Beating their wings quickly, both pegasi took off. Armor and I stepped through the illusion and back onto the road and galloped after them.

“So, how do we explain to one party that they shouldn’t fire on us?” Armor asked, as though I had a password or something.

“I think the easiest thing to do to show that we’re on their side is to save their asses.” We reached the corpse and continued to run down the sidewalk. Now that there were no bullets flying around my head, I noticed a few things. Aside from the usual things to be found in such a place, like benches, trash cans, billboards, and shops, there were no signs of any victims. So either the Americans or the gang were responsible for making the stack of corpses in that alley. It did not serve as a deterrent or mass grave, but had probably been done to make other areas more habitable. As I had mentioned, the theory that the younger ones had a camp here made sense. That meant they would probably not lead us to their hideout, as nobody wanted to carry the enemy home.

“I can hear the guns again,” Armor said, his ears swivelling. I could do it to a certain degree, but he had almost perfected it. “They’re more on that side.” He gestured with his head to what I guessed was in a northern direction. We continued to gallop down the streets and eventually came to the fight scene. A big shopping centre lay in the centre of a wide square, and we witnessed how windows were shot out and several forms disappeared. Shots rattled out from the building we were now approaching. It was practically just steel beams with a glass outer wall that had been shot out, probably just before we had arrived. Getting closer revealed the names of the various shops in the shopping centre, mostly clothing stores and jewellery shops.

“They are in there? How do we proceed?” We stopped at the entrance at looked to the side. We could either go through one of the smashed windows to go to the ground floor, or simply use the main entrance.

“The main entrance, I suppose.” The captain created his signature shield. “Can you make it alone through that window over there?” He pointed to a broken shop window that our suspected enemies had just climbed through. “Try to follow them from behind.” I only nodded. “If it doesn’t work, try to avoid killing anyone. We don’t need them coming after us to get revenge.” We parted here, and I ran a few meters through the busted glass to my destination. A mannequin in a summer dress showed how long it had been since this place had seen a semblance of normalcy. The other mannequins were unclothed or missing altogether, as four in such a broad showcase were too few.

I first crouched down and then sprang up to jump and avoid the broken glass. Hooves were hard, no doubt, but the soft flesh in the centre was still sensitive. I had poked AJ there with my horn for fun, which she hadn’t found funny at all. She had borrowed a quill from Apple Bloom and made me realize why. Normally I wouldn’t have waited until she came at me with it, but the lasso around my legs had prevented my escape. My brain had since internalized that it was unhealthy to walk under glass and other sharp objects.

Ponies, or horses in general, were naturally good jumpers, and so I could avoid making a bloody path through the shards. I felt like Bruce Willis in Die Hard. I could use the motivation – after all, life and death were at stake here – but it felt inappropriate. To my pleasure, I ended up in the women’s underwear section. Not that I had any untoward interest in them, unless they were on the appropriate body of course, but now there were few enough remaining. Most of the clothing in the sections had been looted, which allowed me to spot several of our opponents. Two young men stood with weapons in the hands at the exit of the store and looked down the corridors. They did not seem to have noticed my elegant landing through the windows, of which the carpet had a role to play. Often it had served as a place to rest, because when one went shopping with the now ex-girlfriend, it served as a pleasant substitute for the cold floor. It also dampened my steps.

As I walked by the shelves of panties and risked a look, inevitably thinking about AJ, I was already thinking of the best spell to disarm and incapacitate my enemies. Only as I was close enough that an outstretched hoof could hit their shoulder, I realized what was going on. Shots rang through the corridor and suppressed any other noise with their loud echoes. The two in front of me shouted to each other as they returned fire, though it did not seem they knew where to fire, shooting opposite them where they guessed the soldiers to be. Height was always an advantage. Satisfied with this new knowledge, I looked back to the two who still hadn’t noticed me, and I got an idea. They were only human. None of them would be able to counter any magic I used on them. With the urge to slap myself rising, my horn lit up broke their grip on their weapons. The guns flew through the air and out the window I had come in through the next moment. Perplexed, the two turned around to look into my smirking face.

