Oooooo, the moment you haven't been waiting very long for at all has finally arrived! :D
I wonder what'll happen next? You might be saying. Well wonder no longer!
The first rumble was light, and most ponies didn't notice it right away. A grand piano was being played now, after Octavia got offstage, by Frederick Horseshoepin. Octavia was watching him with envy, probably because he was taking her stage time. She had a dark black mane and tail, with grayish fur. She also wore a pink bowtie, and she had dark purple eyes.
Frederick was a pony with light brown fur and a silvery white mane. His eyes were a soft light green that moved on the keys of the piano nonchalantly. But he wasn't playing piano for long. The second rumble was louder, and stronger.
Everypony fell to the floor from the strength of it, and the slow-turning disco ball fell from the ceiling and landed on two ponies. The disco ball was too big for anypony to see the two, but a pool of blood was trickling from the shattered globe.
The third caused Frederick to fall off the stage, and uneaten soup to start spilling from the bar it was resting on. Burning the ponies that stood in its way. Not severely of course. Nurse Coldheart, Sweetheart, and Redheart all came in to tend to the minor wounds. Ponies getting hurt from tables falling over them cried out in pain as Octavia Melody cried over her shattered oak cello.
"Get out of this room now!" Cheerilee shouted, "We have to get to the bunker." Then she mumbled to herself something along the lines of why it was supposed to be a good event, and continued talking to herself until she realized everypony was still staring at her. "Well what are you waiting for?" She shouted as a fourth rumble came, "Get the heck out of here!"
Chandeliers started falling from the ceiling, killing a few ponies with their sharp glass edges along the way. A fifth rumble even collapsed some of the doors, locking ponies inside to await their demise.
It was chaos for about five minutes, but then they realized that the rumbles were over. A strong-looking stallion came to the collapsed wall and started crying. He had yellow fur and wore a leather hat. He had a darker yellow mane with an orange streak going through it, and it looked like he had gone through a lot.
"She's in there!" the pony fell down at the foot of the collapsed door covered in giant cement blocks. "Junebug!" He started rummaging through the rubble, trying hopelessly to help this Junebug escape.
"Braeburn!" Applejack called out, seeing his panic. Rainbowdash followed Applejack as she ran through the crowds toward the stallion. "Braeburn it's okay. We'll get them out."
"Who is this guy?" Rainbowdash asked a little mawkishly.
"He's my cousin, Braeburn," Applejack said. She gave Rainbowdash a look that said, I know he's crazy, but he needs a little compassion.
"I'll just try and find out what just happened," Rainbowdash went onward through the mass of running ponies. Every pony seemed to be trying to figure out what just happened. Rainbowdash eventually found Cheerilee roaming around the halls.
"Where's Applejack?" Cheerilee asked, and before Rainbowdash could answer, she responded. "Oh… we can do without her. This needs immediate attention. Come on." She started leading Dashy at a fast canter through the halls, until they ran straight into a room with a long table stretching down it. Various ponies were sitting in different seats looking at maps and damage reports, but one pony stuck out. At the head of the table, on the other end of the room, sat President Cadence.
In the room there were a lot of ponies Rainbowdash recognized, and a lot she didn't. There was her father, Redwall, and even Octavia Melody, whom she never met formerly. But then there were the ones she had never seen before, and there were a lot. Out of all of the seats, though, four were missing. She assumed two of them were for Applejack and Braeburn, but the other two were past her knowledge.
"Redwall," Cadence said, "Are we all here?"
"We're missing…" Redwall stared at some paper in front of him, "Applejack, Braeburn, Junebug, and Frederick Horseshoepin."
Of course, Rainbowdash thought, Frederick would be here if Octavia was.
"Then I'm going to start by welcoming our new friend," Cadence motioned to Rainbowdash with her hoof, and there was a quick applause that died out almost instantly. "Now that that's over, we have business to attend to. The Capitol has just bombed District 13, and they've left a message. They will attack us again! They say it will be Friday exactly two weeks from now, and why they're giving a warning is beyond me. But we have to take action, we need warheads to explode the bombs before they reach us in midair. That is the best decision."
"I'll get right on designing them ma'am!" Redwall jumped up and started leaving the room, but Cadence stopped him.
"Not yet Lieutenant," she said the words with a stern power to her voice, "We need a team to check out the ground level, see what the damage is. I want you to be on that team."
"Aye aye," Redwall nodded, but he didn't go back to his chair, "Permission to select my colleagues for this journey?"
"Granted."
"Cheerilee," Redwall said as he turned around, "Let's go."
"I'd prefer it to be a group of three," Cadence said.
Redwall cringed with a bit of frustration. Without turning around he mumbled. "Rainbowdash."
"What was that soldier?"
"Rainbowdash," Redwall said, "Come along."
"You're kidding!" Rainbowdash said, "I've barely gotten here."
"Well then," Cadence said, "Welcome to your first mission."
No words followed that. What Cadence said was final. The three ponies took the elevator back up to the surface, or at least, the last elevator that was working. In District 13 there were about 20 elevators to the surface for all of the hunters and gatherers. The few that were out at the time were probably disintegrated.
Rainbowdash winced at the sight of an bloody leg lying on the grass. They looked around, and for at least 2 miles the trees were all burnt to nothing. It was one big clearing. The tests they did before they came up revealed that the bombs weren't nuclear, so there was no radiation in the air.
They didn't talk as they assessed the damage. It was surprisingly gruesome. But 13 was far enough down underground that there was almost no damage besides a couple cave ins. So it wasn't much of a problem.
But little did they know, there was another problem approaching. A much larger one. A problem that couldn't be solved by blowing it up in the air, or by communicating better between ponies. A problem that was fused together by the Capitol. A problem that was part pony, part machine. A pony that had knowledge of 13's whereabouts, that gave the Capitol the coordinates to attack. A pony that knew many of the victors living in 13 personally, as he himself was in the games as well. A pony that helped the nurses do what was necessary, as he worked in the medical field. A pony named Doctor Whooves.
Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooo... Remember that Reviews are important and this is probably the worst author's note I have ever written.