Chapter 58

12-9-14, 9:17 P.M.

For what seemed like a few minutes, all was bright light and smoke for Jeremy as he tried desperately to get a bearing on what had just happened and where he was. As he came back to his senses and his ears stopped ringing, he became aware of a voice shouting over the radio.

“-spond! Jeremy?!” Luna was yelling frantically, sounding as though he had just died.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he groaned as he slowly picked himself up. He was currently back in the medical museum’s lobby, having been blown through a wall – it hurt amazingly.

“Art thou hurt? What happened?” Luna queried, still sounding panicked.

“No, I’m good, I’m fine,” he lied through his teeth as he shakily made his way back outside. “Grenade launcher, maybe? Rocket?” Jeremy wondered aloud, in response to her second question. “And where are the others?” he added after a second’s hesitation.

“We think Celestia managed to put up a shield just before the blast – they may be still alive,” Luna hesitantly answered.

Jeremy frowned – maybe was a strong word, for what they’d just been through. He had the suit, and Celestia and Luna were alicorns – but the others? Could well be blown to bits by now. Great, just… great. Well, the least he could do was avenge their deaths, by figuring out what had caused them. Looking around, he didn’t see anything. There was a faint rumbling in the background, and Jeremy almost missed the approaching vehicle until the top swiveled around to face him. For a moment, he stared, in openmouthed shock at the sight. “…Are you kidding me? A tank?!”

Luna was across the avenue, evidently staring as well. Jeremy heard the tank being armed with another blast, and dove out of the way just in time. The heat wave alone was painful, but the shockwave sent him tumbling head over heels across the street, where to his pride he managed to get up and hide behind a building, quickly circling around.

“Jeremy, how do we stop this thing?” Luna demanded.

“Rockets, maybe? Worth a shot,” he mumbled.

Bringing out the rocket launcher, he carefully loaded it and flicked on the laser sights, grunting at how heavy it was. Coming around, he spotted Luna carefully leading the tank onward, away from him, and grunted with satisfaction. Before he opened fire, he took a moment to look around – scout a path, maybe? Yeah… that might work. Turning his attention back to the tank, he shouldered the rocket launcher and took aim. One burst of light later, and the tank was slightly crumpled on the backside. Much to Jeremy’s dismay, this didn’t seem to accomplish much towards his goal of kill-the-tank-before-you-die, but he was working on it.

He ran around more buildings, thanking the various deities he’d met so far that the tank seemingly wasn’t interested in trying to hit him through said buildings. He pulled out another rocket, and hurriedly loaded it into the launcher, being significantly less careful than last time – he didn’t know if Luna could keep avoiding the tank’s barrages for much longer, especially with him taking her magic via the infinite rockets. Coming out from behind what he thought was some biotechnology center, he fired off another rocket-propelled grenade, making sure to target it in the exact same place. Unfortunately, the second shot didn’t seem to accomplish much.

“Uh… Luna, might be a good time to run!” Jeremy asserted over the radio. For a moment, Luna didn’t respond. “Luna?” Jeremy asked, taking out yet another rocket in the vague hopes that a miracle might occur.

“Nay! We shall see this through to the end!” Luna finally responded, and leaped forward.

She hopped onto the tank’s rifle, and hugged it as though she were wrestling with a giant snake. Audibly grunting with effort, she attempted to bend the barrel upward towards her. Jeremy honestly wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be worried at this point – there was no way even her alicorn strength could accomplish something like that… right?

To his unpleasant surprise, he was correct, and Luna gave up after a short while, huffing with exhaustion. As soon as she stopped trying to bend the cannon, the secondary machine gun mounted on the tank swiveled over to nearly face her, and unloosed a hail of bullets. Fortunately for Luna, the gun couldn’t quite seem to face her directly, and thus missed completely – it stopped a short while later, quite possibly because the operators had figured this out.

“Well… now what?” Jeremy wondered out loud. At best, they’d reached a stalemate – the tank couldn’t kill either of them, nor could they bring it down.

“Hmm… Wait! We have an idea! Hit it with another rocket, in the exact same place,” Luna commanded, sounding excited.

Jeremy shrugged, not really catching on. “If you say so,” he replied, and ran around to the back of the tank before hitting it with another rocket. Luna, who had dived off the tank, sprang up and placed her hands under the turret, once more lifting up.

“…Are you serious?” Jeremy asked after a moment.

