Prologue: Taste of Defeat
Prologue
“The world is an uninhabitable place, with no way of supporting life. When life is destroyed, it cannot be brought back again.”
Two-Hundred years ago, Equestria met the most destructive force to ever sweep the world. The warring factions of the ponies and the zebras raged days on end, neither side being able to get a hoof-hold over the other. Many were growing tired of the war, and many resented its end, but not as badly as the Ministry of Peace. Despite it's name, it became the most inhumane and deadly force in the war, not because how it fought the war, because they never fought in combat against anypony mind you, but it was how they ended it. And thus the bombs fell. Not the small missiles that gave a slight advantage on the battlefield, but huge megaspells that wiped out everything for miles and painted the area with thick radiation that could kill in a minute. The entire land of Equestria was wiped out, all thanks to one group of ponies. They had accomplished their goal.
Stable 90. That's where I had spent my entire life. Most ponies grew tired of the dark, dank hallways of the stable, never being able to go more than a mile from the place that they were born , but I enjoyed it. It gave me time to think, read books, gain knowledge of the pre-war world and the ponies that inhabited it. So interesting it was, but it was also very violent in the era's last few years. A type of era they hadn't seen for centuries. It ended quickly, and carried the deaths of millions with it. The only survivors were left within the vaults, or so I was told, and they are never to be opened again. “No Hope. No Safety,” the rest of the residents said. Everypony outside was blown to bits. If you were not within the direct blast radius, the radiation would kill you within hours, and sometimes in a mere matter of minutes. My first question was, if nopony survived and that stable door had been sealed since the bombs fell, how did we get this information?
Deception, fear, greed, these are ingredients for war. And war? War never changes.
Smoke.
The only thing I could see through the thick clouds was the light of my pipbuck, glowing silently on the cuff of my hoof.
“Ocean! What's going on?!” I yelled over the buzzing sirens. There was no reply. “Ocean!”
A few coughs and splutters later, my sister appeared in the doorway from the hall to my room.
“The reactor. It opened..” she said, limping her way towards my bed.
“What do you mean? I thought we sealed it off years ago!” I asked in utter confusion. When we sealed the door to the reactor, the overmare put over ten passcodes into the terminal so that it would be nearly impossible to access, and the only person who had the ability to hack it was sealed inside the reactor himself.
“The overmare... she thought the radiation would have... been dispersed... by now,” she explained between gasps. I quickly threw her hoof over my shoulder and dragged her into the corridor where the smoke was coming from. It was the only way to the main chamber where the smoke would be sucked up by the air recycling system. I just hope the smoke wouldn't get to us before we could get to safety. It was a risk moving from where we were into the smokey hallway.
Before the reactor was sealed off, my father had been the one to do the most work in it, but when it broke and radiation spilled into the area, he was lucky enough to be in the front hall, far away from the reactor, but it wasn't the same story for my mother and the other half of the vault. The main door to the reactor shut and the radiation was contaminating area by the second. They had no choice but to seal the doors to the reactor room and the living area. Over half the population was in the contamination zone and we had no choice but to seal them in. It was a drastic choice, but if the overmare had not cut them off, it would have been the entire vault. Without the manpower to upkeep the vault, resources have been dwindling from the orchards and the walls were starting to rust, and that was what was keeping me and my sister up as we hauled flank to the main chamber.
The smoke was getting to me too, and every time I covered my face to block the smoke, a new layer of red rust coated my face and mane.
“Night... where the hell are you taking us?” Ocean asked me, choking back the smoke.
“Main chamber... th... the smoke should be able to reach there.” Talking shouldn't have been that hard on the lungs.
“I think there is somepony up ahead... maybe they know where to go,” Ocean gasped as a silhouette appeared far in front of us.
“Hey! Help us!” I yelled to the unresponsive figure up ahead. I trudged on to get close to the figure and yell again, but whoever it was, they just turned their head in our direction and, raising its front hooves, let out an ear-shattering squeal. My first instinct was to get closer and see who it was and why they weren't effected by the smoke, but then it turned in our direction and galloped for us.
“Hey!? Who are you! We need help!” I yelled to it as it ran even harder at us. It was unresponsive. It was only then when it was within ten feet of us that I realized that its face was rotten, and decomposed. It looked like a corpse straight from the grave.
