We had only been walking for a couple minutes before AJ held up a hoof and we all stopped. AJ and Rarity went around a corner, and we waited for a few minutes until AJ called out.
“Nate? Need you to do the hands thing and unload this.”
We all moved forward as Nate looked over the back of the group with concern and then went into the room. I got the herd to gather tighter so I could more easily see all of them, since I was alone watching them. Me, alone, responsible for a big group of ponies.
Now is not the time for a heart attack, Erishy,
“So you’re the traitor!” a female voice snarled, making me flinch and almost cower before standing back up to listen to the rest of her tirade. “It’s just like I said. Just like I kept telling everybody: you can’t trust no goddamned pointy-headed Jews. So what part of the world did the ponies promise you, Jew-boy? Did you get your 30 pieces of silver for selling out the human race?!”
I could see her leaning towards him, into my view.
She looked like a rabid animal.
When I say that, many of you will assume that I mean she was frantic and angry, but most of you probably haven’t seen the effects of rabies. You should be thankful for that.
Rabies is the only disease that, when one of my animals was infected by it, was entirely fatal and immediately resulted in them being transferred out of my care to be cared for and then inevitably put down.
In particular, she looked like an animal under the excitative stage of rabies.
Rabies is designed to make the carrier as lethal as possible, you see, and the saliva is one of the primary infection vectors. When an animal, or indeed a pony or human, is infected they at first seem abnormally calm, tame. They stay up during the day even if they are nocturnal, and they stop talking. They then enter the excitative stage, where everything set them off, everything made them furious, blinding rage coursing through them with such energy that a dog would gladly try to fight a bear to the death.
That woman was practically snarling at Nate, just because he came into view. I could imagine her rough hair dripping in sweat, teeth bared and hands reaching out to claw, eyes wide but unseeing. I could imagine her beating someone to death just for being a race or type she didn’t like.
I shuddered.
“Have you even seen a Jew in your life, you microencephalitic moron?” Nate replied in a low growl. “My faith is none of your business, and I’m probably far more Aryan than you if descent mattered for anything, which it does not. But apparently having dark hair, an aversion to violence and an interest in knowledge its own sake is enough now to qualify me for the Synagogue.” He leaned forward. “And I’ll let you in on a secret: if the ponies did want to take over the world, with their numbers and powers, they would have done it already.”
But I was walking closer. The feral behavior, the anger… There was some history for that in me. I’d helped wolves, I’d helped monsters. Maybe… Maybe I could give her a way out, so that I could help her.
“Excuse me, miss,” I said, stepping forward with far more bravery than I felt. “Um, I just want to point out that we've never said we wanted to destroy anything. In fact, I haven’t heard of a pony attacking or hurting a human at all. Except… well, when captured or attacked first. But, you know, I think that’s reasonable. Don’t you?”
She was silent, but something in her eyes. She didn’t object. She didn’t scream.
See, one of the benefits of being weak is that rarely do wild animals think of you as a threat. Rarely do they feel cornered by a prey animal that cowers from loud noises. Rarely do they strike back when they don’t see a source of pain.
The silence stretched on, and she grit her teeth, but I truly wanted to give her this chance. I had to.
“We don’t mean any harm, we really don’t,” I said firmly as I looked up at her. “We just want to help out, then get on with our lives.” Erishy smiled. “Maybe you can help us? Come with us? Give up your hate?”
I knew that I’d made a mistake the moment that I said Hate. Animals don’t tense up when they decide to attack, sometimes. Instead, you see a sudden compliance. A moment of respite. All that moment is, is the animal making a decision. In that moment I saw her make a decision, and it was not to give up on anything.
“It’s not hate. It’s the truth,” She sneered as her face became a scowl of hatred. “Every human you damned ponies touch turns into a pony. They’re stripped of everything that make them human! Soon, there won’t be no humanity, just cutesy pastel freaks!”
She stood a little taller, defiant. “Just change me. Quit fucking around and make me disappear,” she said bitterly.
Even I had no words to that. It was such a deep fundemental misunderstanding of the situation, I couldn’t even begin to approach it.
“What… an impressive imagination,” Nate said, staring at her with something that looked suspiciously like pity. “It’s like she has absolutely no idea how reality actually works.”
