heading off towards the location of the main group, leaving a limp body with a sliced-open throat and a big puddle of blood after her. ----»«---- A bird chirped in the distance. The high-pitched sound penetrated Rainbow’s brains, appearing in her sleep. She tried her best to ignore it. Sleep was necessary, knowing that today was the big day. The bird kept on chirping, but Rainbow had already filtered the annoying voice out and was falling back to deep slumber. *BOOM!* The chirping of the bird suddenly ended. So did Rainbow’s dream. She’d recognize the sound of a gunshot any time. She immediately jumped up and looked around the room, scanning for possible threats. She was nothing suspicious. But she did hear something, though. “Fucking birds! You chirp this early, you fucking die!” The voice was high-pitched and full of unnecessary rage. Those words were escorted by a series of gunshots and several curses. One of the Rebels sure wasn't a morning person. But this early wake-up was actually just good for Rainbow. She’d get an early start, reducing the chance of getting caught. But she couldn't just dash out of the door with no supplies and no preparations. She needed a plan. First off, she got up from the floor. The body of the gray pegasus was still on the floor. It was only about time when it would start rotting, but Rainbow wasn't going to dump this one into the hole. No, this one had proven to be a worthy enemy. And worthy enemies deserve a special treatment. But that wasn't among the first things to do. She needed to gather up her stuff, pack some food, find and possibly secure a route out of the house, towards Canterlot and do something with the body. If she’d be fast, she’d be out of here in an hour. But only if she would be fast. No time to stand on place and think about things. What she needed was action. So, she walked over to the couch that had served as her bed for her stay. Although she hadn't utilized this generous offering too much, it still had been a great help. It was easier to sleep on a couch than on the floor after all. Her bag was just where she left it, next to the couch. Everything was inside, even her pistol. She had no idea how it had gotten there, but it didn't matter. Less time spent gathering her stuff together. The next thing was to pack some food. Good thing she had kept that huge pile ready on the table. She headed off to the kitchen. The delicious smell that was coming from the pile met her in the doorway, immediately causing her mouth to water. She hadn't eaten a thing in a while. It wasn't a good thing, thinking of the trip that was ahead of her. She needed all the energy she just could possibly get. But she decided to pack first. Just so she would have the best pieces with her on the trip where they would help more. After a while of thinking, she ended up packing a bunch of sandwiches, some daisy-cinnamon rolls she found from the bottom of the pile and a pack of those delicious chocolate-chip cookies she liked so much. The perfect pack for adventuring. She had some drinks in her saddlebag already. She also had the small foil-wrapped, now ball-formed pile of food, but just by looking at the ball of foil she could say that they were in no good condition compared to her freshly-gathered pack. Gathering food was done. It had taken a bit longer that it should have, but she had done gathering her stuff a lot faster than planned. Next thing was to plan ahead. It would be easy with the map that, for some completely strange reason, was on the wall of the kitchen. She had no idea what the owner had been thinking. The fastest route to Canterlot would take her through the mountains. The other option was to go around the mountains, through the grasslands that surrounded them and hope that the old path leading to the city was still in a tolerable condition and it wouldn't crumble whilst she would be walking on a dangerously narrow part near the edge of the highest cliff she had managed to find. After thinking about the possibilities for a while, she decided that it was for the best to go climbing the physically more demanding path than risk your life when you had got such great plans. Rainbow tore the map off of the wall, folded it nicely and stuffed it into her bag. It would come in handy. Then, the last part. The body. Rainbow couldn't think of anything else than a burial. It would take time, but it was worth it, respecting the fallen sister. So she dropped her bag to the ground, still careful not to break the fragile bottles she had with her, and left the kitchen in order to retrieve the body. The body had not moved, just as she had suspected. She wasn't going crazy, not at the moment. She walked over to the body, grabbed a hold of the left forehoof of the pegasus with her mouth and started pulling. It was a long way out, but she wasn't going to just leave the body there. After a good ten minutes of intense pulling, she had made it to the huge backyard of the house. And as of an invite, on the left side of the backyard was a shovel and some apparently soft soil. It almost felt like someone was dropping these helpful items down from the sky. Whenever she would desperately need something, it would suddenly appear. But that wasn't important. The soil looked soft enough to dig a hole big enough for the body in a good ten more minutes. Wasting no time, Rainbow started digging. ----»«---- It took only eight minutes. She was in a fairly good shape. That was only good, though. The hole was deep enough for a mare to fit. Rainbow hopped out of it and took a quick look at it. It would do just fine. There was no time for any big rituals. She just put the limp body to the middle of the hole, the small knife on the right side of the body and a picture of the mare to the left. Two items you may take with you… Rainbow saluted the grave, picked up the shovel and started throwing the fresh soil back into the hole, covering the body. It was faster than digging and was over in about five minutes. There was now a grave-resembling mound on the back yard of the house. It was nothing fancy, but all an assassin needed. The final thing Rainbow did was that she placed the two metal tags she had found from the bag of the mare on the top of the grave. One had the name of the mare, Mara, and the other one had a beautifully made carving of a silver moon, setting behind the horizon. All the tasks were done. It had taken a bit longer than supposed, but it didn't matter. She could afford losing some minutes. She took a final look at the grave and went back into the house to retrieve her belongings. They were just where she had left them. She picked them up, made sure everything was in the bag and went back to the back yard. It would be easier to sneak out from the back yard that just happened to be facing the mountains. From the door she made sure that the route was clear, double-checked that she had not forgotten anything and dashed out of the door, through the back yard and towards the mountains. The town was silent, just as she had suspected. The single Rebel with some rage-controlling problems had not managed to wake the whole town up. But Rainbow was still careful, slowly making her way through the fields that surrounded the town, keeping as quiet as she could. If one would have looked really closely, he or she would have seen that some of the stalks of the golden wheat were moving into a different direction than the others, against the wind, but knowing Rebels, he or she would have just ignored it. Soon enough she was outside the town. She had escaped the hell, just to head towards its bigger brother. But she didn't care. Knowing that the options were either spending the rest of your life alone and afraid or going to the hive of the Rebellion, the last sounded like a better option. And as long as she had a chance to make the world a bit better place, she was ready to do anything. She took a one last look at her home town that was now torn to pieces, let out a silent sigh as the flow of memories rushed over her and ran down the path that would lead her to the godly city that was now taken over by the ruffians that claimed to be liberators.
Chapter Ten: TravellingView OnlineThe FallChapter Ten: Travelling”Our main objective is the meeting room that’s in the middle of the ground floor. Getting there will be hard, I say it here and now. We got bogeys up and down, left and right. “That’s why we need all of you to concentrate, to do your best and for Celestia’s sake follow the orders even more flawlessly than ever before. I don’t like losing my squad members.” Everypony in the room agreed with a sharp “Sir Yes sir”. “Okay, eyes and ears open, I’m telling the plan only once. Screw it up and you’re dead.” Everypony fell even more silent than they had already been. “We got multiple guards up in the balconies. Dash, they are your primary targets. Total of three. One per balcony. Silent kill and move on, no slowing down. We need to get in as fast as possible to reduce the chance of getting spotted.” Rainbow nodded. This would be easy. Three slices and she’d be done. She wanted to go, to fly and to take the Rebels down right at that moment, but knowing that Sarge wouldn’t be too happy with that, she forced her wings to stay furled and listened just as closely as the others got their orders. “As Dash gets us clear, we go towards the main door. No pointy comments about using the main door. I mean you, Sparkle.” Rainbow could see Twilight frown a bit. “Once we get there, the door has to be opened. It’s locked for sure, so we need to use force. AJ, you prep up something to blow that door in. But just that the door explodes and maybe causes some minor chaos among the Rebels. And position it so the shards fly into the building this time.” Applejack clearly blushed under her stetson she had refused to take off. Sarge hadn’t been too happy when he had got a two-inch shard of wood into his side after a practice mission. “Okay, in the best case scenario, the enemies are distracted by the explosion. Simply pick them out. No need to spare rounds. Dash, if possible, provide covering fire and some support from the second floor.” So, kill three guards and silently join the firefight? Sounded good for her. “Let’s say that we managed to take everypony out without getting noticed. The next part is going to be tricky. We can’t just run into the meeting room. We’d be dead in seconds. “What we need to do, is to utilize our skills in surprises. Dash, I’m overusing you now, but you’re on the grand prize. You start the attack.” Rainbow nodded. This was starting to sound even better. “On the second floor, there is a huge hall in the middle of the house. On the floor of the hall is a small cross. We managed to sneak a rat in and he scratched it into the floor. “The cross indicates the spot where the grand prize is sitting. The floor is made weak by the very same rat. What you need to do is to hit the floor with the pistol you will have with you, directly into the cross. It will come apart, creating a hole big enough for you to see through. Remember to be up in the air as you hit it or you will go down with the floor. “When it comes apart, immediately take the shot. One shot into the head. After that, get the hell out of the building before they start shooting at the hole. Don’t wanna get any extra holes today, eh? “Rest of the team, when Dash takes the shot, we ambush the room. They will be busy shooting at the roof and we should be able to take them out with no problems. “Dash, as you’re out, regroup with Sparkle. Wait for us to come out and then we can celebrate.” The whole group cheered. If they would succeed now, the world would be safe again. “Dash, when you’re ready.” As soon as Rainbow heard those words she dashed out of the doorway of the cleverly camouflaged tent used as a temporary base and towards the distant building that was currently used to host one of the most important meetings of the Rebellion. “This is base, mission go. Good luck Dash, go in on my mark.” “You got it, Sarge. Dash out.” The plan was perfect. Just what could go wrong? ----»«---- Rainbow had been regretting her decision to take the shortest path for the whole trip. It was in a horrible condition. Small rocks and lumps were all over the path that was supposed to be flat. Holes big enough for a hoof to go knee-deep in occupied the worst parts, eager to take in some new victims. It looked and felt like the