Now, my second response was to protect my sister and kill the damn thing. Quickly, I levitated a chair from one of the rooms opposite of the hall and fling it at the wild corpse but it just missed its head and slammed into its back. It didn't even change course.
I was tackled to the floor along with my sister as the carcase began to scream wildly over us and, still on its hooves, began to throw itself wildly into us, kind of like a rag doll. It was quite odd really, but with a quick fling of the chair again, knocked it onto the floor. Before it could get up I tipped a bookcase onto it, hopefully trapping it, but no, it quickly pulled itself out from under the frame and ran at us again, screaming. Another whack from the chair finally took it down. I was lucky I had a good aim with my telekinesis.
“What the hell was that thing?” I asked to myself. I lightly trotted up to the deceased living corpse to get a better look at it not yet realizing how hard my breathing had become from the sheer adrenaline. It was dead, and it looked like it had been for years, but it was alive just a few seconds ago. I had never seen anything like this before, but my vision begun rapidly closing in on me and I had to get us to a safe place. With my mind fogged and my vision deteriorating, and I wasn't able to get my unconscious sister before I fell to the ground myself. The last thing I saw before I went under was another figure, slowly making its way to us.
“This is it. We're dead.”
* * *
“Night. Night. Night Ash, if you can here me, wake up,” Ocean said. I fluttered my eyes open just in time to see a hoof about to come down on the side of my face.
“Hello there beautiful, nice sleep?” she asked sarcastically, pulling her hoof away.
“Wh--What?” I asked still in a daze. “I thought we were dead when I passed out back there,” I said, questioning my unexpected existence.
“Luckily, it was one of us. He would have just loved to watch you sleep but he had to be defending the door. We're going to get to safety, or at least away from those... things,” she replied rather calmly
“Defending the door... getting out of here? Wait, what even were those things?” I mumbled to myself without recognition that I was still alive.
Ocean Blue quickly pondered her words to make up the story, but mainly sat next to me on the old bed I was in. There were sharp pops of firearms and screams in the distance, making the glare that I didn't even know I was giving her harder. Whatever happened was big. Whatever those things were, there were more of them. All I wanted to know was what happened, but Ocean Blue wasn't exactly wanting to give up that information.
I sat up in the bed quickly as a explosion from down the hall sounded out, announcing the explosion of a small bomb. Ocean quickly got up and looked out the door and into the hallway to check what went wrong.
“Do you remember how we sealed off half the vault in the reactor incident?” she asked me.
“Yes, and how a good chunk of the population was stuck down there to await their deaths?” I replied. Another few shots out rang and the lights flickered. I got out of the bed and walked over to where Ocean was.
“Well, the overmare opened up the rest of the vault to see of anypony had miraculously survived, and these... things came out of the still burning reactor,” she said as she walked out into the hallway. Even more shots rang out, drawing closer and closer until I could see the muzzle flashes around the corner.
“The overmare has ordered a complete evacuation of the entire vault. Some are calling them zombies, and they are taking over our forces, and we don't know how much longer we can hold them back for. , and with the low caliber weapons we have, it is very hard to take them down. It's like they ignore the pain,” she continued as we rounded the corner to the overmare's office.
“Hold on. Zombies?” I thought those only existed in books and holotapes. “How could they be real?” I asked her, following close behind. She pushed into the door to the office. Father and the Overmare were in a rushed conversation about last minute plans for departure. Father stopped talking and quickly acknowledged us.
“I'm glad to see you both. We are about to open the vault. The Overmare has found the codes to the outside in some old files on her terminal,” he said victoriously.
“I thought you said that if we go out there, we all die from radiation,” I asked him playing dumb. I already had my doubts that everything I had heard wasn't always true.
“Well, the things we have told you have not always been exactly... well... true.”
I was almost in a fit of rage. I could tell a very cross look was coming across my face. It immediately changed the expression on my fathers face. “So all this time, I was LIED to? Along with the rest of the entire vault?”