Luna’s hands glowed blue, and finally, with a scream of rage and the sound of popping rivets, the turret leaped off the rest of the tank like it had burst from the inside, landing some distance away with a deafening crash. Jeremy stared as Luna, still enraged, roughly hauled the two pilots out of the tank and curbstomped both violently, only stopping when they stopped moving. With that done, she turned to Jeremy with an apologetic grimace on her face.

“…Sorry,” she muttered, and before Jeremy could stop her, Luna pitched forward, fainting into his arms.

For a long moment, Jeremy took in what had just happened. Then, one of the two tank pilots began to stir, and Jeremy glared over at them before gently setting Luna down, whipping out his shotgun, and finishing what Luna had started. Following that, he carefully dragged Luna’s unconscious body behind a building, gingerly making his way around the strewn debris from various explosions. Following that, he finally checked in with the radio.

“Anyone else, report! Luna is down for the count, and so’s the tank. Is anyone at all still alive out there?!”

For a moment, all was silent. Then Celestia’s voice crackled through, and her eerie calmness sent a chill down Jeremy’s spine. “My sister is dead?” Celestia asked quietly.

For a moment, Jeremy was legitimately too scared to answer, but he quickly collected himself. “No! No, not dead, just knocked out. Definitely still alive, she’s breathing and everything,” he hastily reassured her. There was a collective sigh of relief on the other end, and Jeremy’s heart lept as he recognized the voices of the other soldiers.

“Thank the fates,” Celestia finally responded, sounding a lot less terrifying. “Sorry, I just-“

Jeremy cut her off. “I know,” he answered. “I know.”

“Where are you guys, anyway? I lost track of everyone after the first blast,” Jeremy asked, scanning his surroundings in case someone tried to sneak up on him.

“We got blasted right through a building – I shielded us at the last minute, but it wasn’t quite enough. Turns out there were many more soldiers on the other side, waiting – we were taking care of them while you and Luna took on the armored vehicle.” Jeremy gave an appreciative hum.

“I’m inside one of the blown-out buildings back on Euclid, with Luna. The tank’s down – Luna ripped off the turret, and the pilots are dead.” Disturbed mutterings could be heard on the other end of the radio.

“Luna ripped off the turret of a T-55? That’s… they’re riveted on, how is that possible?” Mary asked. Jeremy was glad to hear her voice again – he’d been unsure if she too had made it.

“Alicorn strength,” Ethan answered, surprising Jeremy.

“Yep,” he agreed. “Good to see you made it, Ethan.”

Ethan chuckled. “So, how are the wife and kids?” he jokingly asked.

“Well, the wife’s had a long day at work, the other wife is listening in, the third wife is doing who knows what, and the kids haven’t gotten around to existing. Lazy bums,” Jeremy shook his head in mock disgust – technically he should be taking this whole fight more seriously, but the humor was a nice departure from the thoughts that he was sure were going to haunt his dreams for years to come. Maybe he should murder with friends more often, ha ha.

A few seconds after that inspiring thought, Celestia poked her head through the debris, rearing back when she caught the sight of Jeremy pointing a shotgun at her.

“Oh, hey... uh... Didn’t see you there,” Jeremy greeted, lowering the barrel awkwardly.

Celestia looked at him for a moment, and sighed. “…Looks like you’re not the only one with bad memories,” she muttered.

Jeremy had to think for a moment about what she meant, but it came back to him – the beginning of their only fight. Wow, that was forever ago, he thought. Not that he was exactly wistful for the experience, but it had certainly been simpler than what he’d been through since. Oh well, that’s life.

“Yeah… sorry,” Jeremy mumbled. Celestia pulled him into a rough hug, and he returned it as warmly as he could.

“Don’t ever apologize for that,” Celestia whispered. Jeremy didn’t respond – he wasn’t sure any words of his would add much to the moment.

Celestia pulled away after a minute to look down at Luna, who was breathing silently, slumped over on the floor. “She always did overexert herself in battle,” Celestia remarked, shaking her head.

“Not to ruin the sentiment, but does this mean we no longer have infinite bullets?” Jeremy asked, gazing down at Luna’s prone form as well.

Celestia laughed. “I can easily cover for that,” she answered, placing a tanned palm on Luna’s own pale arm. There was a mix of yellow and blue auras, and a moment later Celestia straightened up. “Hands are nice,” she remarked after a moment, and Jeremy stifled a snort of laughter.

