//------------------------------// // Chapter 49: Equestrians // Story: Pandemic: What you are Meant to Be // by Halira //------------------------------// The next two nights were not very eventful for the night pony couple. They stocked the grocery store twice. They lounged about watching the activities of the day ponies and humans through the mornings, and they slept. Luna had come again one night and taken Remedy on another tour of nightmares. She started instructing Remedy on being able to track down nightmares and be aware of how severe a nightmare she was getting into before she dived into one. And she demonstrated some tricks to help cause a pony to think about the nightmare without directly confronting the pony face to face in the dream. Other events of note in the days were that the towns and Blessing really were able to wrangle up a full team of lawyers on short notice; both for Wild Growth's sake and for finalizing the resettlement negotiations. When Remedy asked her mom how she had gotten so many lawyers to her so quickly Blessing simply replied that you could make just about anything happen quickly with humans when enough money was involved. Roger actually walked all the way back to Hannahan in order to pick up the family car and bring it back. When Remedy asked him why he and Jean didn't just drive the camper to Hannahan and then each one drive a vehicle back she was told that he just really needed a long walk. Remedy didn't fault wanting exercise, but on foot for a human that was close to a five hour walk. More businesses reopened over the next few days. Things like the Wal-Mart, Lowes, and a few smaller shops. The first restaurant to get itself back open was of course Waffle House, but there was word of mouth a few other restaurants would be reopening again soon. Many businesses had no such timetable though, and only displayed now hiring signs with phone numbers to contact. A large number of others didn't even have the now hiring signs, and looked like they may never reopen. There were some ponies that returned to work, but the vast majority didn't, and there simply weren't enough individuals in the area looking for work to fill all the positions needed. Unless more humans moved into the area soon to fill jobs many of these businesses would be forced to shutter their doors forever. On the third evening from when Wild Growth had accepted her pony name, Remedy and Rosetta were startled awake by said pony yelling in frustration within the camper that they had taken to sleeping in. "IT'S NOT FAIR!" Wild Growth bellowed as she threw herself down on her bedding. "Good evening to you too," Rosetta muttered grumpily as she shook her head to further wake herself. "What's wrong with you?" Remedy asked the green earth pony with a stretch. "To get my powers to really work I've got to be angry. They don't work unless I'm mad. Don't you dare make a Hulk comparison!" Wild Growth fumed. "I'm guessing one of the twins already did," Remedy said with a raised eyebrow. "Yes," the younger mare spit out the answer. "Care to tell us how you figured this out?" Rosetta asked, now fully awake. Wild growth sighed and then sat up with her ears lowered in shame. "The Westvaco guys were here and they said they wanted a demonstration of what I could do," she said. "That's understandable, it's a pretty bold claim that a pony can grow a forest," Remedy said. "I know, and everypony including me expected them to ask. Sunset even arranged with the government people to have a place I could do it," Wild Growth said with a sad shake of her head. "So, what happened?" Rosetta prompted. "I couldn't do it!" Wild Growth cried. She snuffled and then continued. "At least not at first. I was trying hard to make it happen again, but nothing was happening at all. They were getting impatient and angry with me, and calling us all liars about me being able to do it. I got so angry and tried again, and *poof*, we had a new track of woods where there'd been a completely clear field." "And they changed their tune right away I'm guessing," Remedy said with a nod of her head. "Oh definitely, they went from disbelieving to offering me literally a seven-digit salary a year to work for them," Wild Growth said with continued irritation. Remedy counted out the digits in her head and her eyes widened. "Wait, seven digits? As in over a million a year? That's like CEO type money," Remedy said with amazement. "Yeah, I know, and the lawyers and I are going to be talking to them about the details and all. The company says I'm worth every penny in terms of their profits. But don't you see? It still requires me to be angry every single time. I don't want to have to be a fucking rage monster to do my job," Wild Growth started crying as she spoke. Rosetta got up and walked over to her sister. She grabbed her sister up into an embrace and patted her on her back and smoothed her mane as Wild Growth sobbed into her fur. Remedy felt bad for her future sister-in-law. Yes, Wild Growth was set to be a very rich pony, and everything seemed like it would work out with Westvaco, but no pony wanted to have to be constantly angry doing their work. Remedy got up from where she was laying and walked over to the two sisters. She sat down and looked at Wild Growth's cutie mark and considered the younger mare's fear. It didn't seem right that what a pony got their cutie mark for was something that would require them to be inherently unhappy when doing what it indicated. "Maybe it is like flexing a muscle, you have to do it often enough to be able to do it when you want. That would mean after a while you wouldn't need to get angry anymore in order to use your abilities," Remedy suggested. "I hope so. It isn't just the fact I've got to get angry to do it that upsets me. What if I get so used to having to get angry for doing it that I can't get angry anymore, and then can't do it at all? Or I just get angry all the time even when I don't have to be growing anything?" Wild Growth asked as she continued to cry into her sister's fur. "We really need the Equestrians to be more active in telling us about stuff. It seems like there has to be a better way. I keep meaning to ask Luna things and always forget to," Remedy