Rebels had dragged a train uphill as a training session and let it come down with no rails. But there was no going back. The collision her weight had managed to cause a few hundred meters after she had started the trip made sure of that. Being still unable to fly, she was stuck on the path even worse she had seen in Ponyville, not even accurately knowing where it led. Life was good. The surroundings were not making her feel any easier. High cliffs with big loose-looking rocks on their edges reached over the path, casting disturbing-looking shadows on it. But they had a good side, too. The sun wasn’t able to join the torture as the rocks generously stopped the beams from reaching her fur. And just behind the corner, the cliff ended and a completely clear part of the path began, going on and on towards the horizon. “Aww come on!” Rainbow shouted, perfectly aware of the fact that it was not too wise in such mountain-y area. But she didn’t care. She was supposed to be out of the avalanche-zone. Or that was what she had though. As soon as the echoing of her words had stopped, a small rock stumbled down the side of the cliff just behind her. Everything was going just perfectly. She picked up her pace and ran out of the way mere seconds before a huge boulder smashed the part of the path where she had been standing. She didn’t stop until she had reached the next cliff that was near the path. But she didn’t stop because the avalanche had stopped. No, she stopped because of the fact she could already see the highest towers of the grand city in front of her. They were only distant figures, thought, but she was close. She was only mere kilometers away from her target. She wanted to just run there and find a spot where to stay and rest, out of the burning sun and the hoof-killing path. What was stopping her? The huge, about two hundred meters long suspension bridge that looked like it was older than Granny Smith and in twice as bad condition. Why did they even build such things in the mountains? Why not a safe-looking and feeling stone bridge? They had those in Ponyville, in Canterlot, in everywhere! But nope, let’s build a bridge that will collapse surely just so that ponies will be scared to death by just looking at it and thinking of crossing. Rainbow sighed. The world sure wasn’t making this easy for her. She was trying to save it and it just kept on putting obstacles on her way. She kicked the ground in frustration. She managed to hit a rock that was just there, behind her, facing the cliff that was sure to have some rocks that were eager to fall down. And that’s exactly where the rock hit. It managed to push one of the rocks out of the way of the others, freeing them. The others noticed their chance and started peacefully rolling down the cliff. Due to the laws of physics, the other rocks gained some speed whilst coming down, taking some more rocks and dust with them. And soon enough there was a huge avalanche heading towards the bridge. Rainbow didn’t waste any time. She had already ducked under the sustainable-looking cliff, hoping that the rocks would just roll over it. And for her luck, for once, they did so. They took the bridge as their main target instead. For a good two minutes rocks, dust and other stuff that had managed to sneak in rolled down into the small ravine that was under the bridge. When the avalanche finally ended, the bridge had snapped in two. But the good thing was that there was a huge pile of rocks and dust on the place of the bridge, allowing one to cross safely. Rainbow couldn’t believe her luck. Though, it was only reasonable for her to have some good times after the earlier events. But it wasn’t her problem by now. She had a bridge, Canterlot was visible in the distance and she would be there by sunset. Then she would just have to find a place to stay in, plan ahead and cut the head off of the snake. She walked over to the nature-made bridge, stepped on it, made sure it could withstand her weight and crossed it. The bridge was actually strong enough to be passable. The probably hardest part of the trip was behind. The remaining two kilometers should be mainly downhill. As Rainbow took a good look down from the edge of the bridge, she could confirm this as a fact. The downhill kept on going for a good one and a half kilometers and after it the path was basically flat, save for the small uphill before the town. She took the first step, expecting something to happen. But as she stood there, eyes wide open and ears perked up, nothing even moved. Looks like her luck was turning. As she took a couple more steps, she could feel that something had changed, though. The path was now completely flat, feeling like a cloud against her tired hooves that had suffered from the earlier joke of a path. Her luck sure was turning. She started heading down the path, towards her current destination that was now easily visible in the horizon. ----»«---- The grand city looked even better from the back. The path had led her to the backside of the city that not many ponies had seen. It was supposed to be a restricted area, but nopony was there to guard it now when the Rebels were in control. Good for her. From the back she could easily sneak into the city. But the problem was sneaking whilst inside the borders city. The outside might have been clear of Rebel guards, but the inside was sure to be full of them. From what Rainbow knew, Rob was paranoid as hell, not letting anyone except his trusted ponies to come close by when he was not guarded extremely well, and even not then unless necessary. But today Rainbow would just have to find some place to stay overnight, as it was far too dangerous to try and sneak into the castle in night when it was silent and there were even more guards doing the night shift. Finding the house would be easy. Now as the peace-loving ponies had either fled, gotten killed or transported to some place other, most of the houses were abandoned. Rainbow wasted no more time thinking and started descending down to the borders of the beautiful capital. The borders were actually about-a-meter thick walls. Yes, there were walls around Canterlot, but just the backside. They were built back in the times when Luna had gotten banished in order to protect the town. The forces who aided Luna with her plan had actually snuck into the town from the backside. But being part of the Royal Army, Rainbow knew some pretty useful tricks. She took a decent-sized rock that was located next to the path, lifted it up and rammed it into the wall. After repeating this a few times, she had managed to form up a nice hole that she could fit through. She threw the rock aside and went through the freshly-made hole in the wall. When on the other side, she took a quick look at the map. It also had a minor map of Canterlot. The Palace was to her left, so she obviously was located in the Western Canterlot. It wasn’t the rich part of the town, but it would do well. It was closer to the palace, for some reason, and it would be easier for her to sneak into the castle tomorrow. She put the map back into her saddlebag, took a good look around and started heading towards the Palace, whilst still staying in the shadow whenever it just was possible. After a good three minutes of running, she had found the house of her dreams. As an observation spot, that is. It was big, it was empty and it had a window facing right towards the Palace. She tried to open the door. For her slight surprise, it was open. But it was only good for her. No need to start lock-picking at this hour. As she went in, she could smell the stench of minor rotting. It was probably coming from the kitchen. Knowing that she didn’t have to go there, she just ignored it, shut the door and dropped her saddlebag down. The house was dark, of course. In any other situation Rainbow would have started looking for the light-switch, but now she just had to deal with the darkness. She would plan tomorrow, when the sun would be giving her some light. She had only two more things to do. Eating and trying to sleep before the big day. Eating would be easy. Her stomach had been notifying her about the growing hunger for the last two hours and she was relieved to finally be able to take a snack. She dug up the foil-wrapped square from her bag. The smell of cinnamon reached her snout. She un-wrapped the sandwiches and immediately started to chomp them down. It was only minutes when she had already consumed two of them. She wrapped the third back into the foil and put the now clearly smaller package back into her bag. Whilst doing so, she pulled out a single bottle of the cider. She’d have to drink something, but responsibly this time. She opened the cork and chugged down three mouthfuls of the warm yet still so refreshing liquid. After that she sealed the bottle and put it back into the bag. Eating was done. She took a one last look at the room, making sure that everything was fine and collapsed to the floor, not even bothering to look for a bed of any kind. The floorboards were good enough. And as she fell asleep, the pictures of her friends arrived, and for a brief moment she was with them again.
Chapter One: The MemoriesView OnlineThe FallChapter One: The MemoriesLosing a friend is a horrifying experience. Losing five of your very best friends in the very same day is even more horrifying. It will tear you apart from the inside, forcing you to live with the never-ending pain for the rest of your life. And if you were there to see the deaths of your friends, your mind just can’t take it. Some disturbing things will start happening. You may start to blame it on yourself. You may start to blame it on the others. But one thing is certain. They will never come back. ----»«---- Rainbow sat on the soft cloud floor of her house. She didn’t know the time. She didn’t even know what day it was. But that didn’t matter. Her life had no meaning. The horrifying events of the last two weeks were still there, haunting her mind, driving her into sweet, sweet insanity. She had not eaten or drunk anything since the deaths of her friends. Anything that could push the pain back was good. Even starvation. It was her fault. Or it had been. She could have saved them. She could have flown there and saved them. But no. She had been completely frozen, looking into the desperate eyes of her best friends that were begging her to either save them or save herself. And when she had realized it, it was too late. They were gone before she could reach them. All dead in a horrifying way. She had gotten hurt. Her left wing had been in a horrible condition, torn up and bleeding. The bloodstained bandages still remind her about that day. She had passed out from the pain. Pure blackness had swallowed her for hours. And when she had woken up, there had been no hope. The faces still haunt her. The faces of her dead friends. Applejack had been the strongest. She had been still breathing when Rainbow had woken. But it hadn’t been normal breathing. It had been mostly coughing, each cough taking her friend a bit further away from the reality. That’s when Rainbow had lost it. The tears flowed as she painfully dragged herself to the side of Applejack. She would spend the final moments with her. And when she had finally got there, Applejack had spoken. “I…” “I always…” “L-loved you…” “Dash…” The orange mare had managed to form up a small smile before leaving Rainbow alone in the torn-up world. That had been one of those moments that will haunt you for the rest of your life. ----»«---- A small tear dropped down from Rainbow’s eye. The tear rolled down her cheek and fell to the cloud floor. After a few seconds the cloud absorbed the salty drop, leaving no visible signs of the small weak moment. That thing had proven itself handy over time. She didn’t want to go out. The world was broken, blood was flowing on the streets and horrible things were happening. But she couldn’t stay like this. Ponies need food and water. A way out. Death. A solution. A reunite with her friends. When put like that, a coward’s way out sounds like a good way to end everything. But Rainbow wasn’t a coward. She wouldn’t just give up. She would avenge her friends, the innocent victims. Rainbow got up. It was painful, but she couldn’t just lie down. She had made up a plan. A plan so insane that it would either kill her or make her a hero. And either way was good. She went towards the kitchen. She