In Bello Praesidium

by Jean De Basse - Woolie


Chapter Four: Unguibus et Rostro

"Trying to describe our logistical situation could only be summed up with one word: nightmare. Most of the hundred or so KIA were officers and sergeants. Apparently, a parade saber doesn't grant you the same protection as a rifle in a melee. A clear count on how much ammo we'd wasted? At the very least half of it; we were all too trigger happy...didn't know hard the 7.62 actually hurt them, so a lot of folks ended up emptying half their mags into one target. Oh; and our information? Zilch. Nada. Kaput. It's not like anyone had the foresight to take prisoners, and any documents we found were useless. Equestrian and Griffonage are similar to English when you're talking it out, but it's all a bunch of squiggly lines when you start writing! Even our Arabic major couldn't make heads or tails of it, pun fully intended...we'd just lost our bosses, our friends, and our home...I figured we were pretty screwed.

We got lucky though, we've got our problems with some of the griffon princes these days...but our warm and fuzzy relationship with High King and his Vogels? We might've found shelter in Equus, but we owe our lives to her. Thanks to Aloisia, our SNAFU could be downgraded to a jumbled mess.

Still sucked a lot and all."

-Recorded interview with Charlie Byrd for the Canterlot Archives File: "First Contact"

CHAPTER FOUR: UNGUIBUS ET ROSTRO

Danny Treptow wasn't planning on fighting in any battle or killing anyone at any time in his life. Stonebridge was an odd college for someone who didn't want to fight, but the alumni network was just too tempting to turn down, and the engineering scholarship had clinched it. He was eventually won over by the Air Force, the promise of piloting cargo sounded rather appealing to him; got to help without hurting anyone. Opened up plenty of job fields once he did his time too. Even then, he didn't think he'd ever actually see combat; only hear about it as he hopped between bases for a few years.

To be fair, Danny technically hadn't fought. Bagpipes aren't really useful as weapons.

But apparently, you can cripple a dog-monster using a bagpipe with a high 'C' before your best friend kills it with a pair of drumsticks through the eyes. So there was that.

Danny Treptow was still caught in a daze of it all as the world moved around him as the battle faded away. The ugly smack of limp, alien bodies being tossed into a pile behind him sent waves of nausea rolling through his stomach as it tugged him back to his current work. Sharron's upbeat, borderline happy attitude, was getting under his skin as he shuffled behind her as they checked over the neat rows of fallen cadets. A pad of paper in his hand as he mindlessly scribbled down the names of the bodies.

"Danny-boy...Danny...Treptow! You're staring...and not in a good way, is something on my face?" said Sharron as she tilted her head at him. Her voice hummed out with a tone that'd usually make his heart skip but fell flat to him as she moved the body of the cadet like a ragdoll. Flipping the corpse onto its stomach, she fished out two magazines from his cartridge box before checking his cover for his name.

"Looks like our friend here is one...'Sutton, Allen: Foxtrot Commanding Officer'...I remember him! He was in our Biochemistry class last year! Funny guy; a bit of a charmer too. So confident, cute, and look at that smile!" teased Sharron as she rolled the body to its back, cupping Allen's cheeks to make a rather disturbed grin.

"Jesus...Sharron...how're you..." stammered out Danny as he scribbled down the name of the unfortunate cadet. His hands were squeezing hard on the pen as he started to glare at her. Her rounded, bright smile was infuriating him to no end as she arched a brow at him and kept squeezing at Allen's cheeks: it was disgusting.

"Sharron! Knock it off!" screamed Danny as grabbed her shoulder and shoved her back off the body. Instantly regretting the decision as she stared up at him with a cold glare and rose to her feet to shove his much larger frame in return.

"Jackass, you've got a pair! What the hell is wrong with you? You've been acting like a wuss since I gutted the dog back when it attacked! Get your head back in this game!"

"You're playing with Allen's goddamn body; can you not see how goddamned screwed up that is?!" screamed Danny as he shook her by her shoulders, "This isn't a game!"

"There's unicorns, magic, and I just killed monster; heaven forbid I try to make a few jokes and have fun with it all! It has to be a game...god...I jus-..." tearing up, Sharron fell forward to bury her head into Danny's shoulder; choking back a sob before she spoke into him.

"This has to be a game...it has to be...everyone's dead a-and...god Danny, I just want to go home...this isn't right."

