Offload
Offload
That night, the men and their team were rushed back to the city at a breakneck pace, shooting down the path, nearly capsizing when they hit several potholes in the dirt road. The men provided emergency medical aid to the wounded and tortured mare, stemming her bleeding as much as possible and keeping her awake throughout the ride. If they let her sleep, they might lose her.
They let the stallions take care of the other two rescued hostages, mostly just watching over them. They never talked to each other, never seemed to intent on talking to them. It wasn’t hard to tell that there was at least a little harbored tension there.
Getting back to the city took much less time than getting to their AO just hours ago. As soon as they arrived, the gates opened up for them, and their carriage raced into the city, disregarding the safety of any civilians it passed as it went, making Duke and Frost uncomfortable. As they went through the narrow passages of the city, they started to get cheers from the citizens, if the looks on the stallions’ faces were any evidence.
When they arrived at the palace, Duke and Frost picked up the mare and jumped out of the carriage. “We need medical, now!” Duke shouted. Several guard started barking out orders, and soon enough, several horses dressed in what appeared to be doctor’s outfits came by to relieve the men of their charge.
Without waiting to be called, the men took their team and the remaining rescued prisoners and entered the palace, heading straight for the war room. Once there, the plan was to debrief the stallions, debrief the team, then send the two stallions home. On the journey through the hall, the white stallion kept trying to talk to the team, trying to tell them what he knew, but they refused to have any of it until they were in a secure room with no potential eavesdroppers.
The guards of the palace stepped aside to let the team through, and when they saw the civilians with them, most of their eyes expanded further than should have been possible. Whispers drifted into the air and into the ears of the team members as they walked through the halls, trying to ignore the sounds. The men didn’t know what was being said, but whatever it was, it must have been something important.
When they reached the doors to the throne room, they didn’t wait for the door to start opening. The men took the lead and pushed the door open themselves, striding in with purpose visible from a mile away. King Sauri, as expected, was sitting on his throne, discussing some matter of state with some noble on the ground before him. When he saw the team approaching with two extras, his attention to the noble died in an instant.
“ترك لي. الآن.” he ordered the noble. The noble looked surprised and angry, but when he turned to leave and saw the team, his eyes widened, and he rushed away.
The king’s attention was fully on the men and the team now. “Let us move to a better room.” Sauri ordered, getting off his throne and starting to the hall behind. The men and the team followed shortly behind.
The walk to the room was quick and quiet; the white stallion didn’t seem to be as interested in talking any more. When the men looked back at him, he seemed to be keeping his lips held tight and looked more than a little bit nervous. They could clearly see his eyes darting back and forth, sweat forming on his brow, and his quickly increasing breathing rate. He obviously didn’t want to be here.
When they finally reached the war room, which was filled with what looked like officers, King Sauri took his very nice cushion and plopped himself down, facing the team.
“Okay.” he began. “Let us learn what has happened.”
Duke took center stage. “The carriage dropped us off at the predesignated zone, just as planned. We advanced through the terrain, never encountering any hostiles. When we got in view of the compound, it was on the other side of the river.”
“There was a patrol flying around that area.” Frost added.
Duke nodded. “There was. When we crossed the river, Frost and I were able to swim, while the stallions took a rocky path a little downriver. When Frost and I reached the other side, there was a gryphon standing guard. Luckily, he was facing inland, so he didn’t see us.”
Out of nowhere, Rashid began to speak. With the mics still in, the men were able to understand what he was saying. “We reached the other side without issue, but did not encounter any enemies. We do not believe that they are very good at traveling through dense foliage.”
Sauri nodded. “Good to know.” he replied, trying to make sure the humans could understand.
Duke waited to see if the stallions had more to say. When they didn’t, he continued with his own after-action report. “The gryphon was holding what we believe to be one of those magical explosives that we were told about. Frost and I were able to quietly dispatch him, then dump his body and grenade into the river.” Sauri didn’t quite get the word grenade, so Duke quickly explained it.
“I see.” the king said. “What were you able to get from the compound? I can tell that it went fairly well.”
Duke looked to Frost and patted his chest, deciding that he would go first. “Well, we searched the rooms as we went. The first thing that we noticed was that there were a LOT more gryphons in there than we had thought.”
