The World is my Sandbox

by PoniesMine

Chapter Nineteen: You know who sucks? Ponies, that's what.

“It's very dramatic when two people come together to work something out. It's easy to take a gun and annihilate your opposition, but what is really exciting to me is to see people with differing views come together and finally respect each other.”
― Fred Rogers
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Chapter Nineteen: You know who sucks? Ponies, that's what.
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“Firstly, I would like to apologise on behalf of the Republican Government for the delayed meetings with you,” a well dressed Griffon informs, “as well as combining your two congregations, due to unprecedented events, we’re on a quite tight schedule.”

Three occupants were located in a room, the griffon that spoke stood with his claws held behind his back, and straightened his spine to appear professional. He was wearing a well-tailored suit, fitted with a bronze medal which highlighted his position in the parliament, an ambassador.

The other two creatures, one a pony of Germane nationality, and the other a zebra from the United Zebra Soviets waited with patient/bored expressions as they finally were able to gather the Republic Government’s attention long enough to be hosted a meeting. Both could agree on the annoying situation they were placed in, they would’ve preferred to return back to their home country as fast as physically possible, return to their families, and their luxuries.

“It’z no problem,” the Germane mare stated, “I wouldn’t like to impede on your internal affairs.”

The unnamed Zebra simply nodded in agreement.

“On another note,” the griffon smiled, “the Council members were very surprised by your generous gifts, those vegetarian ‘sausages’ you provided,” he gestured to the Germane, then turned to the Zebra “and those..cigars you issued have certainly been interesting, I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple shipments of the stuff are ordered from your country.”

He smiled.

“Now that is out of the way,” the Griffon clears his throat, “I would like to formally introduce myself, my name is Enhance Impression. I’m aware you’ve already provided your individual names on paper, but I would like to hear it directly from you gents.”

The Zebra one clears his throat, “I am generally referred to as Валерий Романов in my native language, but you can call me Vas.”

Enhance rotates to point towards the remaining creature in the room, “And you?”

“Adviser and Diplomat Lieselotte Weiß, Germane Reich Chancellery.”

The griffon claps his claws together, procuring a loud enough sound to shock the two other residents in the room, “Fantastic! Let's get going then, shall we?”

Diplomat Enhance Impression’s job was to contain a good image of the Griffon Republic from the rest of the world's perspective, this obviously included affairs with foreign officiates. Ensuring that all comfort was of the highest quality, the country could after all, deeply benefit from a newfound alliance. That act alone would set the scores of this civil war in stone.

His current job was to make the two diplomats as pleased as physically possible, and to a certain degree, ‘privileged’. He was required to present the Griffon Republic’s parliament, showcasing off it limited profound wonders. When I mean limited, I truly mean limited. Just after ten minutes of walking around with the two trailing behind, he had already run out of things to say. So to fill in the time, he was forced to engage in general communication.

Subsequently, after virtually one hour of showcasing the enterprise, Enhance lead the two individuals into an office, a very particular office who had the leader of the entire country, President Senatus, behind the desk. The diplomat knocked on his door.

“It’s Impression,” he spoke through the wooden entrance, “I’m here with the two foreign diplomats.”

After a brief pause, the small group could discern the words, “Come in,” from the other side.

It was at this moment that the Zebra and Germane Pony decided to gaze at one another’s eyes, they may have only met each other within the last two days, it, however, felt like they were required to work together to achieve their goals, they were, after all, a little anxious.

Enhance Impression gripped hold of the door hand, and pushed the door open at a reasonably leisurely pace. Lucky, no ‘creaking’ noises could be depicted, the atmosphere would’ve dabbled in a higher concentration of stress.

Vas and Lieselotte Weiß walked into the room behind their contour, and just kinda stood there, in front of the desk. Neither had any idea what griffon customs were like, so to remain respectful, neither did anything. Each individual only stared straight ahead out of consideration.

Well, that was until the griffon diplomat performed an exceedingly quick bow. Now they weren’t so sure, should they kneel? Would it be disrespectful not to? After less than three-seconds of processing these urgent data packets, both came to the conclusion; yes, they should bow out of courtesy.

Both bowed before the president, one in a quick a timely matter (the Germane), while the other, the zebra, undertook a deep, and very respectful bow, all the way to the floor. The two different individuals rose at different intervals.

The president spoke, “Don’t worry about any of that nonsense, we don’t do that here.”

They quickly nodded in timely succession, it looked as though their decision was incorrect. It, however, didn’t seem to upset him, so hopefully, no insults were spared.

“Impression over here,” he gestured to the right, “Said that both of you have proposals on behalf of your home country, now would be as good time as any to share them with me,” he shrugged, “how bout’ we start with, he pointed at the Germane, “you.”

“Vell, our glorious leader, Führer Aryanne Hoofler,” she started as a small stack of parchment was removed from somewhere in her clothes, “wantz to establish a research agreement,” Weiß walks up to his desk, positions the paper on-top, and slowly retreats, “including the negotiations of military technology and doctrines.”

President Senatus seemingly nods to this as he grabs onto the applicable agreement, his claws steadily flips through the pages one-by-one, each second that passed by seemed to etch a deeper and deeper frown across his facade. This was followed by several proceedings of awkward silence.