Holding her, Danny lost a lot of his anger. He found it a bit of a cliche, but it was melting away. Holding the back of her head, he hugged her tight as he could before letting go. She was hurting just as badly as he was, just had her way of dealing with it. Albeit it was beyond messed up. Speaking in a soft tone, he let his arms hang down by his sides as she still seemed intent on squeezing him like a giant teddy bear, "I want to go home too, but...we...this isn't a game. We play our parts, and we can still get out of this...just, keep it together. I've got you. We're going to make it, here, I'll get the names from the bodies. You just write them down."

Feeling her nod into his coat, he moved out of the embrace and towards the lines of neatly placed cadets. Kneeling down, he began the search of next man. It only took a moment to identify him. He didn't need to check for rank or his name. Danny knew him quite well. Everyone did. Clearing his throat a bit, Danny turned his head up towards Sharron.

"King, Henry...Regimental Commander...what's the count so far?"

Sharron offered a slight nod to him as she looked at the paper; "That's fifty-four confirmed deaths, another seventy or so yet to be identified...with a few more still being treated by the EMTs."

Turning his head to stare at the orderly rows of bodies, Danny felt his stomach tie into a knot. It felt like there was so many. As if the entire corps was gutted. He knew that it wasn't the case, but there were enough familiar faces among the dead that it felt like he'd lost a whole part of his family.

And in a way, he did. They all did.

Standing up, he stepped over King and moved to the next body.

"Brown, David...Delta Company Executive Officer."

If they couldn't get them home, he'd get them buried properly; they'd want that. They deserved that. They bled here, as far as he could tell they earned a piece of 'home,' somewhere in this world at least. Right here though, right now, Danny knew something for a fact. This little, shitty fort was now a small piece of Virginia. It was part of America. And it was part of the Institute.

It was a little piece of home.

"New Stonebridge..." he said, as if sampling the name on his tongue, "...this place should be called New Stonebridge."

"A bit unoriginal in my opinion, but it'll hold up. I think they'd like it too...Institute wasn't much to look at anyway, they'll appreciate the irony," teased Sharron as she set a hand on Danny's shoulder, wearing a more relaxed smile.

Things were messed up, they'd lost friends, but he still had his best friend. Rising with a small smirk on his face, Danny found himself blushing as he snatched the notepad from her hands and tapped the top of her head with it, "It's for them. Not for you and your twisted sense of humor."

Flipping to growing list of the KIA he scribbled in what he considered to be suitable:

'Died on the Field of Honor during the Siege of New Stonebridge'


Aolisia flew down the winding corridors of the catacombs, crashing through thin doors and cutting down the mercenaries trailing before her in their frantic retreat from the invaders. Swinging her short sword into the back of a pegasus, she cleaved through the wings before tossing the screaming pony over her shoulder as she continued her mad sprint.

There was no way she was letting that bastard escape. He'd done too much to get escape now!

"Com'on...com'on..." she said to herself as she picked up a tower shield to use as a battering ram as she crashed through another door. Greeting her was a small pack of mercenaries, their faces partially obscured by crude armor wearing looks of shock as she tumbled into their room. A griffon in thin leather armor and polished steel plates cocked an open helmet towards her wearing an angry glare.

"All of you fall back! I'll hold the Vogel off, protect him with your lives!"

That soft-beaked traitor was wearing her gear. He was wielding her sword. He wore Vogel's sigil on his chest. And was giving orders to Sardonyx's pawns.

Sardonyx could...wait, at least for the moment. She could deal with his lackey easy enough, and it saved time she'd have to spend later looking for her gear. Eyeing up the griffon across from her, she began to stalk around him in a wide circle as the other mercenaries filed out of the room. Her voice rolled out coolly as she arched her brow,

"It's bad luck to take someone's armor while they're still alive...and it's an even worse idea to take it from a Vogel."

"Vogel this, and Black-Vogel that...I wasn't hatched yesterday half-blood...you're Aloisia Asumahn aren't you? Alger's bastard daughter to that 'camp wife' in the slum fiefdom of Griffonstone. I thought I recognized your family's mark staining this armor somewhere, but it's not even your family! He didn't even give you the name!" cackled the armored griffon as he rose to his hind-legs and lowered the sword into angled guard.

"Knight-Commander to you scum...I don't need his name. My own has gotten me far enough, farther than whatever yours did. A mercenary is such a high honor," teased Aloisia as she stayed low; creeping around her circle as she began to tighten it up with each careful step.