“So… we faced a hundred or so of these guys… and then a tank… Now I’m wondering, what’s next?” Jeremy asked, half concerned and half joking. Celestia shrugged, picking up Luna as though she weighed nothing more than a pillow and motioning for him to follow outside. Mary, Ethan and the rest were waiting, more gore-splattered than ever but with slight smiles on their faces – Jeremy vaguely suspected they had overheard him and Celestia. “So, what do we do now?” Jeremy repeated to the group at large.

Ethan looked down the street, and his face paled once more, contrasting impressively with his lanky hair. “I don’t know about you, but we might want to do something about that,” he exclaimed, pointing. Jeremy followed his gaze, and to his horror, saw two more T-55 tanks headed their way, barrels already swiveling to meet them. Before anyone else could react, Celestia stepped forward.

“Allow me,” she proclaimed, and raised a single hand. And just like that, the tanks stopped.

Ethan looked at her in surprise. “What the hell did you just do?” he demanded.

Celestia smiled. “They’re finding it rather hard to breathe at the moment, inside those enclosed spaces,” she explained.

Sure enough, the tops of the tanks popped open, and four figures hurriedly scrambled out. Jeremy looked at them for a moment before turning to Celestia.

“Well, might as well go take care of them for good,” he asserted. Celestia frowned, but nodded.

A few bullets later, four fresh corpses were added to the blood-riddled section of Euclid Avenue.

“God, I am never going to be able to pass this street again on the way to the engineering quad,” Jeremy muttered, looking down once again at the horrific sight.

Celestia gave him a sympathetic frown, and he responded with a tired sigh – the truly sad part was, this was becoming his routine. Just then, Luna came wandering out of the building they had laid her down in, tired and irritable.

“Save it, sister, we have come to our own conclusions,” she admonished Celestia, who had been about to speak.

Taken aback for a moment, Celestia merely smiled and shook her head. “Good to see you up and about once more, Lulu.”

With that, the two hugged, and Jeremy looked around with some amusement to find that everyone else was staring with expressions ranging from laughter to utmost adoration on their faces.

They spent the next half hour searching around unsuccessfully for any more terrorists – if there were any left, they were making themselves scarce. Jeremy was about to call it a night when out of precisely nowhere, two sprinted right past them at a dead run. Jeremy was about to shoot them, but instead curiously decided to watch them go – for where would they be headed in such a hurry?

“Come on, let’s follow them!” he motioned to the rest of the group, who had also seen the runners, and after a moment’s hesitation they too began pursuing.

They followed the two through roads and alleys, across grass lawns and around concrete buildings, until they came to a thick wall of hedges. The two terrorists, after looking around to make sure they weren’t being followed, slipped inside. Celestia chuckled as she released her invisibility spell.

“Not too bright, are they?” she commented out loud.

“Well, we can’t all be the sun goddess,” Jeremy teased back. Celestia blushed and looked away, and Jeremy grinned in triumph – rare was the day he verbally bested one of his wives.

“So, what eldritch horrors lie in wait beyond the looming, vine-ensnared gates?” Ethan remarked, trying his best to sound dramatic and succeeding valiantly.

Jeremy chuckled. “Guess we’ll have to go find out.”

They entered the park to find no one in sight – no group of terrorists, no more tanks, no anything.

“Uh… do we have the right park?” Jeremy wondered out loud.

“Unless we have been surreptitiously teleported, one would think so,” Luna responded, looking around.

Celestia was on guard, suspiciously looking around at the trees as though she expected an ambush – which, after the events of this night, was not at all out of the question, Jeremy thought bemusedly. Just then, there was an earsplitting whine, and right in front of them two powerful foglights blinked into existence. They were facing what appeared to be a bomber plane, streamlined and metallic, and everyone quickly scrambled out of the way as it suddenly screamed forward, using the park lawn as a runway to take off into the night. Jeremy watched it go for a moment, stumped.

“Were they… pulling out?” he wondered.

“Methinks not,” Luna answered shakily – Jeremy looked over, concerned. Was she scared of the plane? Odd.

“Celestia, shield us!” Ethan cried out suddenly, and without a single hesitation, Celestia’s hands lit up and an orange-yellow magical shield flickered to life.

Jeremy had about a second to look up, and he wished he didn’t. The only thing he made out in that second was a small, metallic missile headed their way – a bomb, he deduced.

They’re bombing us now.

Wonderful.

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