I had several reactions in mind. Perhaps they would scream like a little girl and run away, or pepper me with questions. What I did not expect was one to start to stammer at the sight of me and the other to throw his arms around me. Not maliciously or any other intentions I blocked from my mind. No, he simply hugged me.

“I don’t believe it! Are you a pony? Can you speak?” I heard from my new friend as he released me so that I could be back on all fours.

“Umm… yes?” The fight in the background had been shoved to the back of the minds for these two.

“Oh my God, are you from Equestria? What are you doing here?” I blinked, trying to compensate for the fact that I had just picked up two bronies.

“Actually… I wanted to knock you out and disarm you… and do the same with the entire gang… if you didn’t mind.” I was completely overwhelmed, so my mouth did the talking for me. Some of the joy left their faces, but they made no attempt to defend themselves.

“What? Why? What have we ever done to you?” the other asked, now finished with his imitation of a goldfish.

“A couple of your buddies wanted to grill us when we tried to talk to them, and then shot at us.” They exchanged a few glances, rose, and looked down at me.

“Umm… sorry about that?” They plastered on some forced smiles. “We’ll just wait outside then, okay?” I said nothing and nodded my head in the direction of the shop window. My eyes followed them as they stepped over the glass and finally climbed out. Once there, they went into a crouch and stared directly into the store at me. This entire thing did not make any sense. These two were around twenty and acted as a six year old might when he got an order from his father. I could tell them to chew on glass for a while since it would be good for their teeth, and they might actually do it. I was glad I had been able to keep my composure when I had first met Twilight. If I had confronted her like that, I would have rotted in my apartment and could only dream of visiting Equestria. Dealing with fans was nothing new to me, as my career on YouTube had gained me some fame, but most had been respectful and kept their distance. At least those I had met at GameCon.

A noise pulled me from my thoughts, and I did like the two young people and looked inside the building and down the hall. It seemed a member of the gang had fallen to the first floor and into a flowerpot, or what was left of it in any case. Every few meters was such a stone circle built, like a well, only that it wasn’t open but filled with soil. Around it were benches to sit on. Now he lay there, legs and arms hanging over the border, not stirring. Even if they were hostile to us, I did not want anyone dead, as our intention was to save as many as possible.

I looked up and saw more people from his gang. They had their weapons drawn and seemed to be shooting at someone, though I could not spot who. As soon as I saw the path was safe, I stepped out of the store and went in search of an escalator or flight of stairs. The fight had gone upstairs, and there wasn’t much to do here due to lack of vision. Even though the floor was now marble, I still did not hear my hoof steps. The gunfire covered everything. I went past a few boutiques and the odd café until I finally left the broad hallway and went into a circular room that seemed to connect with other hallways. In the midst of these were escalators that ran both upstairs and downstairs. The lack of electricity meant that they were out of order.

“Fire in the hole!” a voice screamed, and my head snapped around to try and find the source. Although I could not see anyone above the stairs, a small object sailed through the air. However, it faltered before it could reach its target on the opposite side of the escalator and was pulled down by gravity… towards me.

“Dammit,” I muttered even as I jumped from the first step of the escalator, my wings springing out from me. Unfortunately, there was not a lot of room in front of me, and so I crashed through one of the broken shop windows and landed on a clothing rack. There wasn’t any time to recover as I made it behind the cashier’s counter just in time before the grenade exploded. The explosion was smaller than I imagined, only the volume that pounded my eardrums and the splinters from the glass in the escalator being a problem. These flew like bullets and landed on the wall behind me. Some got into my coat as well as my mane. For a few seconds, I heard nothing before it was replaced by dull sounds and a buzzing. I shook my head a few times frantically and hit my ears a few times with a hoof. It would have been better if I had not been in the direction they had thrown the grenade. They had done it rather automatically, almost like an instinct.

"Ever heard of friendly fire?!" I exclaimed on the assumption that the grenade had belonged to one of the soldiers. Why should the gang stop when reinforcements could arrive? I put my front hooves on the counter and looked over to examine the damage. The lowest steps of the escalator were virtually non-existent, the glass missing and spread around, and the railing, in which this had been incorporated, was strongly bent. The buzzing in my ears was slowly replaced with the sound of gunfire once again. How many were there?