"Don't act so coy girl, I'm no mere mercen-"

" 'No mere mercenary dog,' that's where that was going right, exile? You must be an exile! Only a low-born noble would have the audacity to still have his pride after being cast out," cut in Aloisia as she shot herself towards the disgruntled griffon. He barely managed to deflect a slash to his head before her leg swung into his side and sent him staggering back.

"You snide bit-" barked out the griffon as he swung high over Aloisia as she fell back to the ground, her arm shooting out to slash one of his hind-legs with her blade; opening a wide gash in his ankle.

"No real skill either, other griffons I've seen in Sardonyx's ranks are at least veterans of some kind...maybe from your house?"

Her taunt brought an angry cry from the griffon as he swung the sword down like a hammer, chipping its edge against the stone floor as he missed her. He staggered forward as the pain in his leg controlled him, Aloisia rolling up to her feet wearing a broad smile. Her blade swung to slash at one of his exposed wings, her follow-through passing through the thin limb easily as it fell twitching to the floor.

"You're-I'm sorry, you were a prince, weren't you? You know what's funny? You weren't even important enough for the Lord Protector to mention when I received the mission: I bet that stings. But what's a name worth anyway?"

"Shut up!" bellowed the exile as he lunged wildly at her. The sword was caught above his head as Aloisia forced his wrist to give way with an audible 'pop.' Reclaiming her blade as she swung its spiked pommel back against his exposed face and skipped back.

"You're child wielding a toy; let me demonstrate how a real griffon uses a sword."

Wrapping her talon a few inches past the hilt, she dashed forward swinging the sword in short cuts to slash at his hands as he brought them up in a desperate defense. Her efforts granted her pained cries from the griffon as a talon broke against her steel as she closed the distance between them. Her shoulders leaned forward as she lunged and drove the tip of her sword into the open faced helmet.

The weak fight she felt along the length of her weapon died away as she jerked it violently to the side before stepping back, withdrawing the sword she let the exiled prince crumpled limp to the floor.

She wasn't just angering the griffon when she teased him, and that annoyed her to no end. She hadn't been told about him. Sardonyx wasn't supposed to have any allies in griffon lands. Perhaps a few local thugs and outsourced mercenaries were to be expected, but an exiled noble house? There was something more at play.

Eyeing the dead griffon's body as he stained her sigil with his blood, she shook her head before leaning down to remove the chest-piece and quickly strap it to herself. The drying blood tugged at the feathers around her neck, but she could clean it later when she recovered the rest of her armor.

Hopping over the prince's body, she swung herself down the hallway as she dashed where the prince's allies had fled. She was close now. The corridors were narrowing, and she could begin to feel a draft in the air with the hum of wind against the stone.

"Another exit..." she cursed to herself as she rounded the twisting zig-zag of endless corners before emerging into a large dome stretching up into darkness. Shadows were cast across the bones and cobwebs decorating the catacomb's decaying center from a flickering portal dominating the chamber. The remaining mercenaries smuggling crates and themselves through the portal as the lithe form of a three-legged Saddle Arabian watched with a book held in his magic as he idly flicked through the pages.

Shifting around slowly on his remaining legs, Sardonyx cast a broad smile at Aloisia as his men called out a warning to him. Nodding the dark fur of his head, he tilted his horn towards the portal, "All of you go: now. I'll be right behind you."

The remaining band of mercenaries shot worried looks to their boss; the group taking the remaining crates with them as they fled. The crypt soon emptied save for Aloisia and Sardonyx. The griffon staring daggers at the unicorn as he wore a smile that twisted a knife under her feathers.

"I'm surprised they'd follow you still...your monsters killed their boss and most of their friends," snapped Aloisia as she began a slow walk forward. The griffon dragging the tip of her sword against the stone as she felt her beak bending into a wide grin. Her heart beat against her armor. She had him, only a few steps away.

"They understand the meaning of sacrifice and courage...their way to glory! Or at least to payment in the spoils of our victory."

"Glory? What glory have you offered? You wiped out a village of griffons for blood magic, slaughtered a few ponies for that book of yours, and, betrayed your king...all I see is corruption, murder, and betrayal! No glory in that," she said. Just had to keep him talking. To close the distance.

"The Sultanate is not a king worth dying for! I will forge a new path in his damned blood! The glory I offer is not your simple minded 'power,' but it is the glory of being free from the gods that rule over you all like puppets! My glory that my men so eagerly cling to? I give them freedom from tyrants! No Sultans...no Princesses...and no High-Kings," bellowed out Sardonyx as he slammed his hoof to the ground; the crack echoing out in the chamber over the hum of the portal, giving Aloisia pause for just a moment.

