//------------------------------// // Oh, Bats! // Story: The Day of Discord // by GJT_Productions //------------------------------// "But Lieutenant, you should know what kind of reaction we'll get if we go out there in the middle of the day!" "The orders from our Princess are clear, Arcturus. We are to head out and assist our daytime brethren fighting against this monster causing chaos, regardless of what our fellow Equestrians may think!" --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Daytime trips out of the enormous caves that served as the Canterlot district of the batponies, especially by groups, were a rare enough occurance that it inevitably generated unhelpful agitation among the daytime population of Equestria. Lieutenant Vesper, head of the batpony component of the E.U.P. Guard, was therefore quite understanding of his subordinates being reluctant to follow the orders issued from Princess Luna. In the months since Princess Luna's return and restoration to her previous authority, Vesper and his fellow batponies had found themselves in an uphill battle against mounds of skepticism and suspicion among the general Equestrian population. Considering the batponies generally sticking to their caves and rarely ever going out during the daytime (due to the sensitivity of their eyes to sunlight), it was hard to blame the average Equestrian for believing whatever rumors (sometimes veering into outright slander) the ambitious and devious told about them. There was also the historical fact which was only reluctantly acknowledged in modern times: the devotion to "Nightmare Moon", which existed in a much less sanitized form than the "Nightmare Night" known among the general population and had tended to include all the bad behaviors induced by drunkenness. The official line of all this being the batponies merely holding a misplaced loyalty to Luna was, unsurprisingly, regarded with large amounts of disbelief and doubt. With persistent usages of the term "cult" and "disloyal" thrown at batponies over this, the Thestrals found themselves uncomfortably stuck between a rock and a hard place in the "court" of public opinion despite the best efforts of the Princesses and Shining Armor to remedy this. In hindsight, it shouldn't have surprised anypony that the batpony population would become high-priority targets of the Changeling infiltration. Not only would it be easy for the drones to agitate the general Equestrian population into not trusting them, the access to the interior of the mountain the batponies provided a ready-made way to hide ponies or objects the drones wanted to "replace" or "make disappear". And just like in so many other aspects of their infiltration, the confusion surrounding Discord's release would kick their plan into a higher gear... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ AT THE MOUTH OF THE BATPONY CAVE... "Halt, feathered one!" the batpony guard in the sentry box exclaims as the pegasus guard descends down into the gaping cave opening. During the day, a few batponies that would be off their usual sleep schedules were posted into sentry boxes just outside the line of sunshine to monitor what little traffic went in and out of the cave during those hours. "Do you bring orders from the castle?" the batpony continues as the pegasus lands in front of the box, just inside the darkness of the cave mouth. "Yes, I do." the pegasus guard answers, using his wing to pull out a scroll and drop it in front of the batpony. The batpony worked the scroll open carefully with hooves... and was very puzzled by what he was reading. Although he confirmed that Luna's royal seal was in the lower right corner, the actual content of the scroll seemed to be nothing but scrawled strokes and whirls of ink. He turned the scroll in a few different orientations, trying to see if the text was written in an unusual format - something Luna was known to do from time to time. While puzzling over the scroll, the batpony was critically distracted from his duties, and by the time he noticed anything was wrong he already had something wrapped around his body! He was yanked out of the sentry box, falling sideways to the stone floor of the cavern, and came face-to-face with the hooded hiss of a cobra for just a moment before the venomous strike ended his career forever. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To an outside observer, it would've looked like two very large snakes had attacked the sentry post, one looking like a cobra and one looking like an anaconda. Once the batpony had fallen, though, there were no other observers, and the two Changeling drones that had coordinated the attack dropped their disguises in a flash of green magic, leaving themselves exposed but only visible as shadowy outlines from anyone looking into the cave. "Dump him into the wasssssssste disssssposal shaft and then finisssssh delivering the fake orders. Onccccccccce you get back, you'll take over permanently." one of the drones says to his counterpart while assuming the form of the batpony that had been stationed in the sentry box. "Undersssstood." the other drone replies briefly, beginning to drag the real batpony off to be disposed of along with the garbage of the batponies... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A FEW MINUTES LATER... "So you're saying that these orders came directly from Princess Luna herself?" Lieutenant Vesper asks the batpony skeptically, after being presented with the same scrawled ink scroll that had fatally distracted the guard before. "That's correct, sir." the drone disguised as the guard replies, hoping that there wasn't a failure of his voice imitation that would give away the game. "Sir, with all due respect this doesn't even seem legible. Sure the seal is on there, but that doesn't mean anything if we can't figure out what it says." Arcturus points out as he looks over from beside Vesper as the latter tries several different rotations of the scroll to see if anything useful to its readability happened. Finally Lieutenant Vesper lets out a low, growling sigh as he lets the scroll roll back up, also shaking his head in the process. This is followed up by a quick order to the disguised drone: "The combination of unusual hour and lack of caffeine must've rendered her writing illegible without her realizing it. I'm afraid, soldier, you'll have to go back to the castle and ask Her Highness to retry writing down whatever orders she intended to give." "Understood, sir. Not a problem, sir." the disguised drone replies with a salute, hastily gathering up the scroll again and turning to leave the small chamber the Thestrals were assembled in pending further orders. Further orders, of course, would never come. The Changeling deception would ensure the Thestrals would never set hoof outside their caverns despite Luna's intent for them to do so, aggravating the bad feelings both within the batpony service and between the service and the rest of the E.U.P. Guard. This aggravation was all part of Changeling plan to divide and conquer, orchestrated by Queen Chrysalis and facilitated by the draconequus Discord...