//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: Iron Wings // by Select Few //------------------------------// Iron Wings: A War Story By Select Few Time: 9:53 PM, 04/12/4 PHA* Location: Manehattan, Fort Apus. It had been business as usual for the guards so far. Walked around a little, talked to the research mages stationed there, walked some more, ate, etc. For a fort, it was rather boring. No one ever tried to break in, because as far as the general public knew, there was nothing worth stealing inside. Some guards wondered why the fort was even needed. Equestria hadn’t been in any kind of conflict for centuries, save for random attacks on small towns by mythological creatures, of course. Even with that, Manehattan had never been the target of the beasts’ ire. That wouldn’t change tonight. For the general populace of Manehattan, nothing would be different from today, tomorrow. The guards at Fort Apus, however, were in for a wild night. For hovering over the fort, hidden from sight by a nexus of magic-infused gems, was a ship belonging to Leutnant Franz, an infiltrator sent to retrieve an item stolen from the Draco-Griffin Alliance by the inhabitants of the fort. At the moment, Franz was quietly traversing the roof of one of the fort’s many buildings. He didn’t know the layout of the fort, but that knowledge wasn’t necessary to find the item; a scrying spell placed on his target was leading him straight to it. In most cases, the items he was sent to retrieve would be placed in an area designed to block others from scrying them, but these ponies were either too cocky or too stupid to do so. Franz wished his superiors had told him what the stolen item was, but all they said was to follow the spell, that it would lead him to the item. Brigadegeneral Amsel was always vague, but this was less information than even he normally provided. With such secrecy involved, Franz assumed that whatever was stolen must have been something vitally important to the Alliance. However, the relatively low amount of guards at the fort made him question that assumption. “Perhaps they don’t realize the importance of whatever they took,” Franz thought as he silently flew from one rooftop to another, “though that begs the question of why they took it in the first place.” Franz continued on quietly for a few minutes, only needing to hide from guards a couple of times. As he landed on top of what he assumed was a warehouse of some sort, the spell told him that his target was on the inside. Slipping on a pair of goggles enchanted to allow the viewer to see the heat given off by most living creatures, he crawled along the rooftop until he was right over the stolen item. He couldn’t see what it was through the roof, but he counted six ponies in the room with it: One beside the item, two talking over near a wall, and the remaining three walking around. He could tell that the three walking were wearing traditional pony armor, so he assumed that they were guards. “The other three must be scientists of some sort.” Franz thought. He reached into one of the many pockets on his vest and pulled out a spray of some sort. He sprayed it in a circle above and a little left of his target, and then put an ‘X’ in the middle of the circle. He put the spray back into the pocket and got a lighter out of another pocket. “Now for the fun part.” He threw the lighter onto the area where he sprayed and flew a little ways away from it. As soon as the flame from the lighter came into contact with the spray, it exploded in a violent display of science. When the smoke cleared, it would reveal a jagged hole about twice the size of the area sprayed. Franz didn’t wait for it to clear, however. As soon as it blew, he flew through the hole and rammed one of the stunned guards into a wall, knocking him out. He flew unto another guard and, throwing his helmet off, slammed the dazed unicorn into the floor. The other guard, an earth pony, had recovered by this point and was charging the griffin with the intention of tackling him to the ground. As he approached Franz, however, the griffin flew into the air and back down on top of the guard. As he got up, he picked up the guard and flew him into the ceiling. He dropped the guard back down onto the floor, content that he would not be getting back up for a while. The scientists had fled the room as soon as Franz had blown a hole in the ceiling, presumably to gather more guards. With no one else to incapacitate, Franz approached his target. It was in a crate with the top covered by a grey cloth, so Franz couldn’t see what it was quite yet. He approached the crate, intending to remove the cloth and see what the fuss was about. He went up to the crate, grabbed the cloth and- And was tackled by the earth pony guard from earlier. “It’ll take a lot more than that to be rid of me!” The guard said, pinning Franz to the floor. Franz flapped his wings and rolled over, pinning the guard to the floor instead. “Du willst mehr? Du hast es.”** Franz reached into a pocket on his vest and pulled out a set of talon guards, the edges sparking with electricity. As the earth pony tried to rush the griffin, Franz aimed a punch directly at the pony’s eye. As the punch connected, the guard was thrown back and stunned a little by both the power and shock of the impact. Franz took this opportunity to tackle the guard and throw more punches into his face and stomach. The guard tried to throw Franz off, but the weight of the griffin was far more than that of the pony and he remained pinned. Eventually, the guard passed out from the brutal assault. Franz hit him one more time, to ensure that he stayed down for good this time. Slipping the talon guards back into his pocket, Franz went back over to the crate containing the item he was sent to retrieve. Glancing over his soldier to make sure that, yes, the guard was still down, he grabbed the cloth and pulled it off. What Franz saw caused him to take a step back. No wonder his superiors had kept what was stolen a secret. Had word of this gotten out, there would be no stopping a war between the Alliance and Equestria, though Franz believed that a war was inevitable now anyway. For the Equestrians had stolen something far too valuable and far too precious to simply forgive the theft. No, in Franz’s mind, this crossed the line, spat on it, and sped off into the sunset. For inside the crate, nestled in straw and wired up to who-knows-what, was a dragon egg. And it was hatching.