“Night Ash, please calm down. Just because there isn't any deadly radiation out there doesn't mean that there aren't still dangers to be reckoned with. The animals have most likely been effected by the radiation, and there are some that have been proven to survive a nuclear fallout, but that doesn't mean that they are immune to radiation. With the amount of radiation out there, they have most likely mutated into grotesque creatures, bigger, and capable of more damage of anything we knew of even before the Great War,” he explained. “We didn't want to go outside because we wanted to protect the entire vault. If we would have gone outside, we might have been killed within weeks. But now, we have no choice. Our main priority is to get outside before any more of the residents can be killed,” he finished, motioning over to a table.
“Battery seems to be a better solution than bullets, can't we just do that?” I told him, keeping by his side as he picked two firearms off of the table.
“Yes, you might have killed one, but only one. In packs they can take down almost anything. And do you need reminded that the number of earth ponies outnumber the amount of unicorns left ten to one?” he said looking flustered before regaining his thoughts and continuing to give orders. “If you can, I need you to get into the power room on the other side of the hallway and reroute all electricity to the Stable door controls. The Overmare has informed me that before the door can be opened, it needs to be an energy priority. It isn't easy moving a thirteen tonne door. And take these. If you run into anything, don't hesitate to take it down,” he said as he gave us the two handguns and two boxes of ammo. “You should be able to stay away from most of the fighting, but just in case, you need something to protect yourself. I just hope the population can hold their own.”
“I think I'm better off with just using my 'kinesis, but if it makes you feel better...” I complied.
I took the weapon in my mouth and trotted down the passage with my sister following close. The gunshots had stopped while we were in the overmare's office. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? My question was quickly answered as a horrifying scream erupted from down the hall, slightly to the right. It was from a pony, not one of the 'zombies'. I galloped through the dark and smokey halls to where the shriek had come from only to turn around and see Ocean with a mouthful of my black tail in her mouth.
“You remember what they told us? They overtook the rest of the population I am guessing, and they had rifles. We have two pistols. How long are you thinking we are going to last if we go after them?” she asked me, motioning in the opposite direction in the way that the power room was.
“Fine, but we can't just let the others die,” I told her bluntly.
“If there are any that we can tell are alive, I will agree to risk our hides for them, but we need to get that door open,” she said. “Now lets go.”
I took one last look in the direction of the scream, but nothing that could prove that the crier was alive could be seen or heard. Reluctantly, I followed my light blue sister down the other hallway, but something wasn't right. Around the next corner about twenty feet up, Ocean had stopped dead in her tracks. I was almost scared to go forward and investigate, but whatever had my sister trapped in a stance like that had to be serious.
“Ocean? What's wrong?” I asked, but there was no response. As I got closer I could hear the sound of sloshing, but more like ripping. When I got to Ocean I looked forward to see what she was staring at. I was met with four eyes hovering over a vault resident that had been splayed open. Blood stains on their mouths, or what was left of them.
“Run.”
* * *
We ran down the hall at full force as the 'zombies' followed close behind. Whipping around the corners proved to be a hopeless effort as our trailers confirmed to be just as fast as us, but just as we were starting to get a lead on them, Ocean Blue spun around, almost slowing time as she popped off three shots into the zombies that were trailing us, tearing holes in their heads in quick secession, then swinging back around to fill the gap that was now between us. As soon as she returned to my side I started blindly firing behind me, not even paying attention to exactly where my gun was pointed.
“Nice shot!” I congratulated her. I had never seen shooting like that before. In under a second she managed to take out three enemies. Our celebration was short lived though, as another wave of zombies appeared in front of us. Ocean and I reacted quickly, immediately drawing our weapons out, about to shoot. We were stopped before we pop off a generous amount of rounds into the group when one of them yelled for us to hit the deck. For a second I was amazed that they could talk until I realized that in the low light I had mistaken them for another group of survivors, who we we discovered still had their brains... and their skin. The rest of the zombies that were following us were quickly dispatched, leaving only the smell of rotten flesh in the hallway.
“Thanks for the save there,” I replied to our saviors.
The one in the lead turned to me. “Don't mention it. Now I heard something going around about clearing the way to the power room?”
Wait, did he just say clearing?
“I thought we had the lines covered here!” I said sharply.
“Yeah, well the little shits tore holes in them and pretty soon we were overrun, leaving us with the situation at hand here,” the green one replied.
