Treason

by Trevosta

Visitor

Visitor

The troops continued on, the second day of traveling and sparring resulted in a tight connection between partners.

Gilda was picking up the pace, providing a better challenge for Rainbow Dash to work against. Rainbow had begun watching her weak spots, blocking them so that Gilda couldn't get a clear shot, often.

Red Arrow and Blue Angel were getting faster, they were flawlessly avoiding letting the other gain the upper hoof.

Thunderclaw and the Captain were working on their own flaws as well. Thunderclaw was attempting to get better at switching styles and stances, according to the situation. The Captain had the hardest time with his biggest issue however. As someone who was used to always making solid contact, he was almost always putting more force than he needed behind beach blow. Eventually he was able to draw back enough that when T.C. took advantage of his blows he could recover faster, occasionally landing a better hit because of it.

Once again the squadron slept well that night.

The next night they began sparring against the other groups, T.C. and the captain went up against Rainbow and Gilda first. The fight was leaning heavily in the favor of the Captain and T.C. until Rainbow had an opening, a wide open shot to the Captain.

She was able to take him to the ground with one kick, but instead she hesitated. She saw her brother, her inspiration, her coach, the one that she had looked up to for years, and the one she had missed for years, and she couldn't hit him.

He used the opening and hit her upwards into the air, quickly getting over her and kicking her down to the ground, effectively emptying her lungs. Having Rainbow down allowed him to assist T.C. with Gilda.

She had observed T.C.'s inability to change fighting tactics quickly and was changing stance, position and style as often as she could. T.C. was holding on well, but was getting tired and beaten. The Captain flew in, faster than Rainbow had while training with Gilda, and tackled her, pinning her to the ground and effectively ending that sparring session.

When the Captain and T.C. fought against Red Arrow and Blue Angel, they put up a good fight, but their opponents knew each other so well that it was a hopeless cause. When attempting to split the two ponies up, the Captain and T.C. only succeeded in getting themselves separated and spelling their own doom.

The fight between Rainbow and Gilda, and the married couple, went by much more quickly. The trained team quickly disabled the under-experienced novices. quickly they were separated, and their flaws were exploited.

Even though they were beaten, bruised, stiff, exhausted, and bedding on the ground, they slept like they were on mattresses stuffed with pegasus down.

The final day of travel involved some inclement weather and a nasty headwind, but they still pushed onwards, reaching a cloud that would serve as an outpost for the night, until they started their attack the day after tomorrow.

Their sparring sessions went similar to the day before, but with much closer results. Results such as, much lighter blows from the Captain, giving him better control of the outcome of the fight, quicker fighting adjustments from T.C., better defense from Rainbow, who was also able to land an extremely solid hit on her brother, temporarily giving her team the upper hoof, and Gilda was much faster. The undefeated team of Red Arrow and Blue Angel was even struggling to keep their lead.

After the sparring was done, the Captain came out to go over the plan. “Alright, troops, tomorrow is a day just to rest up and get our strength back. We will also be using it to set up our secret weapon.” he nodded at Red Arrow.

“In the capsules that I included in your packs each contain fireworks. They are not intended as a weapon, but if you can manage to use them as one, do so.” he said, while walking pst the ponies and griffons gathered on the large cloud base. “Remember, your wingman is your best bet to stay alive, so keep them alive as well.”

He stepped over to the married couple and looked at them, “You two will be setting up the fireworks on the opposite side of the town. Don’t get caught.”

Then he looked to his wingman, “We will be doing the sides, and I repeat, don’t get caught.”

He then looked at Rainbow and Gilda, “You two will be setting the biggest charge up on this cloud, and don’t get caught.”

Each group nodded their understanding as he got to them. “we will be taking turns with our wingmen to do watch tonight, starting with myself and Thunderclaw, moving on to Gilda and Rainbow, and finishing up with Red Arrow and Blue Angel. Now, the rest of you, get some sleep.” he commanded as he and his wingman took their posts.

Their watch was terribly uneventful, the most excitement that they had was when a bat flew by, catching its evening supper.
They awoke the next two guards and took their turn sleeping.

--------------------------

In the ranks of General Highwind there was a griffon who had just relieved the preceding soldier. His name was Hawk. Hawk was a smaller griffon, but he was fast, strong, and working his way up through the ranks of the militia that General Highwind had formed.

It didn’t matter where you were on the chain of control, you still needed to do guard duty, unless you were the General himself. So Hawk had taken his position watching for attacks.

His shift started pretty uneventful, most of the intruders were bugs and the bats attempting to catch them. He almost started drifting off to sleep when he noticed a shimmer in a large cloud up over his head. He thought it was probably just a star shining through the cloud, but decided to investigate anyway.

He approached the spot that had shimmered earlier and began his ascent into the vaporous structure. He poked his head through, and was immediately greeted by a flash of colors and a bag over his head.

The bag was quickly followed by his limbs being tied together, his wings being tied to his sides, and a small pinch in the back of his neck.

'Hmmm...' he thought to himself, 'I wonder what the general would give to know about this... I guess I will wait and see if this is good or bad."