I came out of my cover and quickly went up the remainder of the stairs, hoping to avoid a second such incident. The paths at the top were divided in two to be able to see the bottom floor. Now I had the choice of four ways to proceed. There were two to the right and two to the left. An old rule of mine made the decision to go right. Most of the people in the world were right-handed and tended to subconsciously go for that as a choice. Again, I went past some shops, all that had seen better times. Clothes shops, stores with the kind of stuff only women would find great, and so on. From one of the shops, a body poked out, and I stopped for a moment to check it. I tried to move it with my magic until I noticed that I was still as a pegasus. On the second try, I succeeded, but I found help for him had come too late. The boy, no older than fifteen, had multiple gunshot wounds in the chest and his eyes looked lifelessly to me. I closed it and moved on, as it was not the moment to get caught up in regret. A whizzing sound told me that I had come closer and finally saw the conflict down the hall.

On the side where I was standing, there were some teens at the railing and more in the shops behind it. The view straight down was clear, and I saw the other party in this conflict, three of the soldiers. Among them was the red-haired giant who had tried to help. I went by two or three stores the teenagers were in and prepared to teleport in front again. If I could surprise them, it was more than likely there could be no more losses. In the store itself, there was nothing left. I could not even say what had been sold here. I stood against the wall in the direction of the nearest shop and prepared to teleport. Finding the magic waves and protecting myself with a shield, my body again compressed to the size of a pea and appeared on the other side, accompanied by a small bang. For a few ominous seconds there was silence, but then it was followed by the next shot. I wondered briefly if they could hear me, but that did not really matter as they could not expect an attack by the wall.

The business which I was now in was a watch shop. Everywhere there were still some and even in the showcases were what remained, but all were non-functional as they either had no battery or had to be keyed. As I walked past them to teleport me to the nearest store, my eyes fell on a special piece, a Swiss. Steel case and bracelet, dial in a brilliant shade of blue. I eyed the watch for a second time just before it disappeared into my bag. Now that the distraction was gone, I positioned myself again and focused on the runes. Find magic waves, mix them with my own, and I was flying at an insane speed against the wall, which gave way. The first impact against the wall itself was not so bad; the second was much more so. I flew with a piece of wall below me in the store where the young people were holed up and slammed against the back wall of the room. The shock went through me, and without the ability to touch anything, I fell to the ground. "Damn ..." I groaned when I realized that I had forgotten to build a shield and to shrink myself to pea size. Or whatever it was. I had literally gone with the flow without any protection. I had been quick, but the wall was solid.

"What the hell?" I lay on my chest on the ground, front legs buried under my body. My head looked up where I was greeted by the sight of three youths who now held their guns in my direction. So much for stealth. Karma was a bitch, and I probably had about three seconds before they would find me. Without time to think things through, I repeated the spell and was again catapulted forward at a speed that would make Rainbow envious. This time I did not hit the wall but the chest of the enemy in front of me, and I felt like his ribs moving to yield to the force. The force hurled him forward and slammed his back against the iron railing in the hallway. His other colleagues were a surprise to me; the other seemed a bit behind. Unfortunately, however, I also attracted the attention of the other three that had been in the earlier store. Now it was five opponents that waited to pounce on me.

"Kill it!" cried a familiar voice that belonged to the wounded man from outside. One of the three from earlier now pointed his gun in my direction. Again I turned to magic, but this time I shot right to the hole from which I had come and managed to evade the first shots. Not to bang against the wall again, I applied the magic again, but a little weaker, and use it in order to brake. Unfortunately, it did not completely work, but I made it and used my hooves to cushion my fall. Like a swimmer would do, I pushed off the wall with all fours again and this time used the magic against the second of my enemies. I used what had once been a shoulder and rammed it against his head. The impact was almost as hard for me as it was for my opponent, though he obviously got the worse of it. Like a bowling pin, he instantly fell to the ground on the hard floor of the shop. It had once been a perfumery, at least going by the bottles that lay on the shelves.

