//------------------------------// // First Contact Riots // Story: All-American Girl: The Third Law of Motion // by Cody MacArthur Fett //------------------------------// “Bwahahahaha!” “Hey, Mac, settle down; this ain’t funny,” Fit Printer, editor of the Manehattan Beugel, told his newest columnist. The stallion had a nose for what people wanted to read, and his writing was top notch, but he had some quirky ideas about things that some people didn’t like. Quirky, but never this blatantly . . . weird. “It’s hilarious!” Macaroni shouted in brief moments between bouts of laughter. As much as he would later deny it, Fit Printer started involuntarily chuckling too. “It’s the War of the Elements, the biggest news story of the last ten years, and here you are, rolling around on my office floor laughing your flank off!” “'War'?” Macaroni suddenly got far more serious, though he was still cracking an unconscious smile. “I’ve been in war, and this isn’t it. This is just a custody case.” “Ain’t your family involved in this, Mac? Shouldn’t you care more?” the editor asked seriously. “Hey! Distant relatives,” Macaroni corrected, finally sitting back down in his chair. “Just because Stronghoof the Mighty turned out to be an ancestor of both myself and the plaintiff’s dead stepdaughters doesn’t mean that I’m suddenly going to give a sewer rat’s tail about the outcome of his case. Same goes for the defendants.” “So you don’t care whether a pony should be with those who birthed her or those who raised her? Nature versus nurture? The very fabric of society?” the stallion in charge asked. Macaroni just shook his head. “You can try to make this out like some big thing any way you want to, but ultimately, this is a private matter, and the ponies of the general populace shouldn’t get involved.” Fit Printer stared his columnist down for a moment before replying. “Good, run with that. Maybe my wife will read it and shut up for a night about these humans’ ‘adorable noses.’” “I’m telling you, Mac, if you want to move up in this business, you got to go out and find the news, not just sit back and comment on everyone else’s table scraps like a bum,” Just News, ace reporter for the Manehattan Beugel, said to his friend as they walked down the crowded Manehattan sidewalks. Macaroni snorted. “Excuse me, but my job allows me to sit back and think about a situation, choosing just the right moment to act, unlike you in the reporting division, stumbling about without a clue in the world.” “Sit back and think? Is that how you got that medal on your desk?” Just mocked. “You know darn well how I got that.” “We all do. You wouldn’t shut up about it. What I don’t get is how you got that thing for ‘dynamic action,’ yet you’re happy just letting us reporters do all the work. The only reason I can figure . . .” Just flapped his wings to fly backwards in front of the unicorn, “. . . is that you’re lazy.” “That’s hilarious coming from someone too lazy to have an opinion on an issue.” “I don’t need to. All I need is to present the facts, and ponies can make up their own minds.” “Ponies don’t want to make up their minds; they want to be told how to think.” “How do you figure?” “Easy. I’m still getting paid.” The argument between the two ponies was broken up by a loud bang, followed by the sound of ponies screaming, and then the roar of a crowd. “The protests!” both of them shouted before moving like lightning towards the sound of danger. Since the previous day, there had been protests and counter-protests in Manehattan over the custody battle between House Lipizzan and the Martinez family. Much to Macaroni’s disappointment, things had played out far closer to Celestia’s prediction than his own, and now it appeared to have reached a tipping point. Now smoke and fire were rising into the city skyline. Mac ran as fast as his legs could carry him, dodging panicked ponies as he weaved throughout the crowd. High above, Just flew, trying to figure out the path of the protests turned riots. They paid each other no heed as they shot through the city. Eventually, Mac passed the bulk of fleeing civilians, allowing him to see what was going on in the streets ahead. It was a horror show on the level of anything he had seen in combat, with ponies punching and bucking each other like animals. One of the ponies was wearing a black mask and longcoat to obscure his face and cutie mark. It was he who drew forth a glass bottle with a damp rag sticking out of it, and with practiced ease, he extracted a cigarette lighter and set flame to the rag. A simple jerk of his front hooves sent the improvised incendiary device flew through the air, arcing lazily across the street until it hit a storefront entrance and burst into molten gas. Screams could be heard in the now burning building. Macaroni redoubled his speed, several of his hoofsteps cracking the concrete where it was weak, and reached the building in