After a few miles of walking though desert in the afternoon, the group arrived at Appaloosa, drawing a few suspicious glances from residents. Oz discreetly approached a porter at the station about the next train to Ponyville, to which the response was that it would arrive in about five minutes.
"That was timed well." Giovanni stated the obvious.
"You don't say." replied Jack and Oz, in unison.
The train arrived a few minutes later, a couple of minutes ahead of timetabling. The group boarded it, and Jack deposited Twilight on a seat, letting out a sigh of relief. At this point in time, Twilight had almost recovered from her teleportation spell, although she still looked drained. Several minutes afterwards, the train left the station, and the group settled down for the several hour long journey. Jack looked out the window, his two black eyes searching the landscape. Oz and Giovanni talked between themselves, quietly discussing the entire situation and, in particular, Daemarrel. The two assassins were smoking ten cigarettes at once, a cloud of smoke hanging above their heads.
The train arrived at Ponyville that evening. The group was feeling rather hungry, with Jack offering a tin of spam, put in a pocket before they left Daemarrel, to his comrades, but ate all of it when the spam was turned down by the rest of the group. At this time of day, most of the town's inhabitants were indoors, and getting Twilight and Spike to the library wasn't a difficult task. Once inside, Twilight asked Spike to fetch some food, who did so, and this was distributed between the group, Jack understandably having the least.
"Twilight, is it possible for Jack and I to stay overnight, before we go back to Wipers?" asked Oz, taking a look at the time.
Twilight thought quickly, before replying.
"That should be fine."
"Not to mention, if somepony is desperate to kill you, it would provide an additional incentive to keep away, at least for tonight." added Giovanni.
"Right then, Twilight, where do you want us?" asked Jack.
At around two o'clock the following morning, Jack was awoken by the sound of the window opening. Taking no chances, he cocked his Magnum, and fired at the thing now coming in the window. Nothing happened, so Jack fired again. Again, nothing happened, which surprised him, considering he modified the Magnum himself to fire forty-five calibre rounds, and two shots should have killed pretty much anything due to his close proximity to the window. Twilight, Giovanni, and Oz entered the room, and turned on the light.
"We heard gunshots." said Oz.
Hanging in the window was a broken tree branch, which had been held onto the library by a strip of bark, and had hit the window enough times to cause it to open.
"Well, that explains the tapping noise. Twilight, you might want to invest in some better catches for your windows." said Jack, looking at two, forty-five calibre, holes in the branch.
"No more shooting for you tonight, Jack. I already think you may be a little bit too trigger happy." stated Giovanni.
Jack put his Magnum away, and the other three disappeared, Twilight shoving the tree branch outside and closing the window before she left.
"Was wondering why it didn't die." muttered Jack to himself.
After daybreak, Oz and Jack left Twilight and Spike in the care of Giovanni and the two assassins, before getting a train to Appleloosa. On the journey, both kangaroos kept quiet, Jack feeling bad about being fooled by a branch, and Oz realising what was going through Jack's mind, and decided on silence as being the best option.
Upon arriving at Appleloosa, Oz asked the porter at the station if the Lepton pass was clear.
"Wasn't when I got up today, but you might possibly be able to get through now, although I wouldn't recommend it." answered the porter.
"Thanks mate." said Oz, before hopping in the direction of the pass, Jack following.
When they arrived, the blizzard had eased from the day before, although it was still going strong. Silently agreeing that they wouldn't be able to pass through, Oz and Jack returned to Appleloosa, and stayed there until the following day, when they tried to get through the pass again. This had the same result as the previous day, and the two returned to Appleloosa.
The day after that, the two kangaroos tried again, and found that the blizzard had decreased to stiff breeze, and decided to risk going through. Oz started having difficulty in moving forward shortly after entering the pass, although Jack didn't, and helped Oz get through the harder parts, most of which were near the Equestrian side. Both remained quiet, until they passed Daemarrel.
"Jack, I had a look at the last provisions log while we were in Daemarrel, and I found something rather interesting." said Oz, in a voice loud enough to be heard by Jack.
"What's that?" questioned Jack in an equally loud voice.
"There are five thousand cases of alcohol – beer, wines, and other spirits – in an unflooded cellar."
"Why don't you command Orpheus' private army to retrieve it all. You do have the authority to order us about."
"You've got the respect of the kangaroos do do this of your own accord. Why ask me to sanction it?"
"I've got authority, yes. But you've got clearance and more authority than I do. Officially, I don't have the clearance to get into Daemarrel unless I get ordered or I bribe the right official."
When the two reached Grafton, hours later, Oz went into an office building, and asked to use a fax machine. His request was accepted, and Oz wrote a short message, ordering Orpheus' private army to Grafton, signed it, and added his personal security code, substituting the first sixteen digits with crosses in the process, although he left the last four untouched. This was then faxed to the Kangaroo Barracks, which surprised the kangaroo in charge of communications.
He left his small group of computers, which were performing a Denial of Service attack on a CCTV server for the Wiper's City Watch, and approached the camp captain.
"Sir, orders from Oz. He wants up up at Grafton." stated the kangaroo.
The captain checked the orders, confirmed that these orders came from Oz, before assembling the men.