I sighed, and shook my head before looking to AJ. “Let’s knock her out,” I proposed, giving up on the rabid animal for good. She was terminal, there was nothing I could do.
“No arguments here. Sleep tight, ya moron,” she said as she gestured to Nate, who raised the butt of the shotgun like a baseball bat, preparing to hit her over the head.
But the woman dodged, jumped, and tackled Nate. Fitting the rabid animal analogy quite well, she managed to bite Nate’s cheek before AJ slammed into her, forcing her off Nate and then slamming her forehead against the rabid woman’s head once, twice, three times.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been headbutted by an earth pony, but a single time is more than enough for most ponies to call it quits. A second time? Potential hospital visit.
I can glad not to see blood, but I did see Nate trying to pull a handkerchief from his pocket, hands shaking so badly he couldn’t even manage it. I went over to him and took it out of his pocket, pressing it gently against his cheek.
“Everyone okay?” AJ asked as she looked at the rest of us, her center of gravity lurching slightly as she stood and then centered herself.
I nodded quickly, before looking back to the doctor. He looked scared. Really, genuinely scared. I didn’t know what to say, but I felt like I had to say something. I smiled a little.
“Chicks dig scars, right?” I said weakly.
But I got a small chuckle out of him as he shook his head and adjusted his glasses.
“Not the first thing on my mind, dear Fluttershy,” he murmured.
“We’re okay, darling,” Rarity said in reply to AJ’s question. “How are you?”
“Fit as a fiddle,” AJ said as she stood tall and grinned. “I’ll have to thank Big Mac for showin’ me that trick. Never thought I’d have to use it so much. Alright! Somepony help me-”
“Applejack!”
Everyone turned to face a stallion at the far end of the herd. He was blue, but his face was pale, and eyes stricken. He looked terrified, and as we all went silent, we knew why. Angry shouts. Boots thudding against concrete, and the rattle of weapons clattering against walls and eachother.
“Run.”
We were all paralyzed for a moment, as AJ’s command rippled across us. Prey animals, frozen by fear, but AJ didn’t allow that. She took a deep breath and she demanded it.
“Run!”
A stampede broke out, and AJ immediately shouted “Shy, with them!” as I nodded and took flight, gliding over the group as I took them through hallway after hallway, before stopping in the first room, looking at Nate with the shotgun.
“Nate, they’ll think you’re a bad guy with a gun, one of the ponies needs to carry the shotgun, quick, anypony?!”
I looked around and a unicorn stallion stepped forward. He took it into his magic and I pointed at the safety.
“Leave that up, and it’s safe, put it down, and it can shoot. Keep the barrel up otherwise, okay?”
He nodded, and then the radio crackled to life.
“What is going on up there?!”
My heart could have beat right out of my chest, but I pitched my voice low, lower than it had ever gone without the aid of poison joke, and I barked back into the radio as though I had some authority.
“The ponies are headed for the basement, protect the records!”
Then I looked back at the hallway, just in time for gunfire to break out back from where we had come. I gestured rapidly and the group resumed moving just as Stephanie, AJ, and Rarity came running around the corner.
“Let’s go! I’m not leaving unless you’re all coming, as well!” I shouted before turning and resuming the chase after the herd.
“That’s the plan!” AJ replied with a reckless grin.
I took to the air, but I knew I was running on borrowed fumes, and my wings wouldn’t last long. I was gliding more than flying right now.
“They can’t be headed to the basement- we just saw a bunch head outside!” The radio called out, and I wanted to cheer as too many people started talking on the radio all at once.
“Guy on the door leading out,” AJ barked quickly. “Rares and…” he hesitated as he looked around and spotted the shotgun floating in midair. “Whoever has that shotgun, get ready to look like action ponies.”
The stallion nodded, looking like he was pretty sure he was in an action movie, as the group rolled forward at a trot. I was barely still airborne, but it was the only way I could keep an eye on everyone all at once.
We rounded another corner and a final guard stared in mute horror as a shotgun and a pistol were leveled at him. I was pleased to see the safety was still on the shotgun, as he had the pistol’s barrel tapped against his nose by a very angry looking Rarity.
“Don’t move, asshole,” she said in her posh accent, and I nearly fell out of the air right then.