needed food before she could do anything else. The kitchen was dark. Rainbow had closed all the windows, blocked every single source of light that could reveal the fact that there still was someone living in the huge cloud house. But she had built a lighting-system of her own for times like this. You can never be too careful. Or paranoid. A simple pull of a professionally hidden switch and the lights turned on, revealing the pure white kitchen. Some of the food was spoiled, of course. The stench told that. But she had a small stash of hay in the back of the cupboard to the left of the now-blocked small window. There was no water in the house. The last rainy day had been a week ago, and Rainbow had had some difficulties in obtaining water. But there was an alternative. She had two bottles of the best Apple-family cider there was, spiced up with her own mixture. She had been reserving those two for a certain special occasion, but the occasion needed two ponies. And one of the two was gone. So she grabbed some of the dry hay from the cupboard and walked to the living room where her own cloud-cooler was. Opening the cooler was easy for a pegasus. All you had to do was to use your wings. The key to the lock was the tip of the biggest feather of a pegasi wing. The small cloud door swung open, revealing the special drinks. They were in hoof-made glass bottles. The right one was colored in rainbow, stripes going down its neck to the base of the bottle. The left one had a simpler pattern: A yellowish top and an orange bottom. On the bottom of the bottle was a cutie mark: A three-color lightning bolt with a white cloud on top of it. The other one had a simpler one: Three red apples. Rainbow let out a small sigh and opened the orange one. It let out a small hiss when the heavenly liquid met the stale air of the cloud house. Rainbow didn’t waste any more time. She showed her mouth full of the dry hay and flushed it down with the sweet drink. Her empty stomach tried to protest, but she just kept stuffing more and more hay and cider into her mouth. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to think too well after this little meal. But it wasn’t a bad thing. It would make the very next thing she would have to do a bit easier. Soon enough the bottle was depleted. Last drops of the special mixture went down Rainbow’s throat, washing away the nasty taste the hay had left. Rainbow slowly shifted her gaze towards the remaining bottle. She had just drunk one and the special mixture was starting to kick in. She knew it would do nothing good for her. But she needed a little encouragement. So she grabbed the bottle, opened it and inhaled the incredible odor that was coming inside the bottle. This one was a bit stronger than the one that had been meant for her. Rainbow slowly lifted the bottle up to her lips. Her mouth begged for more of the sweet liquid. She slowly tilted the bottle upwards, letting the strong cider flow down her throat. It didn’t take long for her to consume a half of the bottle. She took the cork from the ground and sealed the bottle yet again. She would need something to drink later on. The next thing to do was hard. It would seal her fate. Rainbow walked into her bedroom. She kept all the private stuff there, out of the reach of the curious eyes of other ponies In the back of the pure white room, next to her bed was a small box. Rainbow trotted over to the box. This was it. The decision that would define her fate. She slowly opened the box, revealing the contents. The box had some intimate stuff on the top. Rainbow quickly tossed those away. They reminded her about her friends. And that brought the pain back. And in the very bottom of the box was the thing she had come to get. A small, perfectly hoof-fitting .45 pistol designed for her and her only with a bag of bullets and three custom magazines on its side. She had been there when Twilight had made the first working copy. She had seen the first shot and the pure fear in Twilight’s eyes. She had offered to take it and keep it safe so that nopony would ever find out about it. And just mere months later a bunch of scientists had introduced the “First working gun in the whole Equestria”. But the ones that were out in the public were total shit. Rainbow had the one and only original one. It was superior to the cheapo copies in every way. The bullets were bigger and more powerful, the handling was perfect, it would auto-rechamber and it was designed for her hoof, for her style of shooting and customized for her likes. The paint was her own idea. It was repeating the familiar rainbow pattern for the whole length. The grip had three apples painted on both sides, linked with a familiar three-color rainbow. Rainbow slowly took the gun, the bag and the mags out of the box. She then began observing the box again. There was a custom holster-saddlebag combination too. Soon enough it struck her eye. It was a quickly-made version, consisting of her old saddlebag and a holster made by Applejack. She had never liked the little project, but she had never tried to stop Rainbow from playing around with the gun. Rainbow slowly swung the saddleback on her back, stuffed the ammo bag, the bottle and the mags into it, put the pistol into the holster and began walking towards the kitchen. A single piece of equipment was missing. She made her way through the living room, the photos in the walls staring at her, bringing memories back. That was not a good thing. The memories made Rainbow weak. She stuffed the memories back to the very bottom of her mind. She had a decision to make. Rainbow entered the kitchen in order to get the last piece of her equipment. She walked over to the dining table and the pulled its legs off. She turned the table over, revealing a small hatch in the bottom of the table. She opened the hatch, and took the small paper wrapping out of the small hidden box. She unwrapped the paper, revealing a sharp combat-knife. The knife was self-made. It was designed by her, made by her and decorated by her. It had a long metal blade and a simple wooden handle. The blade was straight and sharp. It had some small spikes in the end of it, so that the knife would be capable of ripping things in pieces with ease. The wooden handle was simple, but Rainbow had hid the simplicity with perfectly made decorations. The handle had the same traditional rainbow pattern. But instead of the cutie marks, it had a picture of two ponies reaching out for each other, making a hoof-contact. One of the ponies was cyan and the other one was orange. Rainbow sighed. She would never be able to forget. She carefully put the knife into her bag and started walking towards the door. When she finally got to the door, she reached out to the holster and pulled the pistol out. She swung the saddlebag down and dug the ammo bag from there. She loaded all the three custom 14-bullet magazines she had, loaded one of them into the gun, threw the others back to the saddlebag, loaded the gun and just stood there. “A coward’s way out, or a battle you can’t win?” she said in a clear voice, knowing that no-one would answer. “The battle it is!” she shouted, opened the door and revealed the torn-up Ponyville.
Chapter Two: The PreparationsView OnlineThe FallChapter Two: The PreparationsThe sight was not pretty. The buildings were all torn up and burnt. The streets had marks of heavy fighting. The town hall had lost its tower which was now lying on the ground, a huge crack visible on its side. But Rainbow had to go there. It was the only option. She might be on a suicide mission, but that didn’t mean she’d have to be emotionless. The path from her house to the town was in a somewhat bad condition. Walking hurt her hooves but flying was not an option. The wing couldn’t take the weight. So she was doomed to walk on the hoof-killing path that led to the heart of the destruction. ----»«---- “Dash? You ready?” “As always, Twi!” “Good. Load him up.” Rainbow planted the explosives Twilight had made. A batch this large would blow the possible threat into pieces. “Okay Twi, he’s loaded up.” “Good. AJ, you got the trigger?” “Ah sure do Twi!” “Great. Who wants to finish the job?” Rainbow raised her hoof. This was her thing. “No-one else than Rainbow? Okay. Dash, whenever you want.” Rainbow walked over to the trigger. It was a classical red box with a pull-able handle. She took a one last look at the old stone statue of Discord, looked at the trigger and pulled it. ----»«---- The town was in even worse condition from close. The buildings had clear marks of gunshots and fire in them. Finding any survivors started to seem more and more unlikely. Plus there still were forces in the town. The Rebellion had won the battle and had turned the town into a temporary base and an alternate prison camp. So Rainbow was forced to go all sneaky. Walking down the main street would be a suicide. The thought of a fast death was still attracting her, but there was a chance they would take her to a prison camp. And that wasn’t good. Horrible things happened in those camps. So she made up a quick plan. She’d go from house to house, trying to get towards the center of the town. And then she’d see if she could do anything from there. So Rainbow walked over to the closest building, slowly opened the door and went in. ----»«---- The house was quiet, of course. No-one was present, save for herself and the little bugs running in the small cracks of the wooden floor. You could see that this one had been raided. There were pieces of wood and even a few shells on the floor. Whoever had been living or hiding in here had been desperate. The floorboards were covered in a mixture of dust, chips of wood and dried-up blood. The walls of the room had some black spots in them. The Rebels had tried to light it on fire, but the wood had been made fire-proof. That was probably why the house was still standing. The house was small. It had a tiny living room, a hall and a kitchen. All the possible valuables were gone. But Rainbow didn’t need any money. She needed food. So she went to the kitchen. But as soon as she made her way through the small doorway, she got hit by a devastating stench. It was no use of even trying to scavenge something from the cupboards. The house had no valuables, no food, no water, nothing that could possibly help her. It was simply useless. So Rainbow decided to proceed to the next one. She made her way back to the door, carefully opened it and immediately dashed to the cover. The next house was a few hundred feet away. The town square would be easily visible from there. It would make a perfect temporary camp for her. But it was also a huge risk. Running even for a few hundred feet in an open environment like this was extremely dangerous. It was also possible that the Rebels had taken the house as a small camp or a guarding spot. But it was a risk she’d take. So she bent her knees a little, made sure that no-one was nearby, licked her lips, and dashed towards the house. Her hooves were beating against the hard ground, making them ache even more. But she couldn’t turn back now. She was halfway there. Her heart started to beat a bit faster. The cider was doing its job. The door slowly came closer and closer, until eventually it was right in front of her. She had made it. She quickly swung the door open, completely unaware what would be waiting for her on the other side. She realized her mistake, but it was already too late. The door was already wide open, allowing clear sight from the house and into the house. And there was an empty hallway. Nothing moved. Nothing made noise. Just deep silence. Rainbow let out a small sigh of relief. If there would have been enemies on the other side, she’d be dead by now. But on the other hoof, that would not have been a bad thing. But the house was empty. And it was only good for her plan. “Clear the house: Check,” she said. “Next: Investigate.” She took a good glance around the room that seemed to be a hall of some kind. There were pictures on the walls, decorations everywhere and a nice little “Welcome”-mat just in front of the door. ‘Classy’ she thought to herself. This was one of the houses where she had never been invited into. For some reason the upper-class didn’t like her. Wonder what could have caused that? Rainbow shook the thought out of her head. No point in living in the past. The future was here. And it was not very bright. ‘A