“How many more?” Sauri asked.
“There were at least fifty or sixty, possibly more.”
The king lowered his head, looking at the ground solemnly. “I see.”
Duke nodded back, agreeing with the king’s sentiments. “Yeah. Not great.” he concluded. “As we went through, we were able to determine that they are much, much more well-armed than your information indicated. These guys are extremely dangerous.”
Frost chuckled at the comment, drawing more than a few confused gazes. “You guys would be screwed if you had never learned this.”
Only the king understood, and could do nothing but frustratedly agree. “Yes. Thank you for telling us.”
“Don’t mention it.” Frost replied. “But actually, don’t. We don’t like the spotlight, not while we’re on mission.” The king cocked his brow at the human, confused, but let it go and let Duke continue.
Duke went on. “Well, we found a room in the middle of the first floor, but we were never able to access it. If you send Nedal and his assault team, you might still be able to get something from it.”
The king’s ears perked up at hearing that one bit of good news. What might resemble a smile being on his face, he spun around and looked at one of his officers. “اكتشاف Nedal, إرساله إلى النهر لجلب أي شيء انه يمكن الحصول على حوافر له.” he ordered. The officer stood, saluted, and ran off, probably to go send Nedal out. “Excellent; thank you, Duke.”
“No worries.” Duke replied. After yet another interruption, he continued. “Well, after that, we decided to look for a basement. We snuck through the compound, checking the rooms and becoming more and more concerned with each one, and eventually found the door down there.” Duke pointed at Hamid and Aziz. “When we breached the door, we ran in and dispatched three enemy guards. After we took care of that, Hamid and Aziz searched the room while i kept watch.”
When Duke did not continue, Hamid figured that it was his time to talk. “Duke watched the door. While Aziz was searching through papers, I was looking around the room for anything that might prove useful to take or know. That was when I stumbled upon these two,” He pointed at the two stallions they had rescued. “Inside some cages.”
Duke took the reins again. “Yeah, and then I contacted Frost to tell him that we found something and we were leaving the building. From there, we just snuck out with the hostages and waited.”
King Sauri smiled a wide, toothy smile, clearly happy with the outcome of the situation. “Very excellent!” he said. “I am glad that you were able to rescue our noble and a foreigner without incident.”
Frost opened his mouth to talk, but no words came at first. “Well,” he began, flipping Sauri’s smile. “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean?” the king asked hurriedly, like a delayed answer would cause a war.
Frost stepped forward and took the center, Duke stepping aside as he came up. “I took Rashid and Malik up to the second and third floors. We determined that the second floor was where the leader of the group was sleeping-”
“Why did you not dispatch him?!” Sauri asked, suddenly flaring with anger.
Frost gave him a second to vent. When he deemed that he king was good, he went on. “If we had, the other gryphons in the room, a bunch of what we think were females, would have woken up and notified the others that we were there. If that had happened, both the hostages and us would all have been killed.” The king looked doubtful. “No one is invincible.”
“The purpose of this mission was to rescue hostages, King Sauri.” Duke added. “We don't do raids, generally. Our specialty is combat search-and-rescue. That’s what we do, and that’s not going to change.”
The king didn’t answer, just waited for Frost to continue. After getting a nod from Duke, he did so, glossing over unnecessary details. “We went through, not finding anything else on the second floor. When we got to the third floor, we were nearly made, but managed to keep hidden. Shortly after that, we found a suspicious room.”
“What made it suspicious?” Sauri asked.
Frost scowled at the king for interrupting him, but it went unnoticed. “We heard voices, speaking our language. One was gruff, and very male. The other was female, and had a very familiar accent to us, like its owner was from the southern region of our country. Upon opening the door and looking inside, we determined that the female was a pony, like the white guy,” He pointed at the white stallion. “And probably a prisoner. When we looked more inside, we saw that she was tortured and badly injured.”
The king’s pupils shrunk at hearing this. “What did you do?!”
Frost put up his hands to try to calm the king down. “We burst in and confronted the gryphon, who had a very large blade. It was loud and rough, but we took him down. It made a lot of noise, so we barricaded the door and I had my boys keep the door closed.” The stallions puffed out their chests at their mention. “I freed the mare, and we bugged out with the enemy trying to get in and nab us. We jumped out the window, jumped down to the ground, and went through the brush from there.”