I slid a little about the PVC with which everything was covered here. I finally came to a stop and saw that I had also knocked out this opponent successfully. The impact of my shoulder and the ground would certainly give him a concussion. My next problem was the other gang members and how I could take them out without hurting them. Shining Armor had taught me how to dodge magical bullets, how to free my sword from an enemy’s telekinesis, and such similar things. Unfortunately, he did not show me how to knock people out with magic. And then it dawned upon me that if magic was too strong, why not? My wings spread out to their full span, and I was in the air in an instant and hurtled towards my last opponent. He had now realized that his second friend was not standing on his legs anymore, and my forehooves drilled into his stomach. I hoped at least that I had hit his stomach and not his spleen or kidney. The liver I could live with, because a certain online game had taught me that a hit into the kidneys had serious man-stopping power. It didn't really matter if I hit liver or kidney, as the hit was enough and he went to the floor. Bullets flew around my ears before I had hardly come to a standstill near my opponent, and two penetrated my outstretched wings.

“Ahh! Shit!” It felt as though someone had burned holes into them. It was clear that these wings had too many nerves, and I exchanged them urgently. I was faster as an earth pony and still stronger than any human. Some bullets struck the spot where I had been a few seconds ago, and I dove behind a few of the shelves in the back area.

“What is that thing?” one of my opponents muttered. Apparently my old friend was among them.

“Don’t ask! Just shoot it!” The MP5 was made shorter of a few bullets that pierced through the metal plate above my head. Hollywood exaggerated the shell life of such objects, and I quickly started to move in order to avoid being struck. As fast as I could, I ran in a zigzag position back and forth between two columns, trying to make good distance since I had to rely on melee without wings or horn. When I heard the click of the fully automatic weapon, I risked a glance in their direction and saw an opening. Apparently it had jammed due to a lack of cleaning, knowledge that these kids lacked. I braked and used what I had learned from the apple harvests, only the other way around. I went into a squat as far as my hind legs could take me and jerked forward like a spring. With three or four steps that were almost like jumps, I stood before my old friend and saw the fear in his eyes before my forelegs slowed me down and put the momentum into the turn before I outstretched my hind legs. I felt my hooves make contact with his chest, causing him to fly back and hit a shelf and even sent him over the railing. The next thing I heard was a dull thud as he struck the marble tiles of the ground floor. I looked at him for a few seconds before I realized how quiet it had gotten. No one was firing any more, and the two youths looked at me in horror.

“Anyone else?” I was quite out of breath but could not let it show. I had to keep up the bluff and make them piss themselves in fear, at much that was possible from a small pony. That apparently worked as they ran to the hole that I had come through in a bid to escape. Since they had no weapons, I let them disappear and looked to the other side where the soldiers presumably were. They were entrenched behind a desk in a bakery. I thought of how I could talk to them without them replying with a hail of bullets.

“Flash,” I called out to them without showing myself. For a few seconds, there was no reply.

“Thunder!” exclaimed a voice on the other side, and I knew that my idea had taken root. It had worked before the Second World War, so why not now.

"Welcome!" That was the third part of the slogan, as not everyone knew it from film and television. "Die Bande hier ist ausgeschaltet oder geflohen. The air is pure,” I added.

"Okay, I’m coming out." I heard movement and saw by a crack in the shelves several men coming out behind the bar.

“I’m also coming out. Don’t shoot!” I put emphasis on my last sentence, understandable after the events of today. There was no answer, so I took it as a yes as I spread my wings down to go past the burning holes and the shop below. I could see them on the other side, though it seemed it was less so for them. The railing had many thin bars blocking the view, so I had no choice but to fly over. I saw five weapons pointed at me when I was just above the gap, and they followed me as I landed. To my surprise, they seemed less shocked than they should have been.

“Blue Light?” one of them asked, and this time I was the one who had received the first contact. “Hey, White Horse, we have one of your friends here!” one of them in the middle cried. The glass – no, it wasn’t glass but a barrier – broke now so that the counter was once again without protection. Shining Armor came from behind it.

“Great that you’ve made it.” Of course he had been here before me. The weapons were lowered, and five men dropped exhaustedly to the ground.

“So, this time in peace. My name is James Tuna; friends and comrades call me Fish. What can the rest of the Third Delta do for you?”

Author's Notes:

Translated and edited by JBL