Spitfire waited for a response from the humans. Just how badly would they react? Tran shrugged. "It's not the worst possible news." Everyone, from the prisoners to the other humans, stared at Tran.
"Are you fucking insane?" Wilson asked. Tran nodded. "I meant more so than usual!"
Tran shrugged again. "What was the purple desk jockey's take on this?"
The what? "Who?" Spitfire asked.
"The one that thought charging straight towards the enemy was a good idea."
Spitfire thought about it for a second. "You mean Princess Twilight Sparkle?"
Wilson looked at Spitfire. "That's her name?! That is the worse name I've ever heard of.”
"Ahem."
Wilson looked dead into the purple pony princess's pupils. "You have the worst name I've ever heard of."
Spitfire stepped in front of Wilson. "The assault team was given rerouting orders."
Some of Twilight's mane hairs shot up, giving her a frazzled look. "What."
Spitfire cringed. "All able soldiers are being rounded for an immediate offensive against remaining retreating enemy forces."
Twilight ground her teeth together in a painfully calm fashion. "Who put out the orders? I personally put out the orders for this assault team! Nopony has authority over me!" She ran a hoof through her mane while sighing. "I hate bureaucracy."
Tran shrugged. "It comes with the military life. Can you radio in for an escort?"
Twilight rubbed the sides of her head to lessen the pain of her headaches. "If assuming that radio means contact, maybe but I don't think Rarity's trace will be able to get any responses. She technically has no command."
Tran raised an eyebrow. "Trace?"
Twilight looked at the human with an incredulous look. Everypony knew what trace was! Then, she realized that this thing wasn't a pony. "Everypony has a unique magical signature, a trace as we call it. It's impossible to replicate a pony's trace and identifying a trace is relatively fast and simple." And her trace commanded a lot of power. If she was able to get a message through, she could get anything she wanted. However, the pain from her magic's feedback reminded her that this would be a difficult endeavor and could risk an even longer recovery. Hell, she could even fall into a coma.
But screw it, this was an emergency. "You know what? I'll send the message myself, magical feedback or not." She dug through her pockets, pulling out a small roll of paper and a parchment.
Wilson stared at the massive feather. "A quill?"
Twilight nodded. "How else am I gonna write a message?" she asked while fishing out an inkwell from her pocket.
Wilson raised an eyebrow. "So you don't have pens or pencils?"
Twilight snorted. "Of course we do! I just prefer quills."
Wilson frowned. "Nope, I don't need to think about this," he said as he walked away. "My blood pressure is high enough as it is." And he was gone.
Twilight quickly wrote a short message down (Wilson's blood pressure skyrocketed upon seeing the pony write with the quill in her mouth) on the parchment before setting it on the ground. With as much caution as possible, she tapped into her pool of magic. Her horn lit up in its usual lavender glow and seconds later, the paper started to glow. She closed her eyes as sweat started to form on her head. Slowly, the written words vanished from the paper. After holding the spell for what she thought was long enough, the glow from Twilight's horn stopped abruptly.
"So how do we tell if it worked?" asked Eric.
Twilight opened her eyes and looked at the parchment. When she noticed that written words were no longer present on the parchment, she cracked a smile. "It most definitely worked. Otherwise, the parchment would have spontaneously combusted."
"Well, that's one way to notify a failure." Eric rolled up one of his sleeves, revealing a wrist watch. "So how long do you supposed it'll take?"
Twilight picked up the paper and rolled it back up before stowing it back in her pocket. "I honestly have no idea."
A Few Minutes Later
Thousands upon thousands of rifles, carbines, machine guns, and pistols were aimed at the four humans, the captured war chief, two captured minotaurs, and one dead Jaeger. Slowly turning to look at Twilight, Tran maintained the same dead look that he had been giving her since meeting her. "Exactly what did you tell them in that message?"
Twilight let out a sheepish smile. "Nothing too serious."