Composing himself, the unicorn blinked as he shook his head. The stallion seemed tired as if the weight of the day fell on his shoulders all at once. An opening.

Lunging forward, Aloisia's wings flung her towards the pony, attempting to swing her blade against his head. A sharp 'fizzle' crackled out from his horn faster then she could swing as a kinetic blast punched her in the chest and shot her back against the wall with an ugly 'pop.'

"You consider yourself a servant of justice? It's all you rambled about when we held you...your mission, your creed...it's nothing if it only preserves tyranny. And what makes your methods so different than mine? I've read my history, Vogel! When the High-King needs to put down a peasant revolt, he does not send the Legions...no, he sends the Vogels to do the dirty work. How many villages of your own have you wiped out? How many have you killed? Ask your Lord Protector about those facts and see how heroic your efforts are to your decaying Empire..."

Aloisia rose slowly; her ribs were stinging her as she hobbled forward. The burning sensation against her chest fell away as she tore off the charred remains of her chest piece. She stumbled, angrily cursing to herself as her ribs screamed out in agony as she struggled to hold out her weapon properly as the horned-bastard continued to smile; "Shut up! You...three-legged freak, I'll send you Tartarus to rot!"

"No, you won't," hummed out Sardonyx as another smile was plastered across his face, the pony turning on his hooves as he backed through the portal snapping his book shut.

"You and what army..is going to stop me...?" grunted out Aloisia as she hobbled closer. She leaned her weight against her sword before she collapsed to her knees, her legs giving out from under her as the pain in her side overcame her fury.

"Why that army I summoned of course," teased Sardonyx as the clatter of feet became audible from the hall behind her. The shouts of Sardonyx's creatures racing towards her as the portal began to twist and tear as the stallion disappeared into it. A sharp whine held out in the air as the portal's light stretched wide before snapping close in a bright flash. Leaving Aloisia in stunned silence as a group of monsters trickled into the room.

The cold nip of metal against the back of her neck sent a shiver down her wings. She didn't need to turn around to know what was pressing into her feathers. Aloisia closed her eyes and let her mind wander to happier times, she knew what was coming next. She was determined to meet her end in peace. Her mind raced to time with her mother baking at home and the sweet taste of the pastries she'd make in the winter for her! She could still smell the nutmeg and flour stained against her mother's apron, but it was going to be torn away from her in an instant. A tear rolled down the side of her cheek as the memory faded, only the frantic unease of waiting overcame her as silence hung in the damp air of the tomb. She choked out bitter question, "What...are you waiting for?"

Looking over her shoulder, she saw the face of one of the creatures for the first time. It had sharp features, a stubby snout and angled jaw that wore a thin frown. Its weapon began to shake against the back of her neck. She stared at it for another moment; it was crying too.

The creature let out a choked sob, the weapon still raised as its eyes blinked against a few stray tears rolling down its face. Its voice whispered out past a sore throat in fluent Griffonage, "I...I don't...I...I didn't mean...to..."

Its allies began to lower their weapons, the creatures looking at each other as they seemed intent to watch their friend. One of them slowly approached it, setting a hand on the crying one's shoulder before the creature shrugged it away continued to hold the weapon at her. Blinking a bit, it stared at her. It looked sad, covered in mud and splotches of blood against its grey coat, it looked like a broken toy as opposed to a fearsome monster. Aloisia rose a talon to wipe her face a bit as she closed her eyes once more and waited.

And still, she waited, the metal left her neck as the thing fell to its knees beside her. It cupped the top of its head knocking away its hat to expose a brown mane as it let out another choked sob; "I'm sorry...n-no more...no more killing...I-I..."

The other creatures began to ignore Aloisia and turned their attention to the catacomb, shifting away as another one of the soldiers wrapped an arm around its friend, "Yeah Cantwell...okay...no more killing today...we're going to keep looking around, stay here and...watch it I guess."

'Cantwell' nodded slowly, Aloisia flinched at the glare given by its friend before it moved to join the others in exploring the dome. Shifting a bit, she felt her heart start beating again as her talon shook uncontrollably. The wave of adrenaline keeping her conscious fading away as the pain in her side drove her onto her back with a soft squawk. The dark lighting of the tunnel fading away as 'Cantwell' called out to its friends in the stale air of the catacomb.

"Byrd! G-guys! We need an EMT it's passing ou-!"