//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Disciplinary Action // Story: An Incident on Sentry Duty // by Jordan179 //------------------------------// They stared at each other for a long moment; Leona obviously unable or unwilling to explain her motives in. attempting to break into the magazine; Guidestar duty-bound to discover her motives. "It's a hazing prank," Guidestar said at last. "They told you to break in and bring back proof you'd been in there, I wager. Am I right?" Leona clamped her mouth tight shut, a certain mute look of distress conveying that she was striving mightily to avoid betraying those who had sent her on this quest. She stopped struggling, and froze rigid. That last was a relief; his muscles had begun to ache from the strain of holding Leona. He was stronger than her, but she was amazingly strong for her age, size and kind, and she was very aggressive: Guidestar suspected considerably more aggressive than himself. "I can see you don't want to nose on your friends," Guidestar said. "But there's something you don't know about what they told you to do." He saw it clearly, now that he knew this was a hazing prank. "They're not really your friends. This could have --" There was the sound of two sets of military horseshoes clattering on the stone floor. Fear flashed into Leona's light blue eyes. Guidestar came to a quick decision. He stood up, releasing Leona, and said softly "Follow me!" He launched himself in the direction away from the not-yet-visible but obviously-arriving guards, his wings carrying him rapidly down the hall. He did not wait on the filly: either she would follow him and have a chance of getting away, or she wouldn't, and would be captured by the other guards. He told himself it didn't matter much which; she was an annoying filly who had given him nothing but trouble. Nevertheless, he was relieved to hear her own wingbeats following in his wake. Guidestar snapped around the corner and landed in front of a locked door. He pulled out his key ring and selected a key. Leona landed by his side. "What are you doing?" she asked him breathlessly. Guidestar inserted the key in the lock and opened the door. Within could be seen a small room full of blankets and other cold-weather gear. "Hide in here," he said. "I'll let you out when they're gone." For a moment, Leona seemed about to object; then the hoofbeats drew closer, and she leaped inside. Guidestar closed and locked the door, then stepped aside and put away the key. He executed this movement just in time to avoid making it obvious what he had been doing when the two other military Ponies rounded the corner and galloped up to him. They were Fourth-Year Cadet Bum Rush, a big lumpish brown Earth Pony from a rich Fillydelphia family, who had been appointed a Cadet Sergeant; and Private something-or-other Cross, a yellowish-orange Earth Pony who had been Rush's crony for some time. Guidestar liked neither of them, but he had to defer to Rush, because Rush was his superiority both by seniority and rank. "Well, well, well," said Rush, smiling nastily. "What have we here?" Rush had notably not called Guidestar to attention, nor explicitly asked for a report, but Guidestar chose to take what Rush had said in him in just that light, both because it simplified things -- and because it helped keep him calm. "Cadet Flight reporting, Cadet-Sergeant." he said to Cadet Sergeant Rush, giving him the abbreviated salute used to ranking cadets -- they were not yet full officers, only officer-cadets, and hence did not rate the one he would have given to an actual commissioned Guards officer. "Three intruders tried to break into Number Two Magazine. Intercepted them, and when they fled gave pursuit. They went through this door" he pointed to the door to the staircase "and bolted it closed from the other side. I doubled back to the magazine door, where I found a fourth intruder attempting to break into the magazine. I tackled her, struggled with her, and she eventually succeeded in breaking loose and escaping" Cadet Sergeant Rush sniffed him. "Phew!" he said in an upper-class accident. "Smells as if you've been rolling in whores!" He gave Guidestar a sly look. "Are you sure you didn't just bring a chippie here and try to cover it up by reporting an incident?" Private Cross laughed crudely at what Cadet-Sergeant Rush had said, then got a puzzled look. "Hey," he asked, "why would the other young gentlecolt blow his whistle if he didn't want to make a fuss?" He winked broadly. "Unless mebbe the doxy was blowin' his whistle, know what I mean? Hur hur hur!" he laughed, not noticing Rush's look of annoyance at the way that his own crony had accidentally undermined his statement. "The fourth intruder was a mare in unsuppressed estrus, Cadet-Sergeant," Guidestar stated. "It was from her that the marescent got upon me, when I tried to capture her." "Capture her," Bum Rush said, drawling nastily. "Right." "As you may notice, Cadet-Sergeant," pointed out Guidestar, "there is no mare present in this corridor." He pointed the ther way downthe corridor. "Our struggle ended when she bucked me to the midriff, and she ran off in that direction. She had knocked my wind out, so I was unable to pursue." "Winded by somethin', I bet you was," Cross commented, "hur hur hur!" Bum Rush looked at the private in even greater annoyance for his poor attempt at subtle humor, then back at Guidestar. "Cadet Flight," Rush asked, "why would intruders trying to get into the magazine bring a mare in unsuppressed estrus with them?" "I can only assume to distract me, Cadet-Sergeant," replied Guidestar, stating the obvious. "She was probably meant to