"Sounds like a good plan..." Roulette had followed Guardian, and was blushing. It was very obvious she was being obsessive. He was the first real pony she met that wasn't family. And he was of the race she was used to above all others. "Can I just hang with you... and Nightshade..." She was acting like a stupid teenager. Ah the joys of being raised in a castle with golems for companionship.
'"Hey archy can i fly the ship, I dont have any training but im sure ill be able to learn along the way" Vibrato asked excitedly
"No need. The ship has an auto pilot, and we'll see if you really do have the skill needed." Archangel responded, taking his seat besides the front window.
Bright Darkness took a deep breath and went inside. Instantly starting to slighty shake, he took a seat the nearest possible to the exit, next to a window, leaning on the other seat to make sure no one would sit next to him. He hoped the flight wouldn't take long, already feeling the lack of solid ground under him, is shadow multiplied by the omniscient source of light. He almost fell sick.
"I see no problem with that, Miss Roulette. It will be nice having somepony to talk to." He chuckled. "Timber-Wolves are many things, but 'conversationalist' is not one of them." Nightshade barked indignantly. "Sorry, old girl, but you're not."
Once everypony was on the ship, it launched from the shuttle and headed southwest. The ship zoomed across Equestria at extrodinary speeds, taking them from the J.S.E's headquarters to the incident of the mysterious town. Joker and Archangel were right, the town was definitely attacked. With the exception of five heavily damaged houses and a portion of a small building which acted as the mayor's office, the entire town was razed to the ground through what appeared to be the means of fire due to the huge amounts of ash. Ash covered the ground among the towns long straight path which acted as the main street. The sky around the area was a deep grey overcast, and added to the dark atmosphere of the town. Archangel stepped down from the shuttle first, since he was closest to the door. He jumped from the shuttle as he looked around the lifeless town. "By Celestia, it's like a massacre took place here." Crimson took a few steps towards the center of the town. No traps were layed nor anything defensive, it seemed the attacker wanted to create a distraction and a eyesore to Equestria, giving him time to flee before heading towards his objective. The moment Crimson heard a muffled sound around the corner, he ran to find to source of the noise and seen something he knew he would regret. Bodies, dozens of them spread around. He was used to seeing deceased bodies since he was Celestia's former agent. However, something caught his eye that was far worse. Babies and children were included on this slaughter, horrifically murdered in cold blood. He guessed that more casualties would be inside the remaining buildings. But a small mare, possibly no older then eight was found injured on a wall holding onto her broken foreleg with tears streaming down her face. He bent down and gave the mare a hug carefully, where the mare broke down into tears. Crimson held her tightly, quietly telling the mare that everything will be ok. The mare then responded by giving Crimson the tightest hug she could do without hurting herself, Archangel embraced the small mare as he looked around at the destroyed town. Crimson then placed his hoof on a device on his ear which acted as a radio to Joker. "Joker. I've discovered a young mare inside of the town, possibly the only survivor of this attack. The place is a graveyard. I'll send her to the local police department for safety until she finds a home, she's not safe here. Attacker is long gone, over." Archangel reported. Moments later, Joker responded. "I have visual's on the town. You're not kidding Arch, the place has almost been wiped from the map." Joker replied. "Police has been alerted with military ready on standby. Currently no evidence has been made on this Alicorn, records about him seem to be almost non existent. Joker over and out." Crimson then looked at the girl as his hoof came down from his ear and crouched down to be on the level of the girl. She was injured, but her injuries were surprisingly not life threatening given the apocalyptic scenery of the attack. She could not talk however, suffering from shock. Archangel then waved over to several members of the team while the remainder try and find evidence. Seeing the girls injuries, he immediately began to get to work to at least stop the blood until he could take her back to the shuttle.
As soon as he could, Shift stormed out of the ship, and gave a loud sigh of releif when his four hooveshad contact with the ash-filled grown. Looking around, he waited for Infrasound to get out of the ship, and poked him to get his attention. ''Hey, i'll make a safe perimeter and try to evaluate the number of victims. I could use your help to blow the ashes away, along with that mare that has a music-related ability too. You two wants to follow me?''
Guardian, being not particularly fond of technology, chose to fly alongside the shuttle, while Nightshade rode within. As soon as the team landed in the destroyed town, Guardian and Nightshade began searching for survivors. In the smoldering remains of the Town Hall, they found a small trapdoor covered with debris. After clearing it, they found that it led to a smoke-filled basement. The bodies of dozens of ponies lay on the floor. Clearly, this was the towns disaster shelter. These unfortunate ponies had fled the attack, only to be killed by the smoke. Guardian could tell by the damage to the trapdoor that they had tried desperately to get out, but had been unable to dislodge the fallen debris. As Guardian was leaving the shelter, he heard a cough. Then he heard another. He got on his radio. "Crim... sorry... Archangel! I have at least two survivors in the Town Hall, but they need medical attention! Everypony else, check in basements. There may be more survivors."
