Hey everyone so to start things off I want to give the BIGGEST APOLOGY EVER! I know I said I would release the next five chapters in June and now it's August! But it's been very difficult for me to get things out and I'm so sorry. Due to the fact that school is starting up again for me I can't quite guarantee when the next chapter is, BUT I CAN give you guys short sneak peeks every now and then. So that will be good. Thanks for your patience and I hope you like this new chapter. I've been working hard on the upcoming plotline to make up for the fact that this was late. Enjoy!
"Do you think you can walk, Applejack?" Derpy asked in a motherly tone. Applejack was doing her best to stand in the helicopter.
"Yeah," she responded. "I just have to hold up my leg so I don't use it." She put her leg up, and winced a bit, but it was still better than being carried around all the time.
The helicopter landed approximately a mile away from District 6, meaning that the squad would have to walk the way there. It was vital to the mission that they didn't get caught. The walk was an easy one to say the most, considering it was all flat terrain and grassland. Applejack managed to spot some prairie dogs on the walk there, which was a fun thing to pass the time of slowly going to the District, hiding in the tall grass whenever there was a hovership in the sky. Eventually, it became a game between Rainbowdash and Applejack to see who could find the most prairie dogs.
"I see, seven," Rainbowdash smiled, "Over by that morning glory bush."
"Dang, that puts you at twenty-three," Applejack commented. "I've got some catching up to do."
"We're at the fence!" Dynasty shouted with glee. "Finally you guys can stop droning on and on and meaningless mammals!"
When they were starting to near the electric fence, Braeburn stopped all of the ponies from walking any closer. "We need to know what's coming ahead," he said simply. "Spitfire I need you to take a look at the condition of District 6."
"Aye," Spitfire answered plainly. She quickly turned on a cloaking device that made her completely invisible, the hoofprints in the tall, dry, grass started to vanish as she flew up in the air.
There was a sobering feeling in the air as the crew waited for Spitfire's return. Dynasty was watching the fence, which was about fifty meters away. She seemed focused on the vast emptiness surrounding the fence. There absolutely no patrols. No peacekeepers.
Rainbowdash then remembered what she had been meaning to tell Braeburn. Trixie seemed to know that they were coming, considering what had happened at the surface above District 13. She went over to him and asked if they could talk.
"What could it possibly be that needs to be said right now?" Braeburn complained. He was scanning the skies, checking for any slight sign of Spitfire.
"I think Trixie knows that we're coming," Dashy said. She seemed hesitant to say this, what with the high chances of Braeburn's negative response. To her surprise, he seemed to take it lightly.
"I don't think it's such a problem," he commented. "We're fully prepared to deal with any tanks or large weapons thanks to the RPG, we've got a medical officer, a stealth officer, and several others. I think we're just fine whether or not she expects us."
"Fine," she frowned. He didn't seem to be taking it as seriously as necessary.
"The ground by the fence is so barren," Dynasty said with a hoarse voice. She sounded bored out of her mind. "There's absolutely no grass. Isn't that strange that a grassland would just stop like that?"
"I guess," Applejack said. She waited a moment in the silence, eager to continue on with the mission and go back to her home. "I suppose this never occurred to me before, but I think there used to be an orchard right behind the fence. Outside of the district, I mean. It kept us from looking outside. I didn't think we lived in a grassland." She moved her hat a little on her head to make it more comfortable. Then readjusted it another time. There wasn't much to do in the wait.
"Shouldn't Spitfire be back by now?" Dashy complained. The hot sun was starting to beat on her back, making her sweat a bit. "I'm already tired and we haven't even started the action yet."
Everyone mumbled in a sort of agreement, except for Braeburn, who just looked frustrated. "Everypony here needs to be patient! We've only been sitting here for fifteen minutes," he yelled.
"It doesn't take fifteen minutes to look at a situation from the sky," Dynasty retorted with a bad attitude.
"You listen here-" he started.
"No wait, she's right," Derpy spoke up. She had been relatively quiet this entire time. "What if Spitfire got captured? If Trixie was expecting us, then she might have figured Spitfire or somepony would be out watching from above."