approach me first and seduce me away from my duty station, only something went wrong and all four of them happened upon me together. Then my prompt challenge scared the others off, and the mare was less quick to react. A civilian would be slower, don't you think?" "And she did distract you," Rush said accusingly. "You wound up fighting her while the others got away." "With all due respect, Cadet-Sergeant," pointed out Guidestar, "there was no way for me, one Pony, to capture four intruders when I was armed only with a half-spear. I would have needed at least a bow to accomplish such a feat." "And where is your half-spear?" challenged Rush. "I left it by my duty station," Guidestar replied. "I needed all hooves free to tackle the mare." "Abandoning your weapon in the presence of the enemy. You are assigned a demerit for that!" said Rush triumphantly. "So noted, Cadet-Sergeant," Guidestar said calmly. He had expected something like this. "Do you think I should return to my duty station and retrieve my weapon, Cadet-Sergeant?" he asked. "You're off your duty station," Rush said. "Another demerit!" "So noted, Cadet-Segeant," said Guidestar. "Shall I return to my post now?" "Yes, damn your eyes!" ordered Rush. "Return to your post immediately! Or I'll give you more demerits for disobedience and dumb insocence!" Guidestar of course did not point out that 'disobedence' would require that he fail to obey in a timely fashion the order just given, nor that 'dumb insolence' required that he be silently insolent, as doing either would of course be direct insolence, which was a more serious thing. Instead, he simply said "Yes, Cadet-Sergeant," gave the regulation half-salute, turned around and flew to his duty post, where he picked up his half-spear and resumed his guard post. Rush had, of course, been unfair to him -- which was no more than Guidestar had expected. The important thing is that, at the sacrifice of two demerits, he had won the larger game. Rush had accepted Guidestar's lie as to where the mare in estrus had gone, and the official report would now include the statement that she was probably a civilian. It was unlikely that Rush would look in the storeroom, even if he or the private had the key on them. About ten minutes passed, Guidestar on station. Then Cadet-Sergeant Rush and Private Cross returned. Rush glared at him, and Guidestar half-saluted. Rush did not return the half-salute, but stalked back the way he had originally come. Guidestar waited another ten minutes, making sure that Rush had really gone. Then, he flitted over to the store room, unlocked the door and opened it. The light blue eyes that looked out at him were distinctly agitated. "That was Bum Rush!" Leona whispered breathlessly. "He's one of the pals of --" she paused, clearly not wanting to name a name. "Face Kicker?" Guidestar asked. "Yes! You know him?" Guidestar briefly flashed over the memories of some very humiliating and painful moments two years ago, rubbed his chin. "We've met," he simply said. "Not as friends." "I ... don't understand," Leona said. "Face Kicker was the one who sent me to the magazine." "I think I understand," Guidestar said. "There's no time for it here or now. Listen. Do not trust Face Kicker or any of his friends -- they meant to ruin your career tonight. If asked, tell them I chased you and fought with you but you kicked me in the barrel and got away. Clear on that?" "Yes," said Leona. Her ears drooped in shame. "I ... I think I was trying to get in with the wrong set." "You were," replied Guidestar. "Now. When you leave here, take a bath right away. Wash off the marescent, then use your suppressors." "They were stolen!" Leona told him. He felt a flash of fury. Face Kicker meant her to come to me in unsuppressed estrus, he realized. To ruin my career as well? To ruin her reputation? Would even Face Kicker arrange for an innocent fourteen-year-old filly to be violated as just a move in his power games? What a silly question. Of course he would. That's who he is. "By one of Face Kicker's friends, I'd wager." said Guidestar. "All right. Can you borrow some suppressors, or even maskers, from another mare? One not a friend of Face Kicker?" "Yes ... I think I can," replied Leona. "Then do so!" urged Guidestar. "Now -- get out of here, while you still can! I'll talk to you more about this tomorrow." "Yes," Leona said, stepping away and flaring her wings preparatory to flight. Then she turned and looked back at him, her eyes shining with some unknown emotion. "Thank you, Guidestar." "It's what any honorable Pony would do," he replied gruffly. "Now go!" She flashed away, with the speed possible only to a Pegasus in a hurry. Her wings were short, but thick and powerful; her manueverability exceptional. In the close confines of the corridor, she was a better flier than Guidstar, and he saw that if he hadn't tackled her right away, she might easily have escaped him. Guidestar did not linger, but locked the door and flitted back to his guard post. There would be less than no point in what he had done, if Bum Rush caught him. His deception was, as far as he could tell, successful. Nothing more happened that watch, but Guidestar was not at all bored. Instead, he turned over and over and again in his mind what had just happened. The things Leona had said. The things she had half-said. The impliciations of the fact that Face Kicker's set -- was willing to go this far, run significant risks to themselves, to ruin the reputation and career of a fourteen-year-old filly, a mere First Year Cadet. And Leona, rather than himself, he was fairly certain, had been the target. Oh, he had clashed with Face Kicker