muttered. Wild Growth lifted her head up and blushed, which gave her a pinkish tint to her green fur. "Um yeah, I was supposed to tell you two about that when I came in here," she said with embarrassment. "Tell us what?" Rosetta asked in a low tone. "The Equestrians are on their way, like right now. They had a plane land just before I came in, and were going to be driven over here," Wild said still blushing over her forgetfulness. "What?!" Both night ponies shouted in unison, wings snapping open. Rosetta's wing caught Wild's muzzle as it snapped open. Wild back away from her rubbing her muzzle with a hoof. "Sorry," Rosetta apologized to her sister. "If they're going to be here any time now we need to be out there. We're the only night ponies north of Charleston and they definitely will want to be seeing you too Wild," Remedy said as she headed towards the exit to the camper. "They said they have some doctors, researchers, and a few other ponies coming. What I heard is they're really interested in ponies with no cutie marks, which isn't the three of us," Wild explained as she stood up. "Why ponies with no cutie marks?" Rosetta asked as she too stood up. "Don't know, but the mutters are about them trying to reverse ETS eventually. Sunset seemed really pissed about it," Wild said with her ears lowered. "Well, with my mom that's kind of understandable," Remedy sighed as she pushed the door open. Rosetta hurried her pace and came and touched a wing on Remedy's back to get her attention. "If that's so you need to make sure they talk to your dad. You know how much he wants that," Rosetta said. "If it's eventually that means it isn't happening right now, but I'll make sure he knows and talks to them. Maybe they'll put him on some sort of list of interested ponies," Remedy said with a nod. They all exited out of the camper and quickly found Blessing, Tonya, Number Crunch, agent Simmons, Baker, and Pale Oak-who had previously been named Peter-all standing around awaiting the Equestrians' arrival. The three of them quickly went over and joined them. It was clear that Blessing was not in a good mood at all and Tonya was trying to calm her down. The humans looked more anxious than anything else. Remedy quickly decided upon viewing the group that her mom was not the pony to talk to at the moment, nor Tonya who was just barely keeping Blessing from completely losing her cool. Hopefully Tonya would continue to keep Blessing from losing her temper after the Equestrians arrived. She made the decision to strike up conversation instead with the pony who's job it was to keep track of details. "So any word how many ponies we should be expecting?" Remedy asked Number Crunch. "Three unicorns, an earth pony, a pegasus, and one night pony, not sure on their exact lineup of genders or jobs. Know two are doctors, two are researchers, not sure what the other two are exactly. Assume one is just the head of the group, but still leaves at least one random why are you here pony," Number Crunch said lazily. "You don't seem to be as bothered as my mom is," Remedy whispered as low as she could. "Oh, I am. I just don't have the same level of temper as your mom does. I can't do crap about this and we need to be able to talk to the Equestrians about many things even if their stated goal here ticks me off," Number Crunch said with a shrug. That more or less confirmed what Remedy had suspected about Number Crunch being as much a Shimmerist as Remedy's mom. She wondered if the same was true of Tonya or Pale Oak. She really didn't know much about Pale Oak other than a lot of mares thought him sexy, and the big white earth pony seemed more or less bored right now. Tonya was likely going to back anything her marefriend said or did, which one way or another put her in the Shimmerist category. It wasn't likely that any pony of Shimmerist leanings was going to be happy with these Equestrians. A few minutes of silent waiting eventually led to a small bus finally pulling into the parking lot with a military jeep escort. Soldiers from the jeep got out and did a quick glance around the area before heading to the bus and signaling it to go ahead and open up its door. First out was a human man, dressed much like Baker, who stepped quickly to the side and gave an over-dramatic welcoming gesture for the occupants in the bus to exit. The ponies filed out in short order. First out was an plain brown earth pony stallion who didn't have coloring that would be too far off of a brown horse from earth, he had an hourglass for a cutie mark. Second out was a pegasus stallion who was a deep orange with shortly cut yellow mane, it looked like he had some sort of vase or something for a cutie mark. Third out was a night pony mare who had a light purple fur with darker purple mane. She seemed to have some sort of purple flowers for a cutie mark. Next out was a yellow unicorn mare with a mane that looked like a close match to the color of the night pony's. She had what was clearly a magnifying glass and beetle for a cutie mark, and surprisingly wore glasses; the first Remedy had seen any pony wear glasses. Fifth out was another unicorn mare that could have been the other's twin, minus the glasses. Her cutie mark was an almost cartoon-like picture of a squirrel wearing a sling over a leg. Last out was a pony that made every pony take a step back in shock and horror as they saw her. She was a tall unicorn, extremely dark purple with a magenta mane. There was no telling what her cutie mark was because she was wearing armor engraved with Luna's cutie mark. Other than being taller than most other unicorns and having an imposing appearance the thing that immediately caught every Pony's attention was the fact her horn was clearly shattered, and the sight of the injury made Blessing and Number Crunch look a little ill as they saw it. The broken horned mare took a brief glance around and then marched over to the group with movement that screamed confidence and being used to being in command. She paused and appraised them all with a half mixed gaze that seemed almost bored. "I am Tempest Shadow, captain in her highness Luna's Night Guard. In the name of the princesses and Equestria I greet you," Tempest said.