Sauri heaved out a sigh of relief. “Oh, I was expecting much worse.” he said, getting a grin from Frost. “It is good to hear that it all went fairly well.”
“That’s how we do it.” Frost replied.
The king looked over the team one last time, judging their physical states, like he wanted to see if they would be good to continue. “I think that you should take a short break.” he said. Evidently, he didn’t think they were good to go. “Soon, you will go to the valley. An old friend of mine is being held there, and I want him back.”
“Got it.” Duke replied.
“Oh!” Sauri gasped, eliciting the men to cock their brows. “I forgot; did you find OGA?” The men sighed and shook their heads, getting a sympathetic nod from the king. “I see. Well, he may be in the valley. When you go there, you will be able to search for him some more.” The men affirmed their stance on the position, glad to get a day or two to prepare, and Sauri stepped past them.
The king walked right up to the noble and pony, looking them over. He didn’t take long with the horse, waving him away after not a moment of looking him over. When the noble left, he looked over the pony, scrutinizing every detail he could. When he finally spoke, the men’s and their team’s mouths dropped to the floor.
“What brings you here, Prince Shining Armor?”
The men stared at the apparently extremely valuable pony they had rescued. Shining Armor flashed his eyes around the room, looking incredibly uncomfortable. When his eyes landed on the men, they remained there for just a split-second, just long enough for the men to figure out that he wasn’t too keen on answering, then shot back to the king.
“I was here on a relief mission,” he explained. “I came here with that other mare to aid in building homes, getting fresh food and water to villages, and providing education to the uneducated.”
The king deadpanned, “How noble.” He stepped forward, taking an aggressive stance toward the prince. “But we would have liked to have known about your ‘aid mission’. If you wish to come here again, it will not be to help those we do not care about.”
Shining Armor snarled. “Fine.” The king nodded, then turned around. From the look of relief on the prince’s face, the men could tell that he had just dodged a bullet. “You two.” Sauri said, pointing at the men. “He will remain in your quarters for the time being. Tomorrow, he will be sent back to the Crystal Empire.”
Duke and Frost exchanged a glance, then nodded. “Alright.” Duke replied. “I guess we should take him there now?”
“That would be best.”
Duke nodded, then turned to the prince. “You. Come with us.” The prince didn’t look terribly happy, but didn’t argue. “As for you guys,” Duke began to the stallions of his team. “You can take a break, go relax. Tomorrow, if we aren’t heading out, we’ll do more training.” The stallions all voiced their happiness and ran off to go do whatever it is they do in Saddle Arabia for fun.
The men led Shining Armor out of the war room and through the throne room, silent tension keeping them at arm’s length. The men had no reason to trust this stallion, especially with how he just lied about why he was here. It was astonishing that Sauri hadn’t picked it up. When people fear you, they tend to be less inclined to lie to you.
Shining Armor didn’t seem too trusting of the men, either, for whatever reason. He kept looking at them suspiciously, like they had done something to wrong him. Maybe that other human they had heard about from a long time ago did something...
No matter, they were back at the room in no time. Frost walked up and knocked three times, hard, on the door. “You in there, Amel?” he asked.
He took a step back, but not fast enough. The door exploded open, slamming into the entirety of Frost’s front, knocking him straight to the ground.
“Hey!” Amel said gleefully, eyes shut, not noticing that Frost was on the ground. When she opened them and saw Frost laying still on the ground, eyes closed, she released a loud gasp and leaped over to him. “Sorry!” she said. Frost didn’t respond.
“Cool, Frost, since she doesn’t care about you or anything.” Duke thought, shaking his head at Frost’s little joke.
“Frost?” Amel asked, worry becoming evident in his voice. “Are you okay?”
Duke stepped up and tapped Amel on the shoulder. “I got this.” he said. Amel stepped back. “You know, Frost,” Duke began. “I’m not too sure that Amel knows CPR. I know I’m not touching your lips with mine, so I guess that this is the perfect time to teach her the procedure.”
Frost’s eyes narrowly opened, scorning his officer. “You suck.” he whispered. Honestly, who wants to have a horse’s, or in her case, a pony’s, mouth on theirs? Immediately, he sat up. “I’m good.”