classy place like this must have some weapons’ she thought. Almost every upper-class pony was a bit paranoid about their fortune. And the best way to defend your fortune was to own at least some kind of a self-defense weapon. And if the upper-class ever needed their weapons, it would be at night. And where do most of the ponies spend their night in? Rainbow took a good look at the decorated staircase leading to the second floor. Either in a local pub or in their own beds. ----»«---- The second floor was even classier. Gold-framed paintings and pictures everywhere. Marble floors with gold streaks running through them. Golden doorknobs… Whoever had owned this house, he or she sure had loved gold. It wasn’t long until Rainbow found the bedroom. She was a professional at this. The door was locked. But there was no lock that could hold rainbow. She slid her saddleback off. She carefully placed it to the floor and opened it. She removed the mags and the bottle from there and put them on the floor next to the bag. She then stuck her hoof in again, looking for a familiar wooden grip. Soon enough she found it. She carefully took it out of the bag and focused on the door. The lock seemed weak. It was a cheap copy of a good lock. The owner was either trying to scare the robbers away, or had gotten scammed badly. Rainbow carefully inserted the tip of the knife into the lock. After a few seconds of twisting and turning, she heard a slight *Crack* and the lock fell to the ground. “Once again a simple lock can’t hold Rainbow Dash,” she said to herself. “Get a time-lock next time,” she added, completely aware of the fact that no-one could hear her. She just shrugged it off, packed all the stuff back into her saddleback and swung the door open. The sight in front of her was incredible. The biggest bedroom she had ever seen. It even won the bedrooms of Celestia and Luna. The bed itself was huge. It consumed about a quarter of the room. The bed sheets seemed to be silk, and the pillow stuffing had to be either Pegasus- or Griffon feathers. The huge legs of the bed almost reached the roof. The surroundings of the bed were not as huge, but even more valuable. There were four closets in the room and it was no doubt that at least two of them were full of clothes. The carpet covered the whole floor, replacing the cold touch of the marble floor with warmth and softness that could only be beat by a cloud floor. There were two night-stands. One on each side of the bed. The left one had some jewelry on it. The mare slept on the left. So the right one had the personal stuff of the partner of the mare. And it was the most likely place to find some weaponry. Rainbow wasn’t too eager to dig through the personal stuff of a stallion. You never knew what the stallion had done with the particular item. But in order to survive for times longer than a few days, she’d need at least more bullets. So she walked over to the night-stand and opened the hatch that was in the side of it. The first item didn’t give such a good picture of the stallion. A two-month old Playmare that had a few pages stuck together. Rainbow quickly tossed it away. She had no intentions of knowing what was holding the pages together. Under the magazine was a box. It had a small lock on it and seemed to be pretty important. Rainbow couldn’t resist the urge to take a quick peek. But she didn’t bother taking her knife from the saddlebag. She just raised her left rear hoof and bucked as hard as she could. The lock came apart easily. The owner had to be extremely stupid if he thought that a couple of locks here and there would keep his private life safe. Rainbow slowly opened the lid of the box, eager to see what it held in. And as the light hit the box, Rainbow saw her reward. More porn. She sighed and tossed the box away. The private life of the couple must have been total shit. But when she heard a familiar clink come from the direction where she had tossed the box, she froze on her tracks. As she heard some more clinks, she turned around, and saw multiple gold-colored shells roll to the floor from the depths of the box. Jackpot. Rainbow quickly trotted over to the box, eager to see what type of bullets they were. But she got disappointed. They were only empty shells. But there might be something else in the box. She quickly picked the box up and turned it over. This caused a stream of shells drop to the floor, along with a couple of magazines and a rather disturbing-looking stick. ‘Well, no weapons from this place’ Rainbow thought. But no weapons meant that she would find something else. And something else was food. She took a quick last glance around the gorgeous room and left. ----»«---- The ground floor felt boring after all the decorations of the second one. But Rainbow wasn’t here to judge the differences of two floors. She was here for food and cover. And food was the most important part right now. She wasn’t hungry, but she knew that she would be soon. But luckily for her, the chances of finding food were sky-high. The upper-class could afford treats that wouldn’t go bad so easily. The kitchen was right next to the hall. But it was surprisingly blank. No décor, no valuables, only a couple of stoves, a big table and rows after rows of cupboards. But this was the kitchen after all. And if Rainbow knew anything about upper-class mares, the family had a good load of servants that would prepare the food for the family, making sure that family itself never needed to enter the kitchen. Rainbow didn’t waste time. She immediately began opening the cupboards and investigating the contents. And whenever she found something interesting, she either put it to the table, into her mouth or into her saddlebag. A simple yet effective way. Soon enough the table was full. Mountains of heavenly treats were just lying there, waiting for her to take them. But she couldn’t fit them all into her saddleback. So she had to choose the best. She began quietly judging the treats. Sugary-o hay-cereals beat regular hay with ease, but the travel-pack of daisy-cinnamon sandwiches sure was a mighty challenger. As of the drink-side, there were bottles of fine wine and entire barrels of second-only-to-her-own-mixture cider. At least she wouldn’t die to thirst or lack of alcohol. Choosing the perfect combination of nutritive, healthy but still tasty was hard. But eventually Rainbow found her very own special-travel-combo-for-an-ultimate-hero-pack. It consisted of three daisy-cinnamon sandwiches wrapped in a foil of some kind, two bottles of the finest wine in the house, two bottles of cider to balance the wine and a pack of chocolate-chip cookies. The perfect survival food-pack. But she had forgotten a very important thing. She walked over to the sink, emptied four bottles of wine into it and filled the bottles with water. She couldn’t go all drunk whenever she needed something to drink. “Investigate: Done,” she called out loud, proud of her fast progress. “Next: See if you can see the town square.” The town square would be visible from the second floor. She just had to find the perfect spot. An easy task this time. Rainbow stuffed the huge stack of food into her saddleback, making sure that the temporary wrapping wouldn’t let anything leak through and began walking back to the hall. The sun was setting fast and the risk of being seen kept decreasing. But Rainbow couldn’t put the lights on. So she was down to her amazing navigating-skills and the small flashlight she had found from the kitchen. The stairs were the hardest part. She would stumble in every other step, causing a few nasty hits to her hooves. But eventually she made it to the second floor. The town square was to the left of the house. So Rainbow decided to check the leftmost room in the second floor first. The second floor was large. It had more rooms than the ground floor. Therefore it was harder to find the door leading to the leftmost room. But after a while of aimlessly wandering around the house and seeing some very interesting things Rainbow saw a wall with a big door on it. This was it. She tried to open the door, and for her slight surprise it swung open. No need to crack any locks. The room itself was some kind of an office. It had a big brown desk with some papers on it. The walls were covered by the bookcases that were holding colored folders. At least she would have something to read. But the best thing of the room was that it had a huge window that had a clear view of the town square. Either the owner liked to see busy ponies working and shopping, or he was a creep. Rainbow touched the window. Despite its big size even the slightest push made it move. It would be easy to get it out of the way. But Rainbow would move it tomorrow. The alcohol-level was dropping dramatically and it brought tiredness to her body. She hadn’t slept in the last Celestia-knows-how-many days and it was starting to get the best of her. She walked over to one of the bookcases, took one of the folders with her and went downstairs. ----»«---- Rainbow was curious to see what was in the folder. But her brains didn’t want to read. They just wanted to sleep. So she made the final decision of the day. She’d read the folder later. And if there would be something interesting in it, she might even read some of the others. Rainbow made her way to the living room, put her saddlebag to the ground next to the couch, hopped on the couch, closed her eyes and fell asleep immediately.
Chapter Eleven: The FallView OnlineThe FallChapter Eleven: The FallRainbow had been sitting under the same tree for good five minutes by now. She was nervous, craving for action. But she knew that she couldn’t do anything until she got direct orders from Base. So she was doomed to wait till they would get the connections up and functional. Once again there was no fear of getting spotted. The traditional black camo she was wearing merged perfectly into the dark shadow, showing only the eyes and a frightening white grin when she wanted to. “This is base, system functional. Testing lines, how copy?” “This is Dash, good copy. Lines seem to be functional. How copy?” “Solid. Lines up just as planned. Sparkle, great job once again.” Rainbow smiled a little. Whilst Twilight wasn’t a mare of action, she sure was useful on the base camp, operating all the technical equipment the team had. “Okay Dash, listen up. Balconies are crowded, one guard on each. Sneak up from behind and take ‘em down. Move on as fast as possible. How copy?” “Solid copy, Base. Waiting for your call.” “Dash, you’re on. Good luck.” “Thank you Base, Dash out.” Rainbow shut the mic down and started proceeding towards the wall the first balcony was located in. It was about twenty meters straight up from the wall, but still being a pegasus, Rainbow should have no problem flying up. As she reached the wall, she immediately killed the pace and hugged it. She could just have stopped without doing any extra safety measures, but being a professional she knew that it was better to make sure than to die. When she was completely sure that nopony had seen her, she silently unfurled her wings and started slowly floating upwards. Soon enough she was near the edge of the balcony. She took a quick peek from the edge to see which direction the guard was facing. Luckily for her, he was looking into the very opposite direction, possibly admiring the darkness that was around them. It was the perfect chance for Rainbow. She quickly floated to the level of the floor of the balcony but didn’t quite touch the floor with her hooves as it was easier for her to go towards her target whilst still up in the air. She pulled the sharp combat knife she always carried with her out of her bag. It was self-made and professionally decorated. She was very proud of it, though due to the decorations nopony else was allowed to see it. Not until she would be ready to tell Applejack. Maybe after the mission? Rainbow quickly dismissed such thoughts. She needed to concentrate on the mission and the mission only. She professionally spun the knife in her hoof so the blade was facing the guard. It was a stallion. Rainbow could easily see it from the way he was standing. This would be even easier. Stallions were clumsy and slow. She walked over to the stallion, stopping just behind him. She took a one final look at him to make sure everything was in order, flung her both hooves forward and put the left one in front