before, but from Face Kicker's point of view he was merely small fry; the unimportant scion of a rustic branch of a minor Clan. A target for cruel reprisal, if the opportunity presented itself, but not worth any risk to Face Kicker or any of his main minions to harm. But Leona -- she was a Wind, and of the Winds, unless he much missed his guest. They were a family who went back before the Realm, before even Derecho, to shadowy times of legend, thousands of years when the Three Tribes dwelled in the Old Homelands, and the Winds were one of the High Clans who led them from the clutches of the Windigoes to the Promised Land of Equestria. Commander Hurricane the Great had been a Wind, and had wed another Wind, and their lineage was storied in the annals of the Pegasi. And the legends went back even further, to doubtful tales of all Ponykind threatened with extinction by rapacious monsters, only a few Ponies surviving in hidden castles and high valleys, and a particular Wind who was the first to grasp weapons and fight back against these horrid foes. It was said that Wind had been the boon companion of the equally mythical Megan and Firefly, and had been the deadliest Pegasus, or indeed Pony, warrior ever known. It had been the Winds who had kept the flame of Pegasus honor alight during the long dark Age of the Twister. Compared to them, the Kickers -- for all the favor that the Princess showed them, for all that they were the only one of the High Clans still permitted to keep castle and private company of Pegasi-at-arms -- compared to them the Kickers were but recently jumped-up commoners. And the Kickers knew this, and they could never forgive the Winds for this reality. In the Old Days, the Kickers and Winds would have fought in open feud, arms clashing until one or the other Clan was cast down. But the Old Days were long departed, and all must obey the Peace of the Princess. So, instead of the ring of wingblades against shields and the rain of ghastly red dew, there was a great slow-motion struggle for social recognition; for honor and precedence, which only on occasion erupted into outright violence, and this in the form of brawls and duels, which were by their nature usually not fatal. And yet the struggle was no less real. And lesser Clans -- or foolhardy individuals -- who took part in such a struggle, on either side, were apt to be caught between the two great Clans, and crushed to powder, just like a rowboat caught between colliding ships-of-the-line. Lesser Clans, like Flight -- or foolhardy individuals, like Guidestar, who had felt sympathy for a noble filly threatened with the most foul conduct, and seen gratitude -- and perhaps more -- in her pale blue eyes, when he helped save her from such dishonor. So Guidestar saw the danger. Yet he could not stand idly by and see Leona destroyed. Why was this? He was seventeen. And male. And brave, and high-hearted -- and if he had been the sort of Pegasus to watch a young lady abused, he would not have applied to West Hoof in the first place. And he was seventeen. And male. And she was fourteen. And female. And innocent, and brave, and in his sight not at all unbeautiful. And, despite the fact that he was a very rational Pony, he was not deaf to the lovely song implied in his becoming her champion. And though it had been in combat rather than courtship that they had touched one another, still they had touched one another, and she in cycle and he full-roused by her marescent. Aside from that one drunken encounter with a town bawd -- and he did not see such a mare in the same category as he did Leona -- Guidestar was virgin. He had known only limited steppings-out with respectable girls, none of which courtships had gotten very far. He knew it was dishonorable to think in regards to Leona, and tried not to dwell on it, but he could not help remembering how her hard little body had felt, striving against his own; how her muscles had moved under that enticingly-concealing robe; how her tail had brushed against him; how her marescent had drenched the air and seemed to fill the entire world, an odor enchanting in its flaming musky color. The more he tried to suppress such memories, the more they returned to him. He also, of course, remembered how her hard little hooves had battered his barrel, how her strong mouth had bitten him. The bruises and lacerations were fresh upon his form. But that was far from a deterrent to Guidestar's fond regard. She was so brave, so determined -- such a natural fighter! She had proven her courage upon his body, and to a Pegasus warrior, that only made her all the more admirable. And she had by her last words shown that she forgave him his actions as necessary -- even thanked him for helping get out of the situation with both reputation and virtue intact. She obviously liked him ... For such and sundry reasons, noble and base, did Guidestar Flight decide that he would help protect Leona Wind from Face Kicker. He mused on the problem for all the remainder of his watch, and when that watch was over he made his report, which contained nothing regarding Leona Wind, but instead referred only to an unknown mare in estrus, whom by carefully-chosen but not entirely mendacious words he implied to be an adult prostitute, rather than a young teenaged cadet. And when he bathed and returned to his quarters, to snatch a short nap before reveille, he closed his eyes still thinking of Leona. Doubtless she figured in his dreams, though in the morning he had no memory of what therein had transpired. He faced the new day, still-tired as was often the case for cadets at the Hoof, but determined to rescue from peril his fair lady.