Chapter One: Leap of faith
Chapter 1
Leap of faith
" You jump, or you're dead. No third option"
"She's a traitor, I'm telling you, and she's working for the EZS. We must eliminate her immediately!" Said a high-pitched slightly aggravated voice, aiming directly at the stone-colored zebra directly across the desk.
"Flash, listen, just how many times do I have to tell you that you'll need proof for that. The boss won't let us take any action against her unless we have some darn adamant evidence!"
"You know I'm working on it! I've been watching her ever since the arsenal was obliterated. 2 teams are tailing her and prying her every move since then!" The rainbow colored mare retorted as a deep frown appeared of her forehead. "This is a war, Stone, and I don't want to wrong something again, not that after that mess 2 years ago." Dash retorted.
"I know how you feel, Flash, everyzebra here is feeling that too. As I said, patience. They are trying to get that peace treaty signed, or at least get a cease-fire going on to let both sides rest. If you make a wrong move, it will all blow up and. .. sigh ...God knows what then." Stone replied with a voice just like his name, well, stone-cold, as she stood up from his seat and turned, walking slowly out of the dully-colored and badly lit room full of terminals and screens, with omnipresent lights flashing sporadically. "And stop fretting about that." She murmured while the slightly stained see-through glass door leading to the outer room was closing behind her.
"You know how I feel about that treaty? I feel that they are playing us, buying themselves more time. It is blowing up anyway, so I don't care how it went!" Flash commented sternly, seething. Turning away from Stone and the glass door with the WZSIS logo (a round medallion with the WZS emblem at the background, and the letters I and S in the front, separated by a bolt of lightning) embedded on it, Flash stomped out of the marble tiled room obliviously through the back door disguised as a cupboard, tipping over several WZS style ceramic vases with little violet orchids atop over along her way.
"There you go, ma'am, .50 caliber with suppressor, range is 1km and completely modular, together with fully automated system, perfect for silent kills." The saleszebra said as he took the sniper rifle off the top shelf of the 3-story wooden cupboard with colored-glass panels.
"Can this be trusted? I mean, after all, my very life depends on it." the pink striped customer asked, while checking casually the rifle at the pinewood-built counter at the middle of the room the saleszebra just gave her.
" 'Course you can, ma'am. Our shop is the most adequate and reliable amongst here in the Underworld, and we imported them directly from Cloud Industries in EZS. 100% guarantee if you'd ask. And, you're one of our biggest clients, how we dare to sell you flawed guns? Integrity's essential in this business, I'd say."
"And, if this doesn't suit you, we have another range of weapons for your selection." The saleszebra added, waving a hoof at the shelves which surrounded the counter, each filled with a spectrum of weapons, ranging from pistols to RPGs, of each with numerous colors for selection.
"Hmm... Let's see... Cloud Industries trademark at the cheek support, definitely the real thing. Extendable support and the mX212 scope. Oh, and the 10 shot clip too. Perfect." the zebra murmured as she examined the rifle.
"Though it would be more appealing if it was made pink. But, um, well... Alright then, 2000 bits, right?"
"Thank you ma'am, have a nice day!" The saleszebra gave a wry smile as her pink-striped customer made her payment. Being the owner of this store for more than a decade, she really know how to impress her customers to keep them coming. Picking up the weapon with her teeth, the pink zebra pranced out of the doorway, of which a sinister-looking trademark of the BlackBarrel Firearms was embedded on it, a black cross made of 2 double barreled shotguns with a yellow parasprite at the background.
A red light on one of the many small box-like terminals flashed in the glass room, and Rainbow Flash stomped a hoof on it. "Rainbow Flash speaking."
" Um...hi Rainbow." A timid voice from the other side of the terminal spoke, augmented by the small speakers surrounding the flashing light.
" I'm your source in the Underworld, Spank."
" Oh howdy, Spank? What's your status?"
" I just had contact with ' cupcake', left my shop a minute ago."