of his mouth whilst stabbing him into the throat with the right one. Everything the guard managed to do was to let out a quiet, surprised noise that was effectively blocked by Rainbow’s hoof. It was a silent kill. She let the limp body slowly slide to the floor, pulling her knife out and wiping it to the rug that was possibly supposed to serve as an armor the guard had been wearing. One down, two to go. The next balcony was just around the corner. Rainbow hopped up in the air and unfurled her wings. She silently began moving towards the next target. When she had reached the corner, she took a quick look behind it. The balcony was just there, but she wasn’t sure where the guard was. She’d have to go further. She dropped down a little bit. Approaching from below the balcony would be easier. She slowly started to move closer to the bottom of the balcony, making sure that the shadows were still providing some cover. It was even more important now that she didn’t know where the guard was. When she had reached the bottom, she took a little break to try and listen where the guard was. But it was no use. The only thing she could hear was the soft breathing sound the guard was making. He or she was up there, but Rainbow still had no idea in what part of the balcony. The only way was to go to the upper edge and look. She hated taking such risks, but it had to be done. As Sarge had said, they couldn’t afford any delays. She moved over to the lower edge and slowly floated up. As soon as she reached the upper edge, she could see that the guard was facing the field. Rainbow could sneak behind him and quietly take him out. She quickly flew up to the level of the head of the guard so he couldn’t see her. She brought the knife closer to her body and prepared to strike. And just when she was ready to stab, the guard turned around. Rainbow wasted no time. As soon as the guard was facing her, a surprised look on his face, she rammed the knife directly into his throat. Due to the fact that the somewhat-large knife was blade-deep in his throat, he was unable to make sounds beyond coughing a little. Soon the stallion fell to the ground, a large open cut in his throat that went all the way through to the neck, spraying blood everywhere. It sure was not Rainbow’s cleanest kill. But it had been silent and that was enough. That’s all she needed. She wiped the knife clean and started concentrating on the next target. Which, by the way, was just next to the balcony she was standing on. She immediately dashed to the other balcony, hoping that she still could take the guard out without him alerting every single pony in the building about the unwanted quest. But as she could see the guard, she let out a sigh of relief. The guard was well asleep, even snoring loudly while lying on the floor in an awkward-looking pose. Rainbow just walked over and silently sliced the throat open, ending the life of the stallion fast. That’s what you get for sleeping on duty. Her first objective was done. Three guards dead, not a single alert. The mission has started off just as planned. She put her hoof to the mic, telling it that she had something to say. The mic took it’s time of a couple of seconds to boot up, due to Twilight’s little “improvement”, and blinked a dim green light to indicate that it was ready. “Base, this is Dash. Objective one complete, the route is clear. Waiting for orders, over.” There was a few seconds of static before Base found the proper words to reply with. “Dash, this is Base, good job. Go in and take cover. Shards are going to fly. As soon as the door is open and we flood in, give support from the second floor. All the guards are down here, thanks to you.” “Roger that, Base. Dash out.” She shut the mic down and wiped her knife clean. It was a routine. She wanted to keep her knife clean and prevent it from rusting or staining. The front door was near the middle of the house. A bit to the south from the meeting room. Therefore, the second floor would have an opening that would allow one to see the front door from the second floor as well. She was on the left side of the building. She should be able to find the opening by just going straight on and following the hallway that led to the balcony. She took a quick look at the limp body that had just stopped breathing just to make sure that the kill was confirmed and started running towards the place where the opening was supposed to be. And soon she was standing on the edge of a huge, rectangular open area that had nothing but another, smaller rectangle in the middle of it. Rainbow didn’t even enter the room yet. You never knew where the shards would fly when Applejack was wiring one of her own creations. She had to wait for a minute before the door exploded. The shards flew all over the place, just as she had expected. Good thing was that they had apparently managed to injure at least one of the guards, judging by the painful scream she heard. As soon as the shards had dropped down she ran over to the smaller rectangle and started observing the area below. The others had done a good job. All she saw in the middle was just shards of wood and some small puddles of blood here and there. The guards had retreated to the corner of the room. They were ducked behind a table, all remaining four, occasionally shooting blindly towards the now-empty doorway. The rest of her team had run over to the left wall of the room so they could avoid the bullets. Rainbow had a straight line to the tallest of the guards. He’d be easy to take out. She reached for her bag and pulled out her faithful pistol. Sarge had offered her a “combat pistol”, but Rainbow knew that her own version was better in every way. She lifted the pistol up to the level of her eyes, aimed down the customized iron sight, made sure it was right between the eyes of the guard and fired three accurate shots, killing the guard and injuring the one that was unlucky enough to be behind the taller one. The guards panicked, of course. One of their friends had just gotten shot even though they were behind the table and one of them was now waving his bloody hoof wildly, trying to stop the bleeding by shaking all the blood out, spraying it all over his friends as he did so. The sight was hilarious. Rainbow was just about to lose it when all of a sudden all three remaining ones fell to the floor simultaneously. “No time for things like that, no matter how amusing it looked.” Rainbow could easily notice the voice of Sarge. Killjoy. “Dash, nice work covering for us. It would have been hard to flank them if they wouldn’t have been confused by you. “Okay everypony, take you places. One with me, two on the other side of the door. Move it! “Dash, you proceed according to the plan. Hit the floor and take the shot. When you’re about to do it, tell us and we will ambush the room after five and that’s exactly five seconds. You got five seconds and then we open fire. Got it?” “Yeah. Five seconds. One more than four, one less than six. Got it. Dash out.” Rainbow headed towards the very center. It was basically the room next to the opening but it still was hard to find it in such a big house. The opening was huge and had a ton of hallways leading to different directions. But as her objective was just above the meeting room, she knew what path to take. The room where the weak spot was supposed to be was just across the opening. The door was open, inviting Rainbow in. And a polite pony never turned an invitation down. The room was badly lit. The lamp was not in the best condition, flashing occasionally and casting out only some dim light. But it was the best she had and she had to find the spot with its help. It took a bit longer than she had thought, but eventually she found the small cross on the floor. She stood there for a moment, lifted her pistol up and prepared for the final strike. It was now up to her. It was her shot, it was her kill and it was her responsibility. There was no going back. “Base, this is Dash. Going in in five seconds. Wait for ten instead of five, just for sure. Dash out.” The fate of the world depended on this shot and this shot only. If she missed, the world as they knew it would be gone for good. Absolutely no pressure. She didn’t waste any time, knowing that she had only ten seconds, if even that. She hit the spot with her pistol and the floor crumbled. She rapidly unfurled her wings, aimed down the sights and took the shot. She watched as the bullet travelled through the air and straight into the head of the snake. She had done it. She had killed the snake. But as she looked around the room, she saw something disturbing. First off, all the ponies in the room were near the doors, as in they were expecting for an attack to occur. Secondly, when the bullet should have caused a stream of blood and at least some minor panic, but there was a creeping silence in the room and the white stuff that was coming out of the head of the thing she had shot sure was not blood. And thirdly, under her, just out of the reach of the shot was a chubby, hickish-looking stallion that was pointing a pistol at her. “We were waiting for you,” he said in a mocking tone and shot a single bullet into the right wing of Rainbow. The unbelievable pain of the muscles of the wing being torn to pieces took Rainbow’s body over, causing her to fall on the floor. She was unable to move, she was unable to talk and was just barely conscious. But she still was able to witness the moment when the others rushed in and got ambushed by the guards and high-ranked officers that had been hiding behind the doors. Rainbow could see Sarge putting up a fight and getting shot in the hoof. She could see the terror on the faces of her squad mates, her friends. The last thing she could hear was the laugh of their target before she passed out from all the pain, knowing that they had failed. ----»«---- The sun, the worst enemy of a sleeping pony, was shining through the idiotically-placed window that pointed directly to the sunrise, making it able to annoy the sleeping ponies with its too bright beams. These beams were just the ones that woke Rainbow up. She groaned loudly, knowing that there was no going back to the sweet slumber. Cursing the sun in her mind, she slowly sat up to take a look around. She hadn’t seen much last night when she had arrived and was eager to have a good look at the place she was staying in. What she saw didn’t impress her. The room she was in was bare. It had no furniture, no decorations, only the wooden floor that had a thick layer of dust on it. When she saw the dust she immediately jumped up. It wouldn’t be good for her side. She had patched it up as well as she could, but it was still extremely sensitive. And the last thing she wanted was a bleeding side on the day of her mission. The thought of her mission reminded about the fact that she had not planned ahead. She had no idea what she would do, where she would go, when she would start the attack or anything. She’d have to start planning soon if she’d still want to execute the mission today. She was just about to grab her bag and dig up something to eat when she heard a loud thump come from the door. She immediately froze to listen. But when she heard nothing, she decided that she should go and see what had caused it. She dug her knife up, just to be sure, and headed for the weak-looking door. It was a surprise that this house was still up. When she reached the door, she carefully placed a hoof on the door, preparing to open it. She made sure that her knife was ready and pushed the door as hard as she could, trying to surprise the possible invader. But when the door swung open and she could see the alley, she saw nopony. Nothing moved and the scenery was the same than it had been on the late night hours. But one thing had changed. There was a small newspaper lying in front of the door. It had no label, but it looked a lot like the old Canterlot Times. Out of curiosity, Rainbow picked it up. Either it was meant to be distributed to every house of the town, or she had received some help. But who would help her? Rainbow pushed such silly thoughts back. She was alone. It had just been a coincidence. She took a last look around the alley, just to make sure that she really was alone and shut the door. The newspaper was thin. Not much news nowadays. The Rebellion had banned almost every newspaper in Equestria after Rob had seen the articles they