"Alright." A slightly scratchy, very serious, and very deadly sounding voice overhead whispered. "As far as I can see, you have two options. Option one, you can tell us everything about what is going on, then we use some fancy potion to erase your memory of this meeting. Or, two, we simply use the potion right now. If I were you, I would lean towards option one, because if you choose option two, I will get mad. And if I get mad I might get a little generous with the memory potion."

Then Hawk heard some whispering from further away.

"He wouldn't do that, would he?" a slightly rough, tomboyish female voice said.

"Oh, he would." an absolutely heavenly feminine voice said.

"Just shut up you two, and pay attention." a vaguely familiar male voice said...

"Don't tell me to shut up!" first girl.

"Shhhh!"
"So," first voice again, "If you want to do option one, nod." Hawk nodded. "Alright good." he then removed the bag enough so that Hawk could talk, but not enough to see.

"Ok, so everything I know, let's see..." Hawk spilled the entire plan for the future of the militia, as far as he had been informed, then he continued. "But eight others, and myself, wanted to try and take the program down from the inside, so we have been working our way through the ranks to attempt to take it down from the top. I was doing this to save our people from a life of tyranny, as well as with hopes of meeting women using hero status to my advantage." there were a few seconds of awkward almost-silence, broken only by the stifled laughter of the female voices in the background, "Wow, I didn't mean to share ALL of that."

Suddenly the bag was pulled off of his head and he found himself looking into the face of a very serious pony. The pony was red with a reverse-rainbow mane and vibrantly blue eyes, and he seemed familiar for some reason...

The blue eyes were scrutinizing, and Hawk felt like he was staring into his soul.

Hawk would not be beaten.

He stared back, knowing full well that the pony was trying to see if he was lying, and he knew that he didn't lie.

After a few moments of the intense staring, the pony leaned back, and looked at his troops, "He's telling the truth."

"How do you know?" said a royal blue one with a yellow mane, that possessed the angelic voice.

The first pony merely held up a hypodermic needle, the tip coated in what appeared to be blood mixed with a blue liquid. "Truth serum, and possibly too big of a dose." he said, furrowing his brow slightly.

"How did you get truth serum?" said a light blue mare with a rainbow mane, who was the owner of the tomboyish voice.

Then the commander of the group, the interrogator, who was already digging through a bag, held up a book. "Your zebra friend finally wrote a book, and I bought the first copy." He said with mild pride, bringing an eye roll from the mare.

Hawk was currently examining the rest of the group. There was one more pegasus, a stallion, white coat, red mane, slightly manic look in his eye. There were also two griffons, one a male and the other a female, the griffoness looked confident, and tough. Also she looked very attractive. But the male was different.

"Wait... T.C.? Is that you?" Hawk asked, laying his eyes upon the best friend he ever had, and hadn't seen in over two years.

"Hawk?" the griffon who went M.I.A. said, looking at his old friend.

"Where have you been?" Hawk said excited, ignoring the weird looks from the ponies and cute griffon as he tried to get a better look at his old friend but was unable to due to being hogtied. "You've been gone for over two years!"

"We don't have time for this!" the white stallion whispered in an accent that sounded like an upper class accent, without the 'I'm better than you' feel to it. "We need to get you back down there before they send back-up."

"I agree." the leader pony said, "Here's the plan, late tomorrow night we will attack, the signal will be fireworks. When the fireworks start to go off, that is when we will attack." he said, gesturing to the small team gathered in the cloud. Then he started ripping a dark green sheet into triangles. "Wear this over your beak when the attack starts, it will help with smoke inhalation and identification. Here is one for you and the eight others you talked about." he said, handing over nine makeshift bandanas. Then he handed one to each of the other griffons, "You two wear these as well, I don't want to accidentally take down my wingman."

While he was being untied, Hawk noticed the griffoness glancing his way. Once he was untied he stood up, and tried to make himself seem less like he had just been tied up. He knew that trying to impress her was stupid, and that there was a chance that one of them wouldn't make it, but there was just something about her confidence...

"Here, eat this." the leader said, handing him a plant of some sort.

"What is it?" Hawk said, grasping the vegetation in his talons.

"Rhubarb. I know it's gross, but it neutralizes the effects of the truth serum."

Hawk winced and quickly swallowed the plant whole, immediately feeling slightly more at ease.

"Now go." the red pegasus said to him, pointing down with his hoof.

With a slight flourish, Hawk spread his wings and took off, going into a sharp loop before diving below the cloud.

Rainbow turned to Gilda with a knowing look. Gilda just rolled her eyes and muttered, "Shut up."

"Well, troops, looks like our job just became a little bit easier."

------------------------------------

Hawk returned to his post, the griffon who was on watch with him looking at him with suspicion and slight relief.

"Where've ya been?"

"Above the cloud cover, I thought I saw something, but it was nothing."

The other guard wasn't buying it. "Why were you up there so long if it was nothing?"

"I got turned around, I was never good at orientating."

"It's orienteering."

"Exactly."