“Just take us to where we need to go. We will provide assistance when necessary,” Ocean told the green colored stallion with red blood stains on his jumpsuit, an obvious gaping wound in his left shoulder. He must have seen the look I gave him as I trotted to him, as he quickly turned the other way and began guiding the remaining forces down the rusty corridor to the generators.
It wasn't long before we saw more action. This time, it seemed tougher though, and I didn't know if it was just a coincidence that there was a glowing one in this group that was healing the others without direct contact, making them able to withstand our bullets, or it just happened to be a trait of all our new foes.
“Why the hell aren't they going down!?” I heard one of the group members scream as they became dangerously close to surrounding her. She made one last final stand, spraying bullets in every direction, almost tagging me a few times until they overwhelmed her in a frenzy of screams and twitches.
“Dammit! Twilight Shine is down!” the group leader called out. “We're gonna have to get back to back! They're coming from both exits!”
We quickly gathered in the middle, clearing out flailing bodies one by one, only to have them resurrected. We couldn't take them down fast enough.
One stallion broke off from the huddle, diving for cover, hoping to get out of the way of the wave of zombies only to be quickly devoured in the pack. It was only then that it became clear to me, when almost all of our guns were trained on the six or seven zombies that were on top of the unnamed earth pony, that a glowing body released a shock wave and all the bullets holes in the others were simultaneously healed. The ones that were glowing actually WERE healing the others and whenever a burst sounded out, we would have to start killing them again. There were three glowing ones in the room, and because of their glowing bodies, they became an easy target. I made them my first priority to take out. Four rounds at each and it was time to reload. None of them hit their targets. Which to me was not much of a surprise. On the other hand, Ocean was picking them off like they were radroaches. She seemed completely calm while the the other group and I had a look of complete terror spread over our faces. Serving as the vault exterminator may have helped with the accuracy but to have a cool head like that was almost unbelievable. Two of our squad members were already down and she didn't give a single sign to the thought of us now being easily overwhelmed.
“Ocean! Go for the glowing ones!” I yelled frantically over the gunfire. Dazed, she looked at me as if I pulled her out of her state of nirvana. She quickly lost her cool and began shooting in all directions.
“Not enough charge in S.A.T.S.!” she yelled.
What the hell was S.A.T.S.? I had heard her and father mutter a few things about the subject but I didn't know that it could be charged, or whatever the hell it needed charge for anyway.
“Just shoot at them!” I yelled back.
“I think we got the idea sug',” she yelled, firing more rounds.
Two of the three glowing zombies were down and they were becoming easier to take down. They were beginning to slow down, like they were fueled by whatever the glowing ones were giving off. Radiation? I guess so, because when the last one get deadly close to me, the Geiger counter on my pipbuck went berserk. Luckily I was able to give it a quick crack to the head with my back hoof before it got close enough to sink its teeth into me, or that is what it looked like. You could never tell what they were going to hit you with. They just launched their entire body at you, arms flailing and all.
We worked our we to the power room where the generators were. The power was out in the hallway outside so I had to fight in the dark. Since the three glowing zombies were put down, they became easier to pick off, but they were still hard to take down, spending at least an entire clip on one raging corpse. My ammunition supply was running out, and I didn't want to be the one without anyway to defend myself, even though with my terrible accuracy I wasn't doing a terrible amount of damage to our attackers. I just let the others take the shots. I had a job to do, and that was to get all our flanks to safety, which meant going deeper into the vault to enable the door to open. Too much of a task and we were already running out of time. We had to find another group or we wouldn't last too much longer. Two of our members had gone down in the fight, leaving the leader, a buff green earth pony stallion, a young female earth pony with a curling purple and pink mane, Ocean Blue, and me. Our odds were not looking too good.
“Power room! Up ahead! You and the gray one do what you need in there and lets blow this joint!” he directed to Ocean, who must have seemed to be my guardian with all the accuracy.
There was a terminal to the right of the door. I didn't bother wasting time looking at it to see the status of the metal lock inside the door, which I discovered was locked as soon as I pressed the switch to open it. In all the frenzy the door to the generators had been locked from any unauthorized personnel trotting in and screwing everything up, making escape impossible. It seemed to be a logical answer, but the overmare would have surely disengaged the lock to let us in.
“Ocean we have a problem. Door's locked.”