Amel was confused for a moment, but when she saw the looks the men were giving each other, she huffed and turned around. “Good, then.” She walked into the room, chin up, and went over to her little section.
Behind the men, Shining Armor chuckled, drawing them to look in his direction. “I know how that feels; my wife likes to give me the cold shoulder sometimes when I play jokes on her.”
Duke couldn’t hold in all his laughter as Frost tried to figure out why it was relevant, getting a confused look from his partner. “Go on, fix what you’ve done.” Still confused, Frost got up and walked into the room to go talk to Amel.
Shining Armor went in after, not waiting for an invitation, followed by Duke, who shut the door behind them and then just leaned on it, taking in everything. Frost was trying to reason with Amel, and laughably failing. He still had no clue about the joke, or anything; it was a good thing that Duke was the officer. Shining Armor was looking at the gear pile without touching anything, Frost’s weapons and armor all just piled up on the bottom where he must have thrown them on his way in. He seemed especially intrigued by the 416.
Duke walked up behind him and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Quite the tech, eh?”
“Quite,” the prince replied, seemingly awestruck.
Duke nodded silently, not continuing. After several minutes, he deemed that Shining Armor had had enough time to gawk at the items.
“I know you were lying in there,” he said outright. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”
“And you aren’t supposed to be here either,” Shining Armor replied, though he seemed rather cryptic about it.
Duke huffed. “No, we’re not. Neither is our target, OGA. We want to find him and get out of here, and if you have any information, we need to know it.” No response. “We aren’t sticking with these guys, we have no obligation to them. If you tell us something we can use, we won’t necessarily share it.”
Shining Armor looked up at the human, sizing up his honesty, unsure of who to proceed. “Well,” he sighed. “I wasn’t here on an aid mission.”
“No shit!” Frost shouted from behind a wall. Duke and the prince turned to look that way, only to see a hoof smack Frost upside the head through the wall.
The price continued. “I was here to infiltrate the group Hawkani, the most dangerous group to my nation’s and my allies national security. I came here with the mare, Applebloom, disguised as an aid worker. She and her friends were all here for an actual aid mission, but I figured I could use it to get close to the gryphons by getting into the villages they tend to attack. I thought I could maybe follow them and find their hideouts.”
Duke’s expression was stoic and cold. “I guess you failed?”
“Yeah.” Shining grimaced. “I was made, as you seemed to put it. When they caught me, they assumed that the aid workers were with me, and attacked them. The leader, Applebloom, and a noble from the village, were taken. About six days of captivity later, you came along.”
“Tell me you learned something useful while they had you.”
Shining Armor turned around and walked over to Duke’s bed, then hopped up and sat down on it. “You mind?” Duke shook his head. “I heard a few things about a human, like you. Said he was CIA, but I knew that couldn’t be ours. He must have been taken from your world.”
Duke was about to speak, but his mind started to swirl with questions. After a moment, he managed to compose his thoughts into words. “All right. Question one: What do you know about the human’s whereabouts?”
Shining thought back. “All I know is that he’s being closely watched in heavily guarded locations.”
“That actually narrows it down a little.” The valley compound would be a good start. “Question two: What do you mean, taken?”
Shining looked uncomfortable. “All I know on that one is that Celestia and Luna are getting desperate. They reached out to the best warrior world they knew.”
Duke scowled; that didn’t help. “Fine. Three: What is all this about another human before?”
“That history isn’t mine to tell.” the prince began. “You’ll have to ask the princesses, particularly Luna, about that to get the actual story. I can’t help you there. Sorry.” Painfully useless answer.
Duke sighed frustratedly; he was getting much less than he had expected out of this guy. “Damn.” he cursed. “Is there anything else you know that can help us?”
Shining Armor shook his head slowly and genuinely. “I’m sorry I can’t help you any more.” he said sadly. “I wish I could; I know you’ll be good for us while you do your own thing.”
Duke wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Uh, cool, then. I guess we’re done.” Shining nodded. “Since you’re staying here, you’ll sleep...” He looked around, trying to find a place for their high-value guest. “There.” He pointed at Frost’s bed.
“Isn’t that where your friend sleeps?” Shining asked, jumping off the bed.
“Not for tonight.” Duke replied. “Frost!”
