//------------------------------// // A Situation Misunderstood // Story: The Conversion Bureau: Jaguars // by Guardian //------------------------------// Hovering inches above me was Derpy Hooves. Poor girl, one can easily tell that despite her happy-go-lucky persona, she's been through alot. There were bruises and scars all over her body, including a particularly nasty gash dangerously close to her eye. All wounds received from battling her own fellow ponies. It was sad, really. She was shunned and distrusted in Equestria simply because she liked humans and didn't agree with what her fellow ponies were doing. "Derpy? Is that you?" I asked. Her adorable golden eyes suddenly widened as they darted towards me. "How do you know me?! Who are you?" she shot back at me. Oh, did I meantion that Derpy has a terrible problem for forgetting stuff? Believe me, I know. Sometimes her antics prompt me to sarcstially question whether or not she is the same pegasus who saved my life in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, her outburst reaped a consequence. *BANG!* "AAAAAUUUGGHHH!!!!" Everyone, myself included, nearly jumped out of our own skin. Their was an abrupt gunshot that I promise went off right next to me, and the next thing I see, Derpy collapses to the ground, clutching a bloodied wing while bawling like a girl who just broke her leg. I'm serious, she was just squirming in the ground, crying loudly in complete agony. My Dad was the first to snap out of his shock as he rushed right next to Derpy and frantically attempted to calm her. He kept shouting at her to indicate where she was hit, although her incessant crying garbled anything she said. As most everyone around me moved in to help Dad, I snapped my head to the side where the shot was fired. My friend, Tim "Snap Shot" Luther, was simply standing there. I noticed his hands were violently twitching, shaking his AK-47. Although his eye slit was small, I could still see them. What I saw, a look of fear. I dropped my own AK, allowing it to dangle by its sling as I lunged forward, grabbed Snap Shot by his collar, and pulled him in my face, all while yelling. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!??? YOU COULD HAVE KILLED HER!!!" "I-I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" he stammered. "She just-she just scared me- "SHUT UP!!! You better get yourself together, NOW!" With that, I shoved him back from me in anger. I honestly shouldn't have been too harsh on him. Snap Shot is a good fighter, but he sometimes has a habit of letting his fear get the better of him. Over the past few weeks, my friends and I had gone from being your average teenage boys to brutal guerilla fighters. Snap Shot, however, was still recovering from the shell shock he received in Los Angeles. Add that to the fact that he was naturally a jittery kid, and his reaction to Derpy's outburst was very plausible. Who am I kidding, we're all still suffering from shell shock. Seeing your hometown, in which you have lived your entire life, completely ransacked and seeing your own fellow humans spasming on the ground in utter pain after they've been zapped by pony stunners (and some don't even survive!) We all lost something, yet, simultaneously, but we wouldn't quit. My friends and I fought back, armed with little more than .22 caliber guns and knives, and after Dad brought The Jaguars together, we continued to fight. I'm getting way off course. Back to the topic at hand, Derpy was mortally injured and crying. I walked up to the group surrounding here, trying to actually get a look at her wound. Specialist Will "Patch" Armstrong, our top medic, rushed in. I popped my head over my Dad's shoulder as he spoke to Derpy. I cringed as I got a good look at her wound. Well, I couldn't exactly see it. There was so much blood gushing all over her wing and upper back, I couldn't tell where she was hit. "Derpy! Calm down! Where are you hit?" my Dad exclaimed. The only response he received was garbled by Derpy's sobs. "What?!" Again... "Derpy, listen! Unless you tell me where your hit, you're going to bleed to death!" And Again... Dad grunted in frustration. "Patch! Where's she hit?" he shouted to Patch. "I think it's at the base of her wing!" Suddenly, a blast of frost went out several feet away. "LOOKOUT!!!" yelled Freddy "Hawkeye" Otunga. "GET AWAY FROM HER!!!!" another voice rang out. I jerked my head up to see none other than the dragon himself... lunging forward and bringing down a solid blade of ice. "SCATTER!!!!" Dad yelled as he pulled Derpy into his arms and jumped back. *BANG! BANG! BANG!* "AUGH!" Icepick clutched his arm in pain from the rounds that penetrated his scales. "CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE! Dad thunderously adjured. "Jaguar 6, what's going on down there?!" I heard the voice of '7' over my radio. "Hold your position, Jaguar 7!" "Icepick! Break the blades!" I yelled at the dragon. "WHO ARE YOU!!?" he snapped. "Icepick, it's me, you idiot!" I pulled my mask off for emphasis. The dragon suddenly stopped in his tracks, his eyes wide. "Oh... " he sheepeshly said as he thawed the ice blades around his arms. "Sorry, Bryan, I... I heard Derpy scream. I guess I just freaked out." "That's fine, Icepick, just... be careful." Icepick was no normal dragon, this guy could literally manipulate ice, shape it into anything he wants, even forming blades around his arms (they didn't call him 'Icepick' for nothing). Not to mention his signature 'frost jump' teleporting long distances using his ice magic. I turned my head to my friends standing behind me, all in combat stances with rifles leveled to their heads, gazing down the sights at Icepick. "Put the guns down dudes, this guy's on our side," I assured them. "That goes for the rest of you, safeties on!" Dad said to the rest of the group before laying Derpy down. I checked the rest of the group while Dad and Patch tended to the grey pegasus. The rest of our cohort was obviously relectant to obey, I could see their fear and uncertainty in their eyes. How? Trust me, when you and your friends spend a lot of time wearing masks that cover up like nintey-seven percent of your faces, you learn to read emotions just by looking into the eyes. I couldn't blame them for being uneasy. When I first meet Icepick, I was... intimidated to say the least. "What's going on here?" My train of thought was abruptly cut off by a flash of light and the voice of a fimiliar mare. I turned to see a lavender unicorn mare, acompanied by some friends. The unicorn was obviously a veteran. She wore a black spandex suit that was riddled with cuts and gashes. Around her head was a band that covered a hole in her skin. Her mane was singed from repeated pyro exposure and she wore an eyepatch over a laser scorched eye. I was knew all this well, as my Dad and I had meet her before, although my friends were highly suspicious of what we told them. However, just as I was about to greet her, Murphy's law decided to pounce once more at the exact moment in which I dreaded the most. "Hold it, that's Twilight Sparkle!" Not again.