“Here. I'll see of I can pick our way in,” she replied, bringing out a screwdriver and pulling a bobby pin from her mane.
As soon as she stuck the bobby pin into the slot she was awarded with a shock that made her cringe and drop her equipment.
I could feel the jolt of electricity just by watching her eyes light up and her body frozen in an awkward position.
“Damn lock! What the hay was that?” she asked as she came back to her senses. “I didn't know we had security like that down here.”
There was a slight crackling in the now silent outside corridor. The area was swept clean of enemies and all our attention drawn to the odd spectacle of Ocean almost being zapped out of her wits. The terminal monitor started glowing an eerie green and a peppy and proactive voice came over the small speaker with the sound of patriotic music in the background in the bottom right side of the box.
“Congratulations stable residents! You have successfully initiated and completed our 'stable security' objective in reassuring that you will be safe for travel into the outside world. You have proven your capability to defend yourself in a hostile situation have been outstanding! The door to the stable will now be unsealed and you will be free to wander freely into the new Equestria. Be sure to take plenty of supplies for your journey, it is still a harsh world out there. Safe travels!”
Wait... WHAT?
* * *
The rest of the surviving stable members crowded into the atrium. There was only about a hundred of us left. It took about an hour to get them all rounded up, and a considerable amount of ammunition picking off the fleshless beasts we encountered along the way. Father recommended that Ocean Blue and I stay behind and let the other ponies regroup and search, which we both took kindly too. The buff green stallion looked like he could hold his own along with an entire group.
I reported the news about the stable door opening and the 'test' to the overmare, and she looked up in disgust that we would make up such a thing. She claimed that the entire stable system was to keep ponies alive, no tests required, and that there was no programming into 'saving the stable' or making odd occurrences appear such as the terminal in the hallway.
I almost knew this had to be something from outside the stable.
Ocean and I were sitting in a side room with father and the overmare. We were still trying to discuss what we would do if we actually left the stable, and if our group was in fact telling the truth about the terminal. They thought it was a more likely reason to have been in a mass confusion state of mind and that we had just hallucinated the terminal. I thought it would have been more likely for the Overmare to believe that an entire group of ponies saw the exact same thing, and that she could tell by the way Ocean's mane was standing all frizzy that she actually did receive quite a shock, thus triggering the terminal to play the message.
She did come to the conclusion that it was time to leave Stable 90.
The Overmare stepped up onto the podium overlooking the rest of the shocked, confused, and worried stable residents. “Fellow Stable Dwellers. As you all know of the events that have happened in the past sixteen hours, we have been left without a majority of the Stable, and we do not know how much longer we can sustain a liveable life in our home. We have decided that our best chance of survival would lie elsewhere, outside of the Stable, and that is why I have called you here. Soon we will be departing for the outside world. Please, do not attempt to go back into your living quarters to retrieve belongings. It is still very dangerous and we do not know what still lurks there.” She stepped off the podium.
After the speech there was a fair amount of mumbling and questioning. Father appeared in the doorway. He wore his regular white lab coat with a stable-tec blue jumpsuit providing as an undershirt. His gray mane was pushed to the side and the ends were split. His eyes were bloodshot from his usual 'work till you drop' policy, and just because the vault was being overrun by fleshless zombies didn't stop him from his schedule.
“Night Ash, Ocean Blue, I need you down here. We are going to attempt to get to the stable door entrance,” he said to us. “It takes four ponies to activate it.”
“Right. I'm guessing the overmare will be the fourth?” I asked just to get the chance to speak. All the commotion had gotten my mind working in overdrive and I couldn't stop thinking about things I could do, like if there are other ponies out in the stable that we missed. Father was right though, we had to leave as soon as possible. The other ponies would eventually find their way outside, right?
“Yes. She is the one who knows all the codes. She hasn't even told them to me yet,” he answered.
“So wait. Where even is the stable entrance?” I asked, realizing that I had never thought about the subject before.
“Follow me,” he said.
He took as up the stairs to the right of the atrium to the south side of the stable, which was where the overmares office was. This was the better kept hallway of the stable. It's shiny gray walls still shined, the light fixtures were still intact and free of rust, and the bright blues and yellows were still recognizable on the doors.
“So what do you think it will be like outside?” I asked to my father.