seconds. He had always been more of a brute than magician, and that extended even to his magic, but he knew how to use that. So he let forth a kinetic blast from his horn, hitting the glass of the storefront’s display windows with the force of a thrown stallion, sending glass shards into the store but hopefully not very far in. That, he saved for himself. With a brief shield to catch any glass that hadn’t been broken by the bolt, he bounded into the store with rapidity. Taking a look around, he saw a trio of gryphons adorned with aprons staring at him in fear. Useless sentimentality, that emotion. “Your path has been cleared. Fly, or die here!” he shouted at them sternly. The trio wasted no time in heeding his warning, running past him and flying out the broken window. Before the smallest of the three did so, she turned back to him and shouted her thanks. Macaroni grunted and bounded right back out of the burning store to gaze upon the battlefield that the street had become. South of his then current position, he saw a unicorn organizing the rioters and looters, directing them to do yet more wicked deeds and encouraging them on in their destruction with rhetoric most foul. As Macaroni ran up to confront them, he realized that he recognized the rabblerouser. He slowed his run to a trot and gaped openly at the pony who had now noticed him. “Sten- . . .” “Do not call me that!” the unicorn interrupted as he advanced on Mac. “That name no longer holds any meaning for me. Call me … Firebrand!” Mac’s eyebrows raised and a frown creased his muzzle. “Last I saw you, the centurion was chasing you out of the base with a pitchfork. What the buck happened to you?” The blue-furred unicorn narrowed his green eyes. “I was reborn!” he bellowed. “After I was kicked out of the corrupt military, I was found in my darkest moment by the Weather Underground, a name I’m sure you know well.” Macaroni showed only the slightest hint of surprise. “I seem to remember something about it.” “You lie!” Firebrand shouted. “You and your family left, just like the rest of the cowards and the fools, but do not worry, we’ve reforged ourselves into a new organization, the Purehooves.” “Purehooves?” Mac asked. He noticed with only a little trepidation that his teeth were clenching, and his blood pressure was rising. “Yes, we finally realized that the biggest thing standing between ponykind and their collective destiny was other species. The weak donkeys, the savage gryphons, the vile changelings, the mentally deficient pandas, and now, the bloodthirsty humans. They all feast upon the sweat of the working pony, them and their corporate collaborators in the noble class. We seek to end this exploitation and set up a dictatorship of the common pony for the proper redistribution of wealth equally amongst the only worthy species in the universe,” Firebrand expounded, clearly digging from prepared talking points. “That wasn’t what the Weather Underground was about,” Mac half-growled. “Didn’t you hear? We realized the truth, and now we’re helping others realize the truth, and then we’ll wipe out the non-ponies, and then we’ll collectivise the farms!--RRRAAAAAGH!!!” Firebrand fell to the ground, clutching at the knife sticking out of his right eye, a pale gray aura fading from the knife’s handle and Macaroni’s horn. Instantly, the victim’s cronies were upon him, smashing their hooves into his barrel and throwing him to the ground. He had been in fights like this before, both in his youth and his term of service, and he knew what to do. But buck, there were a lot of them. Combat spells and fists flew in discordant harmony as Mac fought the crowd, but it didn’t take long before a hoof found his muzzle, then a buck found his flank, then another blow, and another. Before long, he was on the ground again, the crowd surrounding him. One of them, an earth pony, reared up to bring his front hooves down on his head. There was a blur and a crack, and suddenly, the selfsame was being done to him. The crowd turned to look at the newcomer, giving the unicorn veteran at their hooves the chance to lash out with a kick that sent a few off balance. They turned back to him just in time for a pegasus to smash two of their heads together again. “I got your back!” Just News cried out, climbing away from his previous victims to deliver an airborne buck to a pegasus with a suspiciously blank flank and black mask. The other pegasus cried out in pain as he dropped to the ground with one wing broken. Mac backed away from the crowd and charged his horn. Those still standing looked between the horn and the pegasus above and ran. Several of their companions still nursing their wounds were trampled in the rush. Macaroni stared at the retreating forms and seriously contemplated unleashing his spell on them, but in the end gave into exhaustion and let it fade. “How many were there?” he growled, coughing up a wad of