Roulette walked around, using the water around her to put out fires that were still burning. "This is sheer chaos. Terrible destruction. Horrible, horrible." She talked to herself, distracted from the actual work. She threw water on one fire, and suddenly heard somepony crying loudly in pain. She turned to the location and saw a brutally injured mare with smoke coming from her leg. Roulette rushed over, covering the burned leg with a layer of lukewarm water. The mare was drenched, meaning she may have been unconscious. Roulette reported an immobile survivor over the radio and sat down next to the once again unconscious mare.
InfraSound muttered to himself as he blew away the ashes and debris from the town with his Sonic Boom, "Why did I sign up for this? I've never seen ponies die! I'm not ready for this kind of stuff! I wanna go back home, to Canterlot, where the most dangerous thing is a petty thug and an upper class stallion telling me what a ruffian I am!" He then looked back to the young mare that Archangel had rescued. He stared into her eyes, and after seeing the hurt, sadness, and fear in her, he strengthened his resolve. "No," he said, "Equestria needs me to stick with the Justice Society, at least until we take this alicorn out.
Bright walked towards Infrasound. ''Hey, you're alright? You look like you could use a shoulder.'' He cracked his neck. ''Poor mare. It must be hard to have seen her whole village die without beeing able to do anything.''
"Yeah," InfraSound replied, "I'll be okay. I'm just getting used to.. this." He waves a hoof across the razed town. "Back in Canterlot. Nothing was this bad. Even the changeling invasion was nothing compared to this. Sure, everypony was panicking, but nopony actually died during the attack. I just need to get used to this is all. Besides, I'm in no place to complain about the horrors here, compared to that mare. I can only imagine the kinds of trauma she'l have to deal with."
Bright shivered, then muttered half to himself, ''And to think that's how he wanted a better future...'' He drawn backhis attention on the matter at hoof. ''Listen, i have an idea. Can you blow the ashes with some sound waves, so we can see clearly? Just try not to send it too high, or it'll reduce our visionn field. We'll try to find traces of could've happened.''
"Uhh... I'm not sure. Usually I just point it at some baddie, turn it on and they get thrown back. It's never been a precision weapon, but if I turn down the power, I might be able to just blow it out of town." He adjusts a small dial on the side of the Sonic Boom, then slapped a hoof on the other side. A low hum came out of the device as it shot a diminished version of the regular blast diectly in front of him. It still could pack a punch in its current state, but he was able to shove the ash out of town without it flying everywhere. As the other heroes kept looking for survivors, he cleared the town, making it safe to breathe.
Bright smiled sadly at InfraSound. ''Thanks Infra, i'll search the remaining pieces and ruins of buildings. If you want to lend me a hand, i'd like to know the members of the crew a little more, starting by you.'' Bright shifted with his shadow again, the dark shape stretching itself. A low pitched voice exited what could be named his mouth, ''Alright, it's been a while i haven't used this shape that much. Gotta get used to it again...''
"Wait for me guys" Vibrato yelled. "Whoa this is just insane, We gotta find this guy ima give em the old 1 2 for what hes done to this poor mares village.....Also this may be a bad time but i'm hungry, Can we get some grub when we're done here"
Crimson carried the little mare into the shuttle and placed her onto the medical bench where he began to heal her injuries. Despite being a highly trained killer and hero on Equestria's cities, he was also an extremely experienced medic with skills easily allowing to heal the girls injuries. Even through the girl had undertaken some serious injuries on her foreleg, Crimson only had to apply some healing potions until the girl's arm was fixed as he put it into a sling. The girl, who has now calmed down was begining to get some sentences out. Archangel, then requested that the police force to put this place on lock-down while the JSE continues their efforts on this mysterious Alicorn. Warning to girl to get herself warm, he told her to stay inside of the shuttle until the police came alongside an ambulance. Archangel then took Guardian's two survivors as he carried them over his back as he sat them down on two chairs and applied a oxygen mask to remove smoke inhalation from the fires that happened. While he had to maintain the injured that came to the shuttle, he could not leave them unattended. Once more survivors were found, if there were any more, he'll watch over them.
InfraSound finished cleaning up the ashes, then caught back up to Shift, helping him search for ponies. "So you wanted to get to know me? What do you want to know?" He asked Shift.
He shyly digged at the groud with his left rear hoof. ''Well, i don't know. It's been so long since i had any friends... And, you seem like a good pony to me. The kind of pony i'd stick with.''
Walking around she saw another survivor curled against the wall, "Hey guys i found another one, He doesn't look to good either, Actually considering the circumstances he's pretty well off but that's not the point." The young colt looked at her angrily but was in to much pain to keep it up, "Hey Archy help me carry him back to the ship would ya."