“Nopony can tell exactly. It has been so long that most everypony has forgotten about the past world. What I am guessing is that those Geiger counters installed into the pip-bucks will come in handy,” he replied. Usually if he is concentrated on his work, he will have a hardened state of mind, but he replied in a tone that he would on a day where he is actually free to do what he wants. Totally relaxed.
“What else. Any civilization do you think? Do you think anypony actually survived the blasts?” I asked.
“I doubt it. The radiation probably killed anypony that survived the initial explosion,” Ocean Blue interrupted bluntly.
“Pony-kind has a way of sticking around. It always has. I'm sure there are some places that are untouched by nuclear fallout and are safe havens for the ponies that were not lucky enough to get a spot in the stables. Those places would be a long way from here. It is told that even inside the vault you could hear the megaspell detonations above the stable,” my father explained, ruining our hopes of indeed finding one of those safe havens, if any actually do exist. “The megaspells were the main threats against the ponies, and when the detonate, they leave behind a field of radiation that can stay in areas for hundreds of years. If we start to come across one of those areas, it would be wise to get out of there as soon as possible. The radiation might not effect you directly, but your offspring could form mutations that could make them unable to live. If that happens, it could ruin the start of any thoughts of a community that we could start. For all we know we might as well be the last hope.”
“How... how do we know all of this information? Do we have contact with the outside world?” I asked him as we again rounded the corner to the Overmares office.
“No. We have been cut off from any external contact since the door closed.”
The Overmare was sitting behind her desk with her face planted into the terminal on her desk. She quickly pushed a few buttons on the keyboard and shut down the power to it. She motioned for us to step back as the entire desk lifted up off of the ground, revealing a secret passage to the stable door.
A row of lights flicked on, revealing another set of rusted corridors. The dim lights reaching almost fifty feet down to where a large open room was opened up where a large and proud 90 symbol stood proudly at the end. The stable door.
The Overmare stood above the stairs, giving one final look to us as if it was the last time she was to see us and trotted down the stairs. “Lets get this place open.”
In a straight line, we walked down the hallway to where the large room was. When we entered, the only light on in the room was the small overhead light that came from above the stable door, and small tiny green rods in odd positions and places rung around the walls. The sound of several re-breathers filled the air. Then the lights turned on.
We were surrounded by a dozen pegasi in black armor, pointing a type of weapon at us which I had yet to learn the name of, with a green rod glowing at the end of each. All of us except the Overmare at least.
“Overmare Power, what is going on here?” father asked.
“I'm so sorry. I had to make the choice-” she replied.
“What the HELL are you talking about?” he asked her rhetorically, in a mood of half anger and half bewilderment.
“-I didn't mean for it to happen like this,” the Overmare replied.
“Please... Lower your w-weapons. I don't know what is happening, but wee c-come in peace,” my father stuttered, trying to talk some reason into the pegasi.
“You might, but we don't,” one of them replied, and shot a single beam of green energy into Father. I could help but wince as he took a hit and almost jump to catch him. He fell to the ground with a severe burn on his side, and one word left on his lips. Run. And that's exactly what we did.
Ocean Blue threw up a shield to deflect any incoming projectiles, and we sprinted down the hall. The green bursts were absorbed into the wall, but as we got further and further away it began to get weaker and weaker until it disappeared entirely. We galloped up the steps just in time,but only to be met by another group barrels in our faces.
“Please! Don't! Please!” I begged, hoping that they would take pity on us and let us live.
“H-how did you even get here?” Ocean asked.
One of the pegasi above us pushed a button on the side of her suit of armor and the shield on her helmet slid up, revealing a pair of cold blue eyes. “You think that these stables were really supposed to protect you? They were for your safety? No. You got to be our guinea pigs. For a better Equestria, you were our guinea pigs,” she finished, then put her mouth on the bar extruding from the gun mounted on her side, almost as a saddle.
Ocean picked up the pistol with telekinesis she had laid on the desk before we made our decent into the secret passage and fired a single bullet right into the face of the mare, threw up a shield, and pulled me through the doorway before we could be engulfed in the green wave.
“Your shield isn't going to protect our asses every time you know!” I yelled to Ocean as we both galloped down the stairs to the atrium.