blood as he did so. “Twenty? Thirty?” “I counted eight total,” Just News reported before turning to face his compatriot. “You look like manure with a swollen eye, Mac. Let’s get you to a doctor.” Mac nodded and looked over his shoulder at the gryphon-owned shop that was now completely engulfed in flames. Off in the distance, he could see another crowd of ponies fighting each other. Screams and sirens filled the acrid air. “Looks like you were right, you precognitive herridelle. This country is tearing itself apart,” Mac muttered. A little over week later, Macaroni stumbled into his apartment with a few more bandages than usual. Groaning, he looked around his tiny dwelling area to see if anything had been stolen since he had been there last. With a sigh he relaxed, knowing that everything was in place. Well, at least in his apartment. Outside the window, a gray haze hung over everything, broken only by the occasional shadow of a barded pegasus. Peace had finally been returned to Manehattan with the declaration of martial law and the deployment of the Equestriani Royal Guard to the streets the previous day. A week too late, in Mac’s opinion. Mac groaned as he stumbled over to his bed, his hat and writing equipment taken away in a weak telekinetic field before he collapsed into his bed. His sigh was happy this time; he would soon be asleep. A series of repeated knocks came to the door, and with an angry growl, he rose from his bed and walked back over to his apartment door. “Who is it?” he asked before looking through the peephole sight in the door. It was his parents. “Mother, Father, what are you two doing here?” Mac asked as he opened the door to reveal a pegasus mare and earth pony stallion with colorations similar to his sandy hues. “I’m sorry, dear, did we wake you?” his mother asked sweetly as they entered the apartment. “Yes,” he growled angrily before shutting his door and locking it again. “But that still doesn’t answer the question of why you’re here.” “Your mother and I were worried, with all the riots in the news,” his father answered before turning to face him. “We haven’t talked in person in years, son. What’s happened?” Mac used his magic to highlight his desk chair for his mother and a crate of ink cartridges for his father as he walked back to his bed. “It’s a long story,” he said depressively. “Don’t worry, honey. We’ve got all the time in the world for you,” his mother answered with a smile as she sat in the chair. Mac sat back on his haunches and sighed heavily. “You remember my old friend? The reason I joined the Royal Guard?” “Yes, his name was Sten-something or other,” his father answered. “Well he ended up getting kicked out after sowing his wild oats with the commander’s family . . .” “Oh my!” his mother gasped, scandalized. “But he was such a nice colt.” “. . . Leaving me still in there. So I spent the next six years in the Guard, which was a lot more boring than you would think, and then a week ago, I run into him down on Memel Street. Turned out, he joined the Weather Underground, or what’s left of it, but they’re calling themselves the Purehooves now. He changed his name too, called himself Firebrand.” His parents were staring at him in disbelief, jaws loosened in shock. “Son, are you sure about that?” his father asked. “Quite sure.” “Well . . .” his mother paused to gather her thoughts. “What did you do?” I killed him. “I asked some probing questions, tried to find out why the Underground had returned,” Mac answered easily, keeping his thoughts just that. “What did you find out?” his mother asked, her forehooves visibly shaking. “Nothing good. There’s a lot of the old philosophy left, but they’ve completely flipped on race. They now view all non-ponies as their enemies, and that change seems to have become an obsession for them. Firebrand was stirring up ponies to burn down gryphon-owned businesses, and I’ve seen a lot more ponies like him over the last week stirring up the crowds to riot and loot and destroy. The only thing they seem to care about is seeing this city go up in flames,” Macaroni said, his voice growing harsher with each passing word. “This . . . this isn’t right. There’s got to be some mistake,” his father declared. “I can’t believe that . . “ he looked into his son’s eyes, challenging him to back down, and after several tense seconds backed down. “Chaffe never should have left.” “No, that Revanche mare never should have been allowed to join up. She’s the one who risked everything over one stallion,” his mother complained. “Can you really blame her after all that’s happened in the last few months with that stallion and mare?” Mac asked. “Yes,” his mother answered quickly. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. Everything that’s gone wrong with the Underground and this whole nasty ‘War of the Elements’ business is because she couldn’t let a stallion go. Ponies died, ponies are still dying, she died, and it was all for nothing.” Silence once again came upon the trio. It was an eerie unnatural silence, alien in its entirety to the city. It was a stunning mark of what had been lost. “That haridelle knew this was coming,” Mac cursed. “Who?” “Language!” “Celestia!” Mac snapped. “You met the Sun Tyrant?” his father asked, stunned. The son grunted before explaining. “Months ago, Celestia came to me after a battle. I had enacted a risky but successful maneuver, and while I was awarded a medal for my deeds, she personally wanted me out. She said that the nation needed writers more than it did soldiers, and that I would comply because we were of similar character. I complied because I thought she had discovered our past, but before that, I got her to admit though that something bad had happened and that it was going to come out soon. “When I first heard about this custody case, I laughed. I laughed long and hard because I believed that Celestia had grossly overestimated what had happened, but she was right, and I was wrong. She knew this was going to happen, and yet she… did… nothing!” Mac stood from his bed to stand his forehooves upon his desk and gesture out the window. “Look at this! For a week, ponies in this town were at each other’s throats, two sides engaging in gang warfare as the norm, half the city destroyed, these Purehooves freely spreading their anti-human propaganda and encouraging the destruction, economic and social collapse on a scale never seen before. It’s going to take decades for this city to recover, if it ever recovers at all, and she knew it was all coming. Mother, if you knew this was coming, would you prepare?” His mother was taken aback but responded quickly. “Y-yes! Yes, I would. I would have made everything public from the start and made sure the police were well-equipped to fight this.” Mac gestured to his father, who responded just as quickly. “I would have just made sure the guard were ready to move in the moment the first riot was reported.” “Both sensible answers, and yet, she did nothing. She did worse than nothing, if some of my contacts are to be believed. House Lipizzan didn’t even know there was going to be a trial until a few days before they showed up in court, and the Martinez family were never once even offered proper legal council. This is a boondoggle, the nation is in flames, and . . . those Purehooves need to be stopped.” Having ended his speech Macaroni sat back down on his bed, trying to think of a way he could have ended it better. “What about an assignment on the human world?” his father asked, breaking the silence once again. “What?” Macaroni and his mother asked in unison. He continued, “Well, think about it, you’re a newspony, right? We both love reading your columns in the paper. Why not take an assignment writing about this new world? Show ponies there’s nothing to fear and counteract Purehoof propaganda.” “I think we still have some contacts with other Weatherponies, maybe we can get them to fight back against this corruption,” his mother added helpfully. Mac shifted his gaze between his two parents. “I’ll think about it,” he admitted. “Good,” his mother said. “Now what’s this about a medal?” Never were such terrible words spoken, “First Contact Riots.” That is what the calamitous events of the past weeks have been dubbed, when a simple custody case spiraled out of control into an international furor with riots in cities across Equestria. The worst of these was, without a doubt, in my own city of Manehattan. I will not horrify current readers nor bore future readers with the details; there are many an article printed in this very paper on the grim specifics of the event. What I will tell you is that such terrors were not an accident. I have personally seen the reason for the conflict, and it was not a ill-prepared and worse-fought custody case in far off Canterlot. The blame for this event lies squarely on the diseased withers of the Purehooves. These heinous villains whispered venom into the ears of innocent ponies before the riots, moving them to hatred and protest against those who were their neighbors. They then started the conflagration and kept it going with viperous tongues and tainted hooves. I saw them attack a poor family of gryphon bakers, trying to burn them alive with bottles of hateful flammables. A friend and I were able to evacuate them to safety, but that did not stop their business, which had been a staple of Manehattan life for four generations, from being destroyed by one of their fetid commanders. It was a scene that repeated itself over and over across the city. These despicable Purehooves have revealed their black hearts and seen fit to turn us into them, but I have faith in the common pony. We will not become the demons who will destroy ourselves that these fiends want us to become. Indeed, it is they who will feel the righteous sting of justice.