Rarity had said asshole. Not in some other voice, either. Rarity had said the word “asshole” as though she was saying it to the queen of England. It was beautiful, and also sort of terrifying, because I had completely forgotten until that moment that my friends were merged.
Bad Erishy. Bad Erishy. Your friends also have head-humans and you haven’t even asked about them. To be fair, I’ve been fleeing an evil compound where I was locked up and tortured. So, maybe I’ll give myself a little break.
I landed as AJ (Applejack pending knowledge of a new name) instructed Stephanie, the friendly local CIA agent, to the front of the group.
She then ordered the guard guy on his knees, and I had a moment of panic as I wondered if she was going to kill him. Then she headbutted him, and he fell to the ground knocked out.
“I keep this up, I’m gonna grow a horn of my own,” she mumbled as I stared at the knocked out guard.
I kept thinking that she was going to accidentally kill someone, but maybe being pastel ponies allowed for cartoon style knock outs.
But finally, finally we were able to leave out the front door, heading out onto a wide grass lawn and following the herd towards the road. There was so much clamor all around us, so many ponies talking I could barely hear AJ saying “We’re clear. Let’s roll.”
Then there was a shout from behind us. A shout of pure rage and hate. A shout of someone that wanted to kill us.
“NO!”
As we turned around, my heart sank. A bunch of people with guns were charging around the side of the building, and leveling those weapons carefully at our little herd. The herd I was supposed to protect.
“Nobody’s going anywhere,” he said just loud enough for us to all hear.
I heard one of the ponies in the herd stard crying. Not wailing, but the soft gasping desperate sobs of someone who just couldn’t go on.
I turned, and watched AJ walk up in between the group of thugs and the herd. Rarity joined her.
I spread my wings and glided a few feet before landing, and feeling my hind legs almost give out. The pain hurt, but worse than that was the knowledge that we were about to die.
Support was too far away. I whimpered, but I stood, and I stood strong next to my friends. There’s nowhere I’d rather be. At least the herd would have a chance to run, when they started shooting.
“How’d you get out?” AJ asked, staring him down as though he’d just made a good play in chess, not recaptured an entire herd of ponies.
“Back door. This place is lousy with ‘em,” he replied.
AJ laughed tensely, smiling a little. “Wish I’d known that.”
“Put down the guns,” he said, his rifle gesturing between the pistol in Rarity’s magic, and the shotgun behind us.
After a breath, AJ turned her head and said “Do as he says,” without ever taking her eyes off him.
The guns both settled on the grass, and I almost wanted to laugh as I realized I still had a bullet tucked behind my ear. I flicked my ear, and felt it fall to the grass. Useless.
“Okay, good,” he said with a nod and the calm reassurance of a person in charge. “Now, everyone is going to march back inside, and we’re going to lock all the ponies up, and then deal with the agent and the doctor.”
We didn’t reply. I looked to AJ and I saw her set her hooves firm. She wasn’t moving, and I folded my wings tight before doing the same, staring at him in defiance.
We will give no quarter. We will not turn and flee. We will not surrender but a single soldier to the enemy, and we will not, I repeat we will not show fear. The enemy will have to provide the whole of it.
I didn’t know if it was a quote, or something I made up, but I let it become the steel in my spine, and I stood.
“I’m not going to say it again,” he said, the danger coming back into his voice.
We did not move.
Then someone in herd said “What’s that?”
“Does anypony else hear that?”
The man lifted the rifle to his shoulder, and he aimed it dead center at AJ, lining up his sights. AJ looked as firm as an old oak tree, and I only hoped I could look as brave once she’d been shot.
Then, the humming sound in the distance that I’d thought was a tarp billowing or something became a lot more recognizable.
It was a helicopter.
The sound jumped in volume as the craft cleared the treeline, and the man screamed as he raised his rifle up towards the helicopter. A voice boomed over the sound.
“Put down your weapons!”
Everyone looked towards the trees as a tough looking black man in a CIA vest entered the clearing, with Sweetie Belle on his shoulder, and AJ’s hat on Sweetie’s head.
Alongside him, a crowd of men in tactical vests reading FBI all appeared, with weapons drawn and aimed at the thugs, and for once we were on the side of the people with bigger guns.
The herd was going to be safe. I hadn’t failed them. The good guys had won, and everything. Everything was going to be okay.