“Yeah?” Frost replied, sticking his head out of the walled off area.
“You’ll be sleeping in there with Amel tonight.”
Amel stuck her own head out, said head turning extremely red at what she thought Duke was implying. “Boss, you’re a dick.” Frost replied unhappily. He turned to Amel. “Guess I’ll take the floor, then.”
Amel swallowed hard. “Yes, that works.” she said hastily. Frost nodded to her, then walked out and to his stuff to take his parachute backpack to use as a pillow later. As he returned to the area behind the wall, Amel looked to Duke. “I don’t get it.” she said with her eyes.
Duke smiled. “Neither does he.” he indicated with a movement of his shoulders and head. Amel narrowed her eyes at the human and turned back around, heading into her frosty little alcove.
“Cold shoulder.” Shining commented, taking his place on Frost’s bed. “Some say Hell is hot. I say it’s a frozen wasteland.”
Duke chuckled. “Hell has no fury like a woman’s scorn.”
They both chuckled, and the stallion went to sleep, eager to let it take him after his harrowing experience, and Duke just went over to his gear and started doing his maintenance, glad to be able to let himself be equally as lost in his simple task.
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this is one of the best fanfic I have read on this website
and the end get me a good laugh
cant wait for the next chapter!!!
(really hope that blueblood isn't at the next enemy compound)
damn good chapter as per usual
Sorry, I don't mean to offend you or story but I can't help but say this: Is this gonna be a fic were it turns out that Celestia and Luna actually have known about humans for a long time and such? Or is it just the OGA, Frost, and Duke? And will you explain how Celestia and Luna found out about humans if that turns out to be the case?
3271585
I will. I actually plan to use another story I wrote/am writing for this. All my stories; this one, my other two, and my planned trilogy; take place in the same world, just different times. I was hoping to make it a surprise, but it might actually be better to tell people now; you do NOT have to read any of my other stories to actually get this one. They aren't exactly teen rated like this one, so some of the readers might not be so inclined to read them. It's just a fun little thing I felt like trying.
There is no real need to read the other ones to get this one. I designed it to be like that; the "other human" is really just a subplot that'll get at most one full scene in a chapter. And yes, I will explain the "other human" later. As for the princesses knowing for a long time, it's not a very long time.
But I have revealed too much! Time to go dark.
3272080 You mean by your other two stories you mean ACTF and ACOF? By the way, I read BOTH of those, well ACOF I read up to the latest chapter. And if what you are saying is true that these stories are going to be in the same world... I think I MIGHT, but I'm not entirely sure, I could be wrong, know who the OGA is, (if Duke, Frost, and the other human are the ONLY humans in the story) is.
Can I PM you my guess? And when you say OGA does that stand for Other Government Agency? And also if you didn't know, but you probably do, BOTH of those stories can't be read unless you have a registered account and view mature option checked on since you have mature and gore tags, those 2 stories are "blocked by defualt" so to speak, but like I said, you probably know all of this. That may be a reason why ACTF and ACOF does not have alot of views. And when you say planning a trilogy, do you mean making a trilogy out of ACTF and ACOF? If that's true then I'M SO EXCITED!!! THOSE STORIES ARE AWESOME!!!!! 
3272234
Alas, not of that. It will be a trilogy that takes place before them; the story of Starstep, at the time known as Mustang, and the Nighthawks. The way I plan to end ACOF, it will be definitive. But you never know; the protagonist of those stories might show up somewhere else...
3272333 So pretty much a prequel to ACTF and ACOF? And will Ryan, Duke, Frost, and the OGA ever meet each other face to face? And what do you mean the protagonist may end up somewhere else...? Are you not telling us something... UGH NOW THAT YOU TOLD ME WHAT YOU HAVE, NOW I'M CURIOUS!!!
cdn.meme.li/i/oth5h.jpg
3272420
You may see the protagonist again...
He might be aware of certain events...
Certain characters might meet eventually... Or they might already know each other... Or they have no idea that the others exist...
All shall be known eventually...
3272637 Um...Ok? Lol, what did you think of the meme I made of you?
Were you surprised? 
3272674
Very fitting. I wasn't expecting it at all.
Will they meet Cadence?
For those who read that particular pair of stories, this is a big indicator that its connected
6083505
For sure