" What did she take? did she mention her plans to you?"
" Well she kind of said that her life depends on the weapon... oh, she did tell something about tonight. She said she's going to assassinate somezebra, but she didn't tell exactly who."
" Oh finally!" Dash muttered to herself, trying to keep the excites of the news to herself. " What's her position?"
" She turned left, main street perhaps."
" Good work on that, Spank, we'll have hay fries someday. Now stay inside, I'm sending in kill squads."
Just as she finished, she pressed another hoof on the terminal on the left, a familiar stone-cold voice rang out.
" I though I told you to be patient!"
" Stone, you're not gonna believe this. Check your incoming files." Flash said enthusiastically as she pressed yet another button, sending the recording of her conversation with Spank.
" Oh my god, Flash. This truly is a remarkable achievement."
" Well yeah! And I thought I might notice you that I'm sending in kill-squads." The rainbow-striped zebra replied, and lifted her hoof, ending the conversation.
The pink-striped zebra was walking on the garbage-marred street at the Underworld, an area operated by triads in the city of Villa Stripe, gazing casually at the zebras and the absurd buildings as she passed them by. It was yet another cloudy day in the city, the two moons above were again obstructed by the thick cloud cover, which was business as usual at this kind of altitude. It would be lucky if one could see the clear blue sky and the moons, of which one was slightly bigger with brownish color, and the other was green. The whole city is located on top of a mountain ridge, tallest across the whole WZS. Zebras around were just doing their daily business, instead of chatting with others nearby, they just focused on themselves, as if they were afraid of others, and grabbing bags of purchased produce in their mouths. At the farther end of the street, a silhouette of a garbage cleaner approached stealthily, sucking up litters as it passed them by.
An absurd building drew her attention. It was a strange, triangular tavern on her left, of which the sign read ' Avast! Harmony Bar offers you your most extraordinary experience on tonics! 20% more unique!' The pink mare, wanting to have a drink, turned and walked towards it.
All of a sudden, she halted, turned, and galloped. A fraction of a second later, a rocket exploded on the original spot where she was standing, blowing her off her feat and shattered the billboard. The street was instantly burnt by the explosion, and several zebras dressed with black bulletproof armor vest, each grabbing a rifle in their mouths, appeared from the void and were chasing and shooting after her.
She let out a scream as shrapnels from the missile penetrated her hindlegs, causing her to fall to her hooves. The chase team carefully approached her as she feigned to be in torment, while secretly switching her newly bought weapon to automatic mode. 3 zebras instantly went down as she fired at them, while struggling on her hooves. The world erupted in flames and thunders around her as the snipers from the roofs fired another wave of rockets at her. The pain was slowing her down, but even so, she maneuvered her way out of the suburb of the city and started running downhill of Mt. Stripe, on which the city was settled upon.
About 5 minutes later, the pink zebra was on skis. 2 zebras of the kill squad were caught in the line of fire and got hit on the flanks by friendly fire, instantly collapsed on their hooves. One of the team went to their aid as the 3 others continued to give chase. The vague outline of the reach pine forest at the lower part of the mountain appeared as they approached the lower part of the mountain ridge, the pink zebra, after gunning down one more of her chasers, disappeared into the forest. " 'Cupcake' just got herself into the pine forest. Request authentication on the use of Daisy Cutters. Repeat, request immediate authentication of the use of Daisy Cutters." "Request rejected, target is not of level 5 security situation, repeat, request rejected." The pink zebra whinnied and slowed down as she eavesdropped this from her newly stolen headset from one of the dead kill squad in the city. " Then request the use of Neptune's Spear, repeat, request use of Neptune's Spear." A mare's voice echoed in the headset. " Request granted, repeat, request granted." "Oh fuck!" the pink-striped zebra mumbled, and started to pick up speed, recalling her first lesson on advanced WZS arcane weaponries.