had written. The ones that were still allowed to publish were forced to keep the content so it would support the propaganda. That’s why the newspapers weren’t as big as they had been before. After a quick scroll through, Rainbow found out that the newspaper had only a single article printed into a total of four pages. Must be something real important. And it sure was. The Leader of the Rebellion speaks today! The Beloved Leader has announced that there will be a little speech this afternoon. All the high-class Rebels are invited to the headquarters to discuss about some important things. We don’t know what those things are, but knowing The Beloved Leader, the world is going to a better direction. Every Rebel should be there when the speech begins. The Beloved Leader speaks from the highest balcony of the castle, so that every single comrade can hear the words of wisdom. The event starts at 4:00 PM and should last for about half an hour. Those who don’t show up shall be punished. The starting time was circled with a bright red color. Rainbow didn’t know if they had printed that on purpose or if somepony actually had helped her. But either way, this was a jackpot. Rob would be out of the castle, in the middle of the crowd. He’d be an easy target. She’d just have to get to the castle, pass a couple of Rebel guards and take the shot she failed when she had had the first chance. But what about the life-gun? If she’d go there, she’d have a huge chance of getting shot, maybe even in a deadly way. She had no time to do both. If she’d go get the gun, she’d miss her best shot. If she’d take the chance, she’d not be able to get the gun in time. It was only a matter of days when one of the Rebels would remember the gun Plasma Cannon had had and go look for it, if one of them hadn’t already fetched it. She had a hard decision to make. She could end this all, save the world and avenge her friends. On the other hoof, she could go and bring her friends back and forget about the world for once. But what if the gun didn’t work? What if it was broken? What if somepony had already found it? And what if Rob had planned all this? What if somepony knew that Rainbow was still alive? What if this was just a trap? She was meant to save the world. It was her destiny. It was her fate. But a pony could change his or her fate. It had happened before and it could happen again. Rainbow looked out of the window. The castle was shining as a golden glow, high above the regular wooden buildings in front of it. Whilst the castle was in a tip-top shape, the regular houses were torn to pieces. She could see some ponies in the distance. Their heads hung low and Rainbow could easily guess that their life had been a lot better before. That’s when she realized it. She’d have to stop thinking about herself. She had done all this for herself. She had told herself that she was going to save Applejack, but the main purpose behind it had been relieving the pain she felt. She had told herself that the Rebels were all bad. But she had been the bad guy, blaming the others. They had no chance to say anything against their leader. They were machines, but they had a mind of their own. It just needed a little boost. And she had been killing them, destroying lives of innocent ponies that were forced to work. Sure some of the Rebels were outright bad, but not even nearly everypony. She still could remember the poor guy who had surprised her. He had been under the effects of the propaganda. He had snapped out of it when Rainbow had shot him. He had turned back, he had become the good pony he probably had been again. And she had killed him in a brutal way. She had crushed his head to the stairs. She had killed him right after telling him that she was going to help. She’d have to think about the others. She might be in a bad situation, but at least she was free. There were ponies that had no rights. They were slaves, begging for a savior. She could let the life-gun go. It had been a bad idea. She’d save the world. She’d be a hero. She’d meet her friends eventually, when the time would come. She walked away from the window. She had a plan to do. In the distance, she could hear a filly scream. She had no supplies to start scribbling her ideas down. She’d have to memorize the plan. But that was not a problem. She started processing all the information she knew. That’s how all the best plans were born. The castle would have a load of guards. She’d have to be silent and sneak in from the side. As the speech was held in daytime, she wouldn’t have the advantage of a good camo. She was forced to be extra careful. But she could do that. If not, she’d always have her gun and her knife. She’d have to go in from the side. The front door was guarded extra well, she guessed, and the back had no doors. She’d have to use the windows. Good thing that they were still a bit loose, thanks to Discord. His little show had managed to get some of the windows fall down a couple of days after the show. Breaking in would be easy. Navigating around the castle would be easy, too. She knew the castle pretty well due to the fact princess Luna herself had given her a special little tour. Being a part of the Royal Army, Rainbow had seen things and rooms not many knew about. She basically could memorize the route to the “speaking balcony”, as Luna had called it. She was sure to encounter some guards on the way. But as she had the pistol, she’d be safe. Getting to the balcony would be an easy job. But then would come the hard part. The balcony doors were either open, so the guards could see what was going on in the hallway, or closed, so the speaker would be safe. If they were closed, it would need some power to get them open. Rainbow had no idea what to do if they were closed, as she was not an expert with explosives, but she’d cross that bridge when she’d have to. Then would come the trickiest part. Killing the snake. Rob always had at least four guards with him. That would mean five bullets in a second to take everypony out. Rainbow knew that she wouldn’t be capable of doing that. She had to do desperate things. She’d go in, take the shot, hopefully kill the snake and fly out as fast as she could. She knew that her wing wasn’t supposed to be able to carry her weight. She knew that he injured side would eventually start bleeding because the wing would constantly be hitting it. She knew that she couldn’t make it far. But it was worth trying. She was prepared. She had a plan, she had the tools and she had time to concentrate. She didn’t know the exact time, but she could easily tell when the speech was going to start. Ponies would start flooding into the courtyard of the castle about an hour before the speech would start. When the courtyard would be full, she’d get on move. Judging by the position of the sun, she had about an hour of free time before she should start to prepare. She’d probably eat something and just think, concentrate, fill the gaps and make sure everything seemed flawless. But food first. She had not eaten a thing since last night and she sure would need some energy for the mission. She dug the foil-wrapped ball of food from her bag. She wasn’t really in the mood of eating a whole sandwich, so she opened the foil and grabbed the box of cookies. The box was sealed tight. Rainbow didn’t know why she kept it in the ball of foil. Maybe she was hoping that the smell and taste of the cookies would affect the smells and tastes of the other foods. She tore the box open, revealing the already-open bag full of chocolate-y cookies. She immediately grabbed a hoofful of the delicious treats and started chomping them down. But cookies have a nasty way of leaving your mouth all dry. But luckily for her, she had just the cure. She dug out a bottle of water, knowing that getting drunk before going to kill somepony was never a good idea. She removed the cork of the bottle and started drinking the refreshing, surprisingly cold liquid. It didn’t take long until a half of the contents of the bottle had disappeared down Rainbow’s throat. The hoofful of cookies had managed to do something about the hunger, so Rainbow could start slowing the pace. She took only a single cookie this time and tried to enjoy the taste and the feeling of sugar against her tongue. But after a few seconds she had already chomped the cookie down. She just wasn’t a slow eater. This went on for a five more cookies until she shut the box and put the cork back to the bottle. Those should keep her alive for the mission. A quick look out of the window told that the sun had only moved a little. She still had a fairly good amount of time before she’d have to go. She had done everything she needed to do for now, so she finally could just relax and think. She sat down to the floor and let her thoughts wander. ----»«---- Rainbow slowly tried to force her eyes open. It felt horrible, but after a good effort she was able to see something. A quick look around told her that she was under a rubble of stone and cement that had crumbled down from the roof. While this had possibly saved her from being executed, it had its downsides; her wing was crushed under a heavy chunk of the roof, causing a horrifying pain to spread all over her body now as she was able to feel it. Her wing was lost, that was sure. First it had got shot, the bullet effectively ripping a fourth of it off and now it was crushed under a huge chuck that had broken a load of bones, if not all of them. She would be flightless for the rest of her life. When the realization hit her, she felt a tear drop down her cheek. One of the things she loved the most, flight, was cruelly taken away from her. She’d never feel the wind in her mane again. She’d never be able to feel the bounds of gravity letting go of her again. She’d be unable to gain the sudden boost of adrenalin when she was performing one of her amazing tricks. The mixture of pain, sorrow, rage and despair was taking her over, causing more tears to flow. She just wanted to cry it off, she just wanted to heal the wing by letting all the feelings out. She was desperate. The voice of a pony walking got her attention. The hoofsteps were getting closer, towards the rubble she was under. All of a sudden, the chunks above her started moving and the light of the huge lamp that was on the roof of the room could get into the insides of the rubble. Over the rubble was standing a stallion, throwing the chucks away. Rainbow knew that it was only a matter of time when he would notice her. But she had nowhere to go. Soon enough the stallion looked directly at her, immediately noticing the cyan pegasus that was lying there, under the pile of rubbish. “Hey, we got a live one here!” he shouted, apparently trying to get the attention of other ponies that were digging through the room. Either they were friendlies, looking for survivors or Rebels, planning to kill everypony who had taken part on the attack. Soon there was a group of five stallions looking at Rainbow, trying to think what to do with her. “Are the others still here? Didn’t Rob say that we needed to find this one for them?” “Yeah, I guess he did. Pull her out of there and get her to the rest of the group. They should still be waiting on the lobby.” Rainbow could feel a stallion grabbing her and trying to pull her out. But her wing was still stuck and the pulling certainly wasn’t easing the pain. The only way to make him stop was to scream. And so she did. She screamed as hard as she could, alerting the stallions. “What did you do?” one of the stallions asked. “I just tried to pull her out,” the other answered. “Idiot! Can’t you see that her wing is stuck! Were you trying to rip it off or what?” “Oh, right…” Rainbow could feel the heavy chunk over her wing move and soon enough it was rolled off of her wing, easing the pain a little. “Oh boy, that looks like it hurts,” one of the stallion said, letting out a long whistle. Apparently they had seen her wing. “I bet,” one of them answered. “Now let’s get her out of there and back to the group. Rob wants them all.” One of the stallions grabbed Rainbow again, lifting her up easily. Once she was out of the pile, she was rudely thrown on the floor. “I ain’t gonna carry you all the way. Your hooves are fine, so you’ll walk,” the stallion that had been carrying her said, pushing Rainbow forward. She had just got out of a fucking pile of chunks of roof and now she was forced to