"I highly doubt that our agent would be captured," Braeburn laughed at Derpy's ridiculous comment. But as he thought about it more and more, it made more sense. Another fifteen minutes went by without any real conversation going on. Except for the occasional complaint about the heat.
"Derpy don't you have water bottles in your medkit?" Dashy asked impatiently. "I'm so thirsty I could die!" She was desperate for something to drink, as Spitfire's return was taking much longer than necessary.
"Hmm," Derpy thought for a moment. "Now that you mention it, I think I do!" Everypony groaned with frustration as Derpy took a water bottle out from her pack.
"You couldn't have said something earlier?" Dynasty complained. She took the water bottle from Derpy's mouth and opened it to drink some.
Applejack stared at a blurry reflection in the dirt as Rainbowdash walked over to Dynasty for water. "I need some of that," Dashy commanded as she grabbed the water bottle with her mouth.
As Applejack looked at the dirt she noticed several reflections showing the cloudless sky. Heat waves made her vision even blurrier, but as she inspected it more, it looked more and more like some sort of metal.
"I wasn't done with it," Dynasty retorted, taking the water bottle before Dashy could drink any of it.
"I was using that!" Dashy shouted.
"So was I!" The two ponies started fighting over the water, and it flew about five meters away from them. Closer to the fence. The water bottle cap was open and some water poured into the sun-beat dirt.
"Great, look what you did!" Dynasty nagged Rainbowdash.
"It was your fault," Dashy defended.
"Whoa there! You aren't fillies anymore," Derpy scolded. She looked closely at the water bottle, which still had some water left in it. "There's still some water left. I do have more water bottles, but we should work on reserving as much as we can. Some of it could be used for medical purposes." She started walking towards the water bottle, which Applejack noticed was fairly close to a shiny reflective patch in the dirt.
Oh no, Applejack realised immediately. "Derpy don't!" she called out to her grey friend, but Derpy didn't hear her. Applejack jumped up to her feet and ran over to Derpy, tackling her as she was about to pick up the water bottle. In the process she kicked the water bottle out of the way, making it directly hit a shiny reflective spot.
A small explosion threw up the dirt around them. Causing Derpy and Applejack to fall back closer to the group.
"Mines!" Braeburn shouted, running farther and farther away from the fence, the others following as best as they could. Applejack was struggling to catch up with everyone, and it was clear she took a lot of that explosion. Braeburn turned and looked in horror as a surviving chunk of the plastic water bottle started falling from the air, and rolling towards another metallic disk in the ground.
Another explosion followed, launching Applejack a few feet closer to the group. If she wasn't hurt before, she definitely was now. More explosions continued as the chain reaction grew, the sound was literally deafening.
A fuzzy sound came out of Braeburn's radio, and he tried his best to listen through the commotion. "Help," the voice said through the radio. It sounded like Spitfire. "They… we were… ambush…" The voice sounded weak, but that was all Braeburn could really hear in between the explosions.
Applejack lay down in the grass against a small rock, Derpy was sitting in front of her with a worried look on her face. It looked like she was talking, but Applejack couldn't hear anything. In the corner of her eye she could see Braeburn give a nod to Derpy, and then he was gone. Derpy looked through her pack and took out a set of bandages and some gauze. She carefully put the gauze on… what was it… Applejack's back left leg? She assumed that's where Derpy was putting the gauze, due to the fact that she couldn't feel her leg at all. She tried to gather up her energy to look at her leg, but nearly passed out at the sight. The wound was too much to look at.
What once felt like nothing suddenly became a surge of pain as Derpy put the gauze on the wound. Applejack couldn't help but wince. It looked like Derpy was trying to comfort her, but sound still wouldn't enter Applejack's ears. Derpy then started wrapping the bandage around her back left leg, starting with the end facing the ground, that must have been where the wound was even worse. She shuddered at the thought.
She took a look at her right back leg, which used to have a bandage from her previous wound. The bandage was ripped off from the force. At least before she could walk for a little bit with a limp, but now… now she wouldn't be able to walk until both of these wounds were healed!
"Braeburn," Rainbowdash said. "I found the right building, I think." She was standing next to a hangar-like building with a large garage door in the front, and a small metal door on the side. They had managed to get a ways into the District without getting detected, but they weren't about to succeed in their mission without the first step. Starting a riot.