A Few Minutes Earlier In The 5th Ground Division's Main Communication Center
A simple comms pony received a magically sent message. This wasn't a rare occurrence; a counter-offensive was being prepared so this was expected. However, the comms pony definitely didn't recognize the magical trace of the message's sender. Doing the right thing, the comms pony simply asked a sergeant for help.
Unfortunately, that sergeant wasn't able to recognize the trace either so he asked a nearby officer to check the note. The nearby officer (a captain) recognized the magical trace as belonging to Field Marshal Princess Twilight Sparkle.
Engaged war party and Jaeger. Three injured including self. Captured war chief, two party members, and Jaeger killed. Send help. Coordinates 043.7 by 13.9
The captain instantly noticed that the note was written in the Field Marshal Princess's mouth writing instead of her horn writing. She also noticed that the message wasn't written in the way that the Field Marshal Princess's standard message writing format and deduced that the Field Marshal Princess (such a mouthful) was in such a bad state that she needed help this instant!
That nearby captain also happened to be the OIC (Officer In Charge) of the communication center and instantly brought the message to the attention of every single pony above the rank of major. Within a matter of seconds, the counteroffensive was canceled and every single able-bodied pony was sent to the Field Marshal Princess's location.
-X-X-X-
Tran looked at Twilight. "You're lying, aren't you?"
What a grand miscommunication.....
This is gonna take some explaining on all sides, isn't it...
Welp.....that was a fail. Lol
Keep these AWESOME chapters coming bro!!!
I'm just gonna say,
Ya dun fucked up dere son
That was a massive miscommunique twily you fucked up
*Deep sigh*Twi, the only way that message could be more serious is if you added, "Overrun".
Twilight... Who made you a field commander? And who thought is was a fair idea to give you this position and NOT TEACH YOU BASIC COMMUNICATION ETIQUETTE?! IE. 'PRESENCE OF POSSIBLE FRIENDLIES ASSISTING EQUESTRIAN FORCES'?!
BACK TO MAGICAL KINDERGARDEN WITH YOU! DISMISSED, MAGGOT!
Sounds like someone needs to channel their inner 'Payne'.
Major Payne 0:15-0:28
Now we understand how Equestria was loosing!
Well at least she didn't use a typical British understatement where "quite sticky" means "we are literally surrounded and almost out of ammunition, relief would be nice." But the wording could've been better in that one twi. Just saying.
*You have been DEMOTED*
8897542
As an Englishman I am offended... the term is 'A tad sticky.'
8900364
Sorry to offend you. But the gist is practically the same.
8900586
'Twas a joke... It's meant to begin by sounding like I am offended by the statement about Englishmen but the joke is that really I am offended by getting the saying wrong which, for the record, I'm not. It was all in good fun.
This is why civilians shouldn't lead military ops.
8937570
Because we now have CIWSs, air defense missiles/rockets, laser guided artillery, etc.
9010706
I’m not saying that everyone who uses an AK is a bad person. It’s just that generally in modern conflicts it’s the terrorists who usually use them because they’re so ubiquitous and reliable. And this point is further emphasised in game and film.
I’m sure your uncle is a great person, but stereotypically someone who uses an AK isn’t.
9010734
Bataan Death March?
9010734
Worse; the nazis were lazy enough to use trucks to speed up the move of prisoners. The Japanese made them walk.
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bataan-death-march
I think the Latin translation of the title is more interesting
Whens the next chapter?
8895916
Honestly, this isn't even my issue with that message. There are reasons not to mention it: information security for one; the fact that her condition was probably limiting message length for another. Also, she already mentioned prisoners; if the relief party encounters her alongside strange beings the natural assumption would be that if they weren't friendlies they were prisoners—not active hostiles.
No, my problem is with "Send help." How much help, Twilight? A platoon? A battalion? A division? It sounds like in the absence of anything to stop them from overreacting they went pretty far up the list, and Twilight should damn well know that "Princess injured in battle and needs help!" is likely to elicit overreaction unless it's stamped out hard.
On the bright side, at least she didn't accidentally call in an artillery strike.