walk. Her hooves hurt, but after seeing the guns the stallions carried with them she just submitted to her fate and started walking to the direction the stallion pointed at. When she reached the door, she could see the others. Her whole squad was standing there, stripped of armor and weaponry, guarded by a group of Rebels with guns. Something big was going on. As she got closer she could see the bruises and wounds. Applejack had a huge bruise on her side. She had apparently tried to put up a fight. Sarge was standing on three hooves, his right forehoof having a hole on the other side. Judging by the look of the hole and the painful look on Sarge’s face, the Rebels hadn’t bothered of taking the bullet out. When she finally reached the group, one of the guards spoke up. “Okay, you princess-loving scumbags. You tried to assassinate the leader of the Rebellion among with some of the highest officers of the Rebellion. Due to this, the Beloved Leader of Rebellion wants to see you. You will receive your punishment from him. You will be taken to the Beloved Leader soon.” As he finished, a group of guards started pushing the small group forward, towards the wreck of the front door. Everypony just walked on towards the awaiting doom. They all knew what this meant. They had failed and now they would have to pay the price. When they got outside, the guards motioned them to go towards the small shack that was on the edge of a distant field. The guards didn’t tell them what would be waiting for them there, but everypony in the group already knew. Everypony just walked on quietly, waiting for the horrors that were ahead. ----»«---- Rainbow could hear the distant voices of Rebels packing up to the small area under the highest balcony of the castle. She snapped her attention back to the real world. The memories weren’t beautiful. No matter how hard she tried, they always came back, more and more painful. It was her time. She’d save the world. Not for her, but for the innocent ponies out there. For the ones lost in the war. For her squad. For her friends. She wouldn’t need anything more than the knife and the pistol. One clip would be enough as she would only fire a single shot. Extra clips would require a bag, and the bag would look suspicious. But she had to hide the knife and pistol somewhere. But she had planned this part ahead. She took the knife from the floor where she had left it and walked over to the bag. She took the bag from the ground and sliced its side with the knife. After she had made a nice and big cut, a smaller bag dropped out of the cut, along with some bullets and a small blade. She had always had a small secret pocket that was hidden to the side of the bag. Rarity had made quite a job with it, seeing that the blade had not managed to tear any holes to the side of it. The interesting thing that had been in the pocket was the smaller bag. It was made for bullets, but it would carry a knife and a gun with ease. It was also closeable, so there would be no fear of anypony seeing the contents. She took a single mag from the bigger bag and inserted it into the gun. A loud click indicated that the gun had accepted the mag and was ready to go. She stuffed the gun into the bag and carefully put the knife over the gun, making sure that it could no tear the bag apart. Preparations were done. Now she just had to go and save the world. She took a one last look around the room, making sure that she had taken everything necessary with her. After she was sure, she walked over to the door, opened it and stepped to the streets of Canterlot. ----»«---- The castle was close to the house she had been staying in, but that didn’t mean that getting there was easy. There were Rebels everywhere and guards were keeping an eye on anything suspicious. That’s why Rainbow was navigating down the darkest and smallest of the alleys that led to the castle. She was making progress, getting closer to the borders of the royal garden. She would sneak through the garden because it should be the least-guarded place in the castle area. The houses surrounding her were in a shitty condition. The alleys were covered in dust and chips of wood, making walking a bit harder. The sun wasn’t able to reach the narrowest of the alleys, making them the playground of darkness. Whilst this darkness was good, it also had its downsides; Rainbow had trouble seeing where she stepped, forcing her to be extra careful. After what felt like an eternity of struggling in the darkness, she finally could see the hedge that was surrounding the garden, doing its best to keep intruders out. Usually this worked just fine, guarding the beautiful royal garden from the hooves of the regular ponies, but this time it would have to let one of these regular ponies through. Rainbow quickly crossed the road separating her from the hedge and pushed herself against the leaves. The hedge consisted of soft bushes, magically bound to the shape of a wall. This wasn’t too good for the bushes, but when a princess wanted a hedge, she’d get a hedge. Going through should be easy. Whilst the hedge did look like a wall, it was still as weak as a regular bush. A sharp knife could easily make a hole suitable for Rainbow’s needs. She dug the knife out of the bag and started cutting the branches of the hedge. She was making good progress, branches and leaves falling to the ground. The shape of a hole was starting to get recognizable. Of course it would have looked a bit suspicious, a pony cutting a hole to the hedge of the royal garden, but nopony was around to witness it. They all were heading towards the courtyard of the castle, in order to make sure that they found a spot where to listen to their lord. The hedge wasn’t too thick and soon Rainbow’s knife had managed to cut a hole through it. Just a little bit of trimming here and there and she would be able to squeeze through. She put the knife back to her bag. It had done a good job. She made sure that the bag was well closed and squeezed through the small hole, making sure that none of the sharp branches could tear her side open. It took minute of struggling, but eventually she popped out on the other side. She had got in to the garden. The mission was on. The next thing would be to get through the garden and to the side of the castle. It wasn’t a long way; she had picked just the perfect spot to make a hole in. If she would go from cover to cover she would reach the wall in just mere minutes. She took a good look around to make sure that there were no guards and dashed towards the professionally trimmed bush representing a unicorn that was standing on two hooves, striking a glorious pose. Whilst it was a nice looking piece of art, it would serve her better as a cover from the eyes of the Rebels. As soon as she reached the statue she pressed against it. A single bush and a big stone statue to pass and she would be at the wall. She wasted no time and dashed towards the next objective, another perfectly trimmed bush, but with an earth pony as the star this time. The pony was holding a spade in her mouth and was apparently farming the food the country would need during the cold winter. She repeated the safety measures, pushing herself against this one, too. Whilst it would have been faster to just walk to the wall, she was no going to take any extra risks. She had failed once, she wouldn’t fail again. Another quick look around and she was good to go. The next objective was a stone statue. It featured a glorious-looking pegasus, wings unfurled and ready to take off. Her knees were slightly bent to give a little boost and she had a small grin on her face. Rainbow couldn’t help but wonder what had been the source of inspiration that had made the artist make such statue. But it wasn’t time for such questions. She had a mission to accomplish, and no other thoughts were allowed. She once again did the safety measures and took one last look around. Nothing suspicious was moving nearby, so she was good to go. She dashed off for the final time, moving towards the high wall of the castle. Soon she had reached the wall made out of stone, unnoticed and safe. Easy parts were done. Now things would get hard. First off, she’d have to get up the wall and to the windows. Normally a pegasus would just have flown up, but she wasn’t a normal pegasus. Her wing had made sure of that. She’d have to find another way. Luckily, she had thought about this as well. She took both her knife and her pistol from the bag. She flipped the pistol around, so that he bottom was facing her, and located the small notch in the handle. When she found it, she used her knife to pull it. After a while of careful pulling, a sharp blade popped out. She had hidden that to the stock of her pistol, just in the case she’d lose her knife. Now it would prove useful with the wall-climbing. She turned to look at the wall, made sure that both the knife and the pistol were all right and hit both to the wall. The blades got stuck to the stone, giving her something to grab. The blades were too weak to hold her whole weight all on their own, so she unfurled her working wing and started flapping it as fast as she could. It was not quite enough to make her float, but it was enough for the blades to support her weight. When she had managed to get stable, she pulled the knife back from the wall and hit it back to the wall, placing it a bit higher. When she was sure that the knife would hold, she did the same with the pistol. After that she used her wing and forehooves to pull herself up a little bit. After repeating countless times, she was starting to get closer to the windows. At this point her forehooves were aching from all the pulling and her wing was on the edge, almost failing on her. She put all her remaining powers to the one last pull before she could grab a hold of the windowsills. She hung there limply for a few seconds before doing to final pull. She had made it. She had reached the windows. She was a step closer to the destiny. She pulled both the knife and the pistol out of the wall. They had done a great job. She also halted her wing and furled it back to her side, giving it some deserved rest. Now she would have to open the window. That would be easy. She placed a hoof against the decorated glass of the window and pushed gently. Soon the window started moving. Just before the glass fell to the floor, she stopped pushing and inserted her knife to the small hole that was on the side of the glass. The frames of the windows were a bit too big for the windows. When she had positioned the knife to the hole, she started twisting it, carving off some of the weak wood of the frames. Soon she had made a hole big enough for a hoof to hit through. She pulled the knife back and put it back into the bag. After that she carefully pushed her hoof through the hole. It wasn’t too big and she had some trouble in the middle, but after a while of trying her hoof popped out on the other side of the window. She then carefully pushed the window with her left hoof while holding the right one ready to stop the falling window. Soon the window came loose and started falling towards the floor. But when it met Rainbow’s hoof, it stopped its fall. She quickly flung her left forehoof to support the left side of the window. She managed to stop the window from falling with both her hooves. She slowly put it down on the floor, careful not to make any extra sound and climbed into the room hallway through the window. She dropped down on the floor and took a good look around. She was definitely on the main hallway of the third floor, where the balcony would be, too. She just had to find it. Wasting no time she dashed off towards the direction where the balcony was supposed to be. ----»«---- As the group got closer to the shack, one of the guards went ahead and opened the door. It revealed the bare wooden insides, decorated only by a single chair and a table. The guards pushed them in. Nopony tried to protest, knowing that the guards weren’t afraid to shoot. As every member of the group had got in, the doors got closed again. They were stuck. They had to stand there, completely still, for a couple of minutes before the door opened again and somepony walked in. The urge to look behind was almost overwhelming, but everypony just looked forward. Nopony wanted to die. The pony that had just entered walked over to the chair and sat down. At this point everypony could easily