"This doesn't look like a market," Dynasty corrected. She walked up to the iron door on the side and tried to peek through a small, dusty window. There was nothing to see really, not that she could decipher.
"I'm pretty sure it is," Dashy responded. "How would you know anyway? You've never been in a District." She said this with a rude tone.
"Just because I grew up in District 13 doesn't mean I don't know what a market looks like!"
"Hey, you two need to start getting along," Braeburn ordered. "Now let's think about this logically. Applejack said that the market had a symbol on it. A red circle with a triangle inside next to the door." He pointed at the door, and Dynasty frowned upon seeing a red circle with a triangle inside of it.
"Well you may have been right, Rainbowdash," she mumbled.
"Rainbowdash," Braeburn turned to the blue pegasus, leaning against the wall of the hangar. "I need you to get a good vantage point, maybe from a rooftop or in an alleyway. It's about to get exciting, and those tanks won't blow up themselves." Rainbowdash nodded, and backed up from the garage door. She ran towards it, and using it as a platform jumped onto the ledge of a 1-story building nearby, grabbing hold with her front legs and pulling herself up.
Rainbowdash squatted on the roof and prepared her RPG for firing while Dynasty and Braeburn walked into the hangar. As soon as they walked in, the busy sound of a market crept in their ears. It was almost unreal how well hidden this place was! Braeburn looked around to see a surprisingly large variety of businesses. A butcher, some bakers, a florist, and even a trinket salesmen! And these people all seemed so discontent with their lives. There was an ambience of fear in the room, and Braeburn knew it would be difficult to get these ponies to rebel.
"Are they in the room, servant?" Trixie demanded a peacekeeper watching a security camera.
"Yes, oh Great and Powerful Head Peacekeeper," he answered reverently. "The tanks are in position to blow up the market, but Rainbowdash has an RPG…. She can fight back."
"They pose no threat to me!" Trixie said. "I've been working all of the citizens to death. None of them will rise up for rebellion because they are so tired and malnourished. Their wages have been lowered so it would take a month just to get enough money to buy an extra slice of bread, let alone some meat."
"That's correct," he responded. "But aren't they strong enough on their own? They have all the weapons and tools they could want!"
"Excuse me," Trixie nagged. "I have no idea who you're talking to when you don't address me."
"My apologies, Great and Powerful Head Peacekeeper."
"Much better," Trixie laughed. She paced over to the television screen where Dynasty and Braeburn explored the market. "It doesn't matter what they have or who they get to help them. Because even with Applejack to give them locations and teach them about all of District 6's great citizens…." She seemed to have lost her train of thought.
"What is it?"
"Are you mocking my title?" Trixie shouted. Forgetting what she was going to say earlier. "You slip up one more time, and you are getting the whipping of a lifetime! What's your name?"
"Thompson, Great and Powerful Head Peacekeeper," he answered.
"I've got my eye on you." Trixie was a threatening force for sure, and Thompson felt very overwhelmed.
"What is it you were saying earlier, ma'am?" Thompson asked.
"Oh yes," she continued. "Applejack. Where is she? We've got Spitfire in chains, Dynasty and Braeburn in the market, Rainbowdash on the rooftops… but where is Applejack. Not to mention their medic."
"I can't find her on the security cameras at all," said Thompson.
"What!" she yelled. "This is unacceptable! The greatest force against us is the one we can't see… I want all peacekeepers looking for her. She will be the first to be slaughtered."
"I will send the order."
"Those rebels made a mistake dealing with me! They don't know how dangerous this District can be under my rule." Trixie paused in thought. "Oh yes, and Thompson?"
"Yes?"
"Your whipping will be at 16:00. Don't be late."
Just thought I'd remind you guys that there will only be 50 chapters to the story. But the chapters will also get a lot bigger. Please review this and tell all of your brony and non-brony friends, just so that more people can read and review! I literally FEAST on EVERY WORD YOU GIVE TO ME! If you want this story to be better it will NEVER improve if you don't tell me what to fix. Thanks guys, and see you next time. :D