Until eventually, he broke this tranquillity, “I’m assuming your country wants to have access to our firearms,” he looks up from the document and upon the Germane’s eyes, she seemed to flinch back at this, “Am I correct?”

She blinked a couple of times to moisturise her eyes, “I cannot be too sure, the Führer only expressed interest in a possible research agreement.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he turned to the other occupant in the room, “and you?”

Vas casually walked up to the desk and deposited a similar stack to the previously mentioned paper, “Vozhd Lenin desires to buy several thousand of those muskets from the Griffon Republic for in respects, a hefty amount.”

The President’s bored eyes glanced at the first page casually but had to perform a double-take just to identify the extremely large deposit of gold printed on the sheet of paper, his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. They, nevertheless, quickly returned to normal size as he placed the document he was withholding back onto the table.

“I appreciate both your offers,” President Senatus professionally began, “We do not have the ability to spare any firearms, as all of which are being utilised in the war effort, and all technologies relating to the subject are classified in fear of the enemy obtaining the information, this decision is final.”

The two foreign diplomats retained a ‘for fuck's sake’ expression across their muzzles, this was their one mission, their one mission only; to make them accept the agreement ‘at all costs’, the fact that they failed their duty would come with ‘very harsh consequences’.

The President sighed as if he was attempting to persuade himself not to vocalise anything, “If you want, I can provide each of you with our firearm supplier. She would have the production capacity to support what you’re both looking for.”

‘I doubt she’d give them anything anyway,’ he thought, ‘she’s too loyal to the Republic, but this will hopefully straighten out any diplomatic problems in the future.’

The presence of the emotion of ‘shock’ suddenly expressed itself within the room like a bolt of lightning. The facades of all occupants within the space were utterly speechless, yet the griffon diplomat, even Enhance Impression himself couldn’t even utter a single word.

The zebra summed up everyone’s thoughts int one single word, “…what?”

Senatus simply waved him off, “Did you really think, that we, as a country, could suddenly manufacture thousands of these revolutionary weapons with a single month? Something like that would take years to accomplish, no. We had outside help.”

He seized a spare piece of paper from the side and quickly wrote down several important dot points of information with his quill. Once complete, he ripped the parchment in half and gave either side to the diplomats.

President Senatus motioned towards to paper, “There are her company’s details along with a relatively brief description of her appearance, admittedly it’s not much, but hopefully that'll be enough for contact in the near future,” he smiled.

“Well!” He clapped his claws together, “Now that is out of the way, I’d like to return back to my current workflow.”

These next few minutes of walking back down the hallways, towards their retreats were spent in utter silence, each member was too shocked to properly process the information from the previous meeting. Enhance Impression surprised that their leader would give up such an important source of technology, Lieselotte Weiß was shocked for the fact an individual could achieve such greatness, and Vas because he came all the way to this country for effectively nothing.

Neither the zebra or pony was looking forward to travelling back to their respective capitals, alerting their superiors of the new developments, and then travelling to a new specific location to deliver this inventor the new agreement, one where it would hopefully benefit their country in the long run.

Admittedly, the disturbance of the situation did eventually start to wither away, and it was at this particular moment the Germane decided to absorb the information on the paper given to her. Only for her shock to come back blowing at full force, once she registered that the description described on this piece of paper matched exactly to the pony she encountered on the way to the Republican Palace.

“Scheisse!”

“Here you go.”

A senior militarily ranked griffon officer claws over a shoddily manufactured matchlock musket to each new voluntarily recruited soldier. Every firearm that he provided seemed to be slightly different from the last, some looked of merger quality, while others—well, let’s just say it appeared as though it went through a blender.

The officer continued to walk alongside the crude line of griffons, and gave another musket to the next person, “Here.”

None of these griffons had ever been in the army, the only reason why these soldiers really volunteered in the first place was for the ‘honour’, ‘glory’ and most of all, an easily earned income. All withheld the belief that this war was practically won, after all, ever since the country has somehow gotten these ‘muskets’, they haven’t lost a single battle. Not a single one.

This is in actuality false, we know that they’ve lost at least one battle, but the populous doesn’t need to be aware of that fact.

“Take this.”

Though in the minds of every soldier receiving a musket, most of their hopes and dreams were instantaneously crushed. All had heard of how great, and powerful these muskets were, but the ones they were presented with was quite the opposite. They looked underwhelming, not to mention badly made. What the heck were the higher-ups thinking?

Some of the soldiers actually have seen a musket previously, whether this be through parades in the streets, or a veteran showcasing his weapon. What they saw, nevertheless, didn’t appear anything like the ones they were currently receiving.

“Here you go.”

One griffon that just got provided his musket was aware of this, and as such, asked a question relating to the specific topic, “Sir, why do these look so different from the other muskets?”

The officer, however, just ignored him, and continued on his merry way, giving out muskets as he went along. If he ran out, a lower-ranked soldier simply sprinted up to him and delivered more. Usually, this was between six to ten firearms at once.

Evidently, he finished giving out these muskets to the gathering he was in charge of (one hundred), and issued their current orders from the higher-ups, “In one hours time, we march out to the Empire’s capital. You have that long to get used to your current weapons, It’s going to take several days, so along the way, you'll train during resting periods.”

He brought up his own firearm from his side, “Before any of this happens, let me quickly teach you how to reload and fire your weapon.”

[17th of November, 989. 10:32 am]