tell that the one sitting in front of them was their target. Before anypony could do or say anything, he spoke up. “So, an attempted murder, huh? That’s not really nice, you know. I think I’m going to have to punish you,” he said with an innocent-looking smile on his face. It was making Rainbow sick. But Sarge spoke up before she could do anything stupid. “And you are clean, no crimes or anything? We know what you have done. It’s not a murder, it’s a relief to the ponies of this world. You’re a criminal and we are a part of the army; we have our all the rights to kill you, given by the princesses themselves.” Rob just kept the amused look on his face. He knew that he couldn’t lose this fight. “Oh, but I thought that the princesses were dead? I guess I have to check. Hey Don, are the princesses still dead?” he asked form the other pony that had been hiding in the shadows. “Yup, at least the last time I checked,” answered the stallion. “And I don’t think it’s possible to receive messages from the dead, right? It’d take miracles. And there are no miracles, right Sargent Poofy Cloud?” Rainbow could hear Sarge snap. He hated the name his parents had given him. He didn’t like ponies mentioning it. There had been punishments for the ones who spoke about it back in the Royal Army camp. Rainbow had witnessed such punishment once. Three whole weeks doing the dishes and making the food for the whole squad. Luckily the others had helped her. “I’ll rip your fucking head off, you motherbucker!” Sarge shouted, trying to reach out for Rob. But it was no use; as soon as he opened his mouth the guards had already tackled him. He still tried to struggle while on the ground, but it wasn't doing much. The guards had a good grip. “Oh, did I hit a little weak spot? I understand your pain. I’d hate to have such parents as well.” Sarge had managed to calm down a bit, but after hearing the insult he lost it again. He bucked the ground as hard as he could, sending the guards flying, and dashed towards Rob, a murderous look in his eyes. Just when he was about to deliver a mighty powerful punch to the head of the stallion in front of him, Rob pulled out a pistol and shot three accurate rounds straight into the forehead of Sarge. Rainbow could hear the bullets push their way through the brains and come out of the back of Sarge’s head. “Can’t let you do that,” Rob said, putting the pistol away. The body of Sarge was now lying on the ground, blood coming out of its head. “And then the rest of you, what should I do with you…” he said, putting on a contemplative look. “Well, first off I think I should bring in your friends. Don, let them in,” he said to the same stallion that was still hiding in the shadows. He immediately swung the smaller door on the side of the barn open. After a few seconds three more ponies got pushed in. Rainbow let out a silent sigh as she saw the new members of the doomed group. The Rebels had captured Twilight, Rarity and Fluttershy. Despite the fact that the guards were pushing them quite roughly, none of them was complaining. They had probably heard the shots. “Ah, now as the whole squad is here, save for your leader, we shall proceed. But not here, the room is quite small. Let us move to a bigger environment,” Rob said, pointing a hoof at the door. The guards immediately opened it and started pushing the group towards it. When Rainbow was walking towards the door, she could hear Rob discussing with the stallion called Don, apparently a pretty close one to Rob. “What’s up with the cyan one? Her wing doesn’t look too good.” “That’s the one you shot, sir.” “But still, it looks a lot worse than it should…” “Well, it was crushed under a chunk of the roof. It was bleeding badly and she is going to suffer from severe blood loss soon.” “Is it so? And this is the one who tried to shoot me?” “Yes, sir.” “Well, spare her. She’ll have a longer death. She deserves it, trying to kill me and all.” “Very well, sir. We won’t shoot her. But what shall we do?” “Keep an eye on her. Don’t let her get loose. I want to see her suffer. “Will do, sir.” Rainbow looked at her wing. Small drops of blood were still dripping down the torn side, coloring the normally cyan feathers red. They were right. She would die to the blood loss. But there was a chance. There was always a chance. Maybe the blood loss wouldn’t be so bad. She had to try to get away. She had to try. But not now, as the guards were keeping an eye on everything. She’d figure something out. She always did. As she got outside she could see the pain on the faces of the others. Sarge had been like a father to the whole squad and now he was gone. It was an emotional punch to the face. When the group was together again, the guards started pushing them towards a location currently unknown. That location was going to be the end of it all. The end of the Royal Army. The end of the world. ----»«---- Rainbow was making progress. The hallways were familiar and she knew exactly where to go. She would reach the balcony just in time. A one more turn to the left and she would reach the “main chamber” of the third floor. There would be a short hallway leading to the balcony. She slowed down the pace. There was going to be a load of guards on duty, keeping an eye on anything suspicious. Most of them would be in the main chamber because that was the place most likely to get assaulted. As she reached the last turn, she took a quick look around the corner. She could see a total of four guards, three of them looking dangerously close to the hallway she was at. She’d have to take the guards out. There was no other way. This was the only way other than flying to get to the balcony. She’d have to be accurate. Even though Rebel guards weren’t the fastest with the weaponry, they still were quite dangerous when they got the pistol positioned well. She’d be in a real trouble if she wasted time and bullets. She dug the pistol out of the bag. She rolled it around in her hoof and made sure it was loaded. She took the one last deep breath and charged. She immediately shot four bullets towards the first two guards. The first one got two hits into his chest and the other one got one bullet into his throat. Two down, two to go. She quickly spun around and aimed at the leftmost one of the guards. He was already digging his pistol from the holster he had, but it was too late. Rainbow fired three shots to be sure, one hitting the chest of the guard and the two others missing by just inches. The fourth one was on the right side of the room. Rainbow spun around and tried to aim at the guard, but found it rather hard when the guard was ducking behind a table. He had managed to find cover and was now able to take a breath. But Rainbow couldn’t allow that. She shot four rounds at the table, the bullets easily going through the weak wood. She could hear a slight scream when at least one of the bullets hit its target. She had no time to go confirm the kill. If somepony had heard the shots, the room would be full of guards in no time. She quickly located the hallway leading to the balcony and started running towards the final objective. The hallway was short. Not long after leaving the main chamber she arrived at the large decorated door that led to the balcony. She could hear Rob speaking. She was just meters away from her target. But there was a door separating her from the target. She’d have to get through that first. Unfortunately, she had no idea how. She had not planned ahead. She had thought that there would be something to aid her. But now as she was there, nothing seemed helpful enough. She tried the most desperate of ways: leaning to the door and hoping that it would open. And for her huge surprise, it did. The door moved a little, making Rob’s voice sound a bit louder. She had done it. She had sneaked in, she had made it to the door and she had opened it. Now was time for the most important part. The part that would define the fate of the world. The part that she had failed earlier. She readied her pistol, concentrated only on the shot and pushed the heavy door open. ----»«---- The group was being herded towards a small stone building on the further edge of the field. It seemed so cold and emotionless, even for a building. As they reached it, the guards opened the door. The insides were even emptier than the wooden shack had been. There was nothing inside. Only the walls, the windows and the floor. Not even a lamp. The others were put on a line formation in the middle of the room. When Rainbow tried to join the formation, the guard just pushed her aside. She was forced to stand on the corner and look at her friends during their final moments. She could see the tears, she could see the fear, she could see the pain, she could see the hate. She felt a horrible amount of guilty while standing there. She had missed the shot. They were there due to her. She watched as the guards took their formation, one guard facing one pony. They stood there, emotionless against the suffering ponies. The leader of the group, Don, walked behind the line of guards, stood there for a few seconds and gave the command. “Guards, aim!” All the guards brought their pistols close to their faces, allowing a more accurate shot. Everypony was silent, waiting for the command that would end it all. The guards aiming at the innocent ponies. The innocent ponies, the friends of Rainbow, tears rolling down their cheeks, still proudly standing in a formation, supporting each other. And then there was Rainbow, trying to hold the tears back, unable to do anything. “Fire!” All the guards fired simultaneously. Five shots. Rainbow could see her friends fall to the floor. She could see to blood spraying out. She could see the faces twisted from the pain. She could see the tears still rolling down their cheeks. As the final one of the five, Applejack, hit the floor with a thud, Rainbow felt her knees fail on her. She fell to the floor, the tears freely forming up in her eyes. When the mixture of pain, realization and just pure sadness hit her, she felt everything fade into total darkness. ----»«---- Rainbow positioned the pistol close to her head, aimed down the sight and pulled the trigger just when the sight was in the middle of the head of the leader of the Rebellion. She had done it. Click Nothing came out of the barrel. She pulled the trigger once more, but the realization was slowly reaching her. Her mag was empty. She cursed everything in the world. She cursed her luck, she cursed the small magazines and most importantly, she cursed herself. She had failed again. And just then, she realized it. Saving the world would take sacrifices. Without a second thought she dashed towards the chubby stallion in front of her, before the guards could dig their guns out form their holsters. Her hooves drummed the floor of the balcony as she got closer and closer to Rob, who had turned to face her. She could see a surprised look form up on Rob’s face as he realized what was going on. Without hesitating even for a second Rainbow tackled Rob, wrapping her forehooves around him so he couldn’t get away and slammed against the wooden fence that was surrounding the balcony. As she hit it with full power, it gave up and broke into millions of pieces, just like she had suspected. She fell down from the edge of the balcony, taking Rob with her. As she was on the air, she spun around and let Rob fall freely. She looked as the stallion fell, faster than her, and hit the ground with a sickening thud and a series of loud cracks. She watched as the skull of the stallion shattered into pieces, killing him instantly. She watched as the blood of the cruel tyrant flowed onto the courtyard of the castle, indicating that he had been nothing else than a mortal. Rainbow let a small smile form up on her face. She had done it. She had saved the world. As she finally hit the ground, the tough paving breaking her bones, she smiled the biggest smile she had smiled since the days before the war. She had done it. She had accomplished the task given to her. She was free. In the distance she could see her friends, cheering at the brave little pegasus, welcoming her back, celebrating the victory. And as the life escaped from the cyan body, the six friends reunited yet again, welcoming the hero among them. The life is a gift, Beautiful yet so fragile, You should enjoy yours, Live through it honorably, Make sure the end is worthy.