Two hours later, after taking an express train, a decent portion of the Tsar's private army was in Grafton. The captain approached Oz, and asked what they were doing in Grafton.
"We're on a rescue mission." replied Oz.
"What kind of rescue mission. Couldn't the emergency services here deal with it?" questioned the captain
"This is a special rescue mission. We're going into Daemarrel, to rescue some booze."
The captain chuckled.
"This is my kind of rescue. Come on, lads."
"Captain, not just yet. There are several thousand cases of booze in there, so we may want some vans and trucks to carry it all."
The captain then ordered a quintet of kangaroos to purloin some vans, and a small bus, from a nearby rental agency, with nothing but their wits, and their military issue crowbars, to approach this task. While they were doing this, Oz approached the chaplain, Frere Tuck.
"What are you doing here?" asked Oz.
"Haven't been out of the base in a while, and I thought I might be able to provide some assistance to our task."
"I just didn't picture you going into Daemarrel and stealing booze."
"It is for the greater good. Nobody is deprived by it's loss."
"Point taken."
The trucks and bus arrived a minute or so later, and these were quickly boarded, before they headed towards Daemarrel. Oz and Jack expected a few problems would occur, mainly with the spirits still lingering around, but not from the two auto-turrets above the door to the facility. This caused the kangaroos some issues when they initially approached. Oz, being braze, made a dash for the door, shots grazing his skin. Upon punching in the code, the turrets disabled themselves, and the kangaroos entered.
Oz lead the way, being that he still had the map, and took the army to the cellar where the alcohol was stored. Turning on the lights, which illuminated in rows, starting close to the entrance, the amount of alcohol present was surprising.
"My goodness." muttered the captain.
"How much booze did the scientists here need?" asked one of the privates.
"Obviously a lot, now get to work, all of you."
Soon, a line of the kangaroos started hopping towards the trucks, each carrying one or two cases of the precious liquid, carrying it most organised manner to the waiting trucks. However, the amount of space in the trucks soon ran out.
"Sir, there's no more room in the trucks." said Jack.
The captain promptly ordered two corporals and four privates to take the trucks to Grafton, unload them at the station, and the privates return with the empty trucks, the two corporals guarding the alcohol. This was done, and the privates returned about half and hour later, allowing more alcohol to be taken. The trucks were taken back to the Grafton train station several times before Daemarrel's cellars were drained.
As the last crates were taken away, the dead body of an unfortunate pony was discovered.. Tuck hurried over, and performed post-mortem Last Rights. After Tuck had finished, a screaming howl was heard throughout Daemarrel, as one of it's residents moved on, which startled most of the kangaroos present. The kangaroos, knowing that they had no reason to linger, left, taking what was left of the alcohol.
When the kangaroos arrived in Grafton, the captain commandeered a local goods train that had just finished unloading.
"We're commandeering this train." stated the captain.
"On who's authority?" asked the driver, in a rather insulting way.
At this point, each of the kangaroos present, with the exception of Oz, pulled out their military issue crowbars. The train driver looked at the seventy-eight kangaroos holding crowbars, and realised that seventy eight crowbars on one target, or three, if he included the engineer and the guard, caused an awful lot of pain. The driver swallowed, loudly.
"That's good enough authority for me." said the driver.
"Right then. Get this stuff loaded."
In Wipers, after their cargo had been unloaded, the kangaroos began distributing the alcohol between themselves. Frere Tuck ended up with all of the Port, and also some of the sherry. The engineer medics took the Bourbon, as well as the rest of the sherry. The captain, the two lieutenants present, and Jack, took the champagne, most of the white wine, and also helped themselves to a portion of the rum. The rest of the alcohol was divided amongst the rest.
Jack carried his cases home, and, although he had some difficulty in opening the door, was able to safely deposit his personal haul in the living room. However, Sheila was not impressed at the amount of time he'd been out, and, thinking him a burglar, had taken her shotgun out of her trunk while Jack was opening the door. This shotgun was pointing it at Jack, who turned around to be confronted by a two barrelled shotgun and a rather startled Sheila.
"What on Earth is this?" asked Jack.
"I thought you were a burglar. Where were you, anyway?" Sheila questioning in reply.
"Getting the princess out of Myrynion. Ran into a bit of trouble going through the Lepton Pass."
"And the crates?"
"Taken from Daemarrel. Couldn't believe the amount of booze that was in there. Fancy some white wine, or would you prefer champagne?"
"Neither at the moment."
"I expected you to be up there, helping us get this booze out of Daemarrel."
"I'm on leave."
Jack shrugged. Sheila continued.
"And that explains why Herlock Sholmes was here earlier. He wanted to ask you some questions."
"Where is he?"
"He's gone to Equestria. But Hotsam is still around, following up a few leads. She'll probably ask the same questions as Sholmes."
"Hotsam's a girl?"
Sheila nodded. Jack snorted.
"The Ypres Times can't even get her gender right. And there I was, assuming that they would. So much for the accuracy of secondary sources."
A/N Sorry for not updating sooner, I've had other commitments in the form of mock exams. And the Ypres Times is a pun on the World War One newspaper, the Wipers Times, produced by the Sherwood Foresters. Please review.