It was yet another of those never-ending tedious lectures back then in her trainings in the EZS. 20 zebras were present, and most of them were about to be brought to the front line soon." Tonight, we're going to learn the more compact weapons of the WZS, instead of mass destructive weapon systems. What is it that poses you the most threat when you're in the forest? Anyone know?" Hiatus. " If no, then I am telling you that the most lethal weapon you will, or you might be facing, is the Naptune's Spear. it's a highly accurate self-targeting rocket of a meter long, powered by traditional fuels with a gemstone warhead on the front. It will inflict severe damage, but the nature of the damage is determined by the gemstone warhead it carries. Proximity’s a hundred meters so make sure that when you shoot one of them down, stay at least 110 meters away. But, luckily, this rocket is slower then the common artillery rockets so that you can easily take aim on them beyond the 100 meter radius."
' OK baby, don't fail me now.' The pink zebra muttered as she took aim of the Neptune's Spear at the verge of the forest, behind her was the void beneath. Her sniper rifle let out a soft 'click' sound as she pulled the trigger, indicating that she was out of ammo. 'Oh shucks!' she muttered, now she must choose between the incoming infernal, or the tinniest tiniest bit of hope that she would survive that vast emptiness below her hooves.
She jumped, and fell, accelerating to the darkness below. Looking upon the sky which cleared up without her noticing, she saw stars, and the moons, together with the sun. She gasped in horror and disbelieve, and lost her consciousness.
*** to be continued ***
Chapter one...almost two... : Of parallel worlds and zebras
Chapter 1.5
Of parallel worlds and zebras
Errr... Kind of a prologue thingy
Before we go on, or before I go on with the adventure of my life, few things need to be introduced to help you understand more.
Y'all must have heard of parallel worlds, right? I bet you know of it somewhere, from your teachers, friends, relatives, mates, pals, father, mum, amigos.. but just didn't quite get it. True? I've heard of those too, when I was small. From books and magazines we know that through wormholes we could get to another world. And, I am a true believer of that, until that fateful day when I experienced all of these then I realized those I've heard are pure, well, let's say, theoretical.
My fellow ponies/zebras, ask yourselves, just how well do you know your country, the world you are residing in? What if I say that Equesrtia and the Zebraland are interconnected, that they are parallel worlds? Of course, if you're reading this many years after the Great War of Liberation, then this may be unsurprising to you. But, for those who are reading this shortly after the War (or shortly after this was published), then this may be something new to you.
Well, first things first, the worlds are indeed, flat, instead of being round. The zebra world is on top of the pony world (literally) . Boundaries existed amongst the two worlds just like papers having their own edges. If you could find the right place to jump in the zebra world, you might end up being in another world. One might ask, how could the worlds prevent colliding with each other? Well, the answer has surpassed our understanding of these arcane stuffs and so, let's just say one could travel between them unharmed.
As for the zebras. They are parallel creatures of ponies with a loving and caring heart. However, about a hundred years ago, the once great Zebra Empire dissolved, giving rise to two fractions, the Eastern Zebra States and the Western Zebra states. The West is a kingdom ruled by an autocrat, using extremely brutal methods beyond your fathom to restrict his citizens, whereas the East is a republic. The wars between the East and West since the division has marred the land and that hundreds and thousands of zebras have lost their loved ones.
Although the War has lasted for a hundred years and brought great devastation, it has not bring an end to the zebra civilization as some has expected. Instead, hope was high in the first few years since the signing of the ceasefire. In fact, in the EZS, many thought of that as the first glimpse of peace in a hundred years and hopefully, an end to the War. Others in the WZS treated it as a sign that their savior would come and their struggle and suffering would end.
However, the peace was short lived and the war has started again two years later. Yet this time, it was different, many saw that as a crusade to end the dictatorship, to bring love and tolerance back to Zebraland.
Pleased to meet you, my name is Pinkie Cake, and here is my story, my life, my adventure.