“I didn't even know that that would work! I just wanted to take as many down with me as I could before we were shot down! Those fuckers are out to kill!” she exclaimed. We turned down the stairs and into the atrium, shouting to the others to prepare for the invaders in sleek black armor, but it was too late. Many of the stable population had been slain by the pegasi on the upper floor looking down on us, and the rest were standing in a huddle in the center, not being able to make a stand for themselves. The pegasi were now taking wild shots at them, trying to make their deaths as humiliating as possible.
“Hey! There are some more of them!” one yelled, immediately followed by a green splash right at our hooves from one of their weapons. We ducked behind the door before any more could be fired at us.
“What is your plan now? We have no way out,” I asked her frantically, almost in tears.
“Follow me. We are going to make a last stand against those freaks.” she told me. That's when the pounding of metal hooves on the steps made it's way down to us. “Take this gun! I have an idea!”
“I swooped the handgun from her telekinetic grip in my own, and pointed it in anticipation down the stairwell where they would be coming from. The metal clomping sound getting closer and closer and closer until finally the black hooves were visible on the flight in front of us. Ocean picked up one of the pipes from the top with her magical hold and pulled down on it, giving the pegasi a blast of hot steam, putting them all in a daze. Even through their armor, the superheated water seeped into their suits, burning them, especially the ones with their visors up.
“Shoot!” she commanded, and that's what I did.
I hit a few of them, until my mane was caught in Ocean Blues mouth and I was dragged aside and in the direction of the steam and the dazed winged ponies.
“Ocean are you out of your bucking mind!?” I yelled at her as she pulled us closer and closer to the steam that was still erupting from the pipe.
“Trust me! We will be fine!” she yelled back in return, pulling the pace up to a slow gallop until I could feel the heat of the steam on my skin. Ocean threw up a another shield around us, protecting us from the blast of heated liquid as we slid our way around the pegasi. I felt awfully stupid after that one.
“How did you know that would work?” I asked her.
“You didn't realize how that single pipe ran down the entire way from the door to where we just were? If that door had been recently opened, that means the pressure in that pipe was still there, and it would be a great distraction to save our flanks,” she said. We rounded up the rest of the stairs and darted back to the Overmares office where Ocean Blue led us down the hallway again to the stable door. The room was totally empty this time, except for father who was surrounded in a pool of blood, barely conscious.
“Father!” I yelled. In response he turned his head slowly my way.
“Just, get out of here... protect yourselves. Find civilization. Don't worry about me. My time is up.” he said.
“We are getting you out of here,” Ocean replied, sliding a new magazine of bullets from her tool belt and into the handgun that she took from me.
“There is nothing you can do for me... just, make it out of here alive. Please. That's all I wish.”
I knelt down beside him as Ocean prepared to stand guard at the door to protect us while I tried to help Father, but there was simply nothing to treat the bright red wound that ran all the way down his side. He was about to bleed out and there was nothing I could do for him. The pegasi would be back here anytime and I had to get Ocean and I out.
“We have to go,” I told Ocean. “Pull the switch.”
“We're getting father out of h-”
“He's going to die! THERE IS NOTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT IT... all we can do is save ourselves. Now open the damn door,” I said.
Without a word, Ocean pulled the lever on the control panel beside the door. The huge metal door was pulled out with a roar, and a cave lead the way to the end.
“Goodby father,” I said. A final goodbye. I was going to fulfill his wish. For us to get out of here and to safety, even though those were not his exact words, I was going to do it.
“Thank you. Now go. I can hear them coming down the stairs,” he said before finally closing his eyes and leaning his head back. As much as I wanted to stay with him in his final moments, he was right, and we had to go. Immediately.
Ocean joined me in front of the door as we took those first steps into Equestrian soil. To the right just outside the door was another control panel. I silently pulled the red lever and the door started to initiate the closing sequence behind us. We began our trek into the unknown.
Author's Note
I really hope you all liked this chapter because of how much work I put into typing this up. As you can tell, I am partially inexperienced at writing but we can work through this! With my trustworthy team of editors I hope to make a story that is a well known favorite, or at least as popular as the first one. Again, thank you a for reading.
P.S. as you can tell, there is no real cover art. If you have any ideas or can whip up something for me that would be just great
-Dusk
