//------------------------------// // Prologue III: White and Grey // Story: Equestria Divided: The Sailor's Creed // by The Historian //------------------------------// It was the voice that cracked her eyes open, the shake that made her rise to her hooves, the glint of the mirror in the ongoing sun's light that called her attention. But it was the mirror's white occupant that truly made Rarity awaken, the half-normal, half-disgusting visage that grimaced painfully at her. Until she realized it was her own. Her once luscious fur, covered in opaque crystal, her mane's roots half submerged beneath them, and her hooves now gem shards. All she could manage was a painful whimper as she sank to her haunches, sobbing all the while. All she could feel was one part of her face damp, the other only glistening in the mirror's seeing eye. "I'm so sorry." Said a half-sobbing voice, barely recognizable as one of Rarity's friends', as she came into view. Her face was glowing with a monstrously beautiful tattoo, shining in the same light her horn did when magic was in use, and for a brief moment Rarity ignored her state. Brief. Twilight hung her head with her ears flat, her eyes obviously having been red for awhile, the tears no longer coming with the sobs. "I...I trust you have a spell to fix this,darling?" Asked Rarity, her mind already chastising her for the utterly selfish behavior. Twilight's glowing skin shook slightly, her skull moving side to side, and for a brief moment Rarity's heart skipped. "How..." She began, "How did this happen, Twilight! How did you do such a thing to me, an-" She broke off as her eyes whirled around the room, and the still figure of a pink mare met her eyes. "No!" "Rarity, I can ex-" "No you can't!" She screamed back. "You've been nothing but a madmare since the Princesses disappeared, and this is the end of the line!" Her crystal hoof hit the ground with a crack that echoed across the room. "Pinkie..." Her voice softened, and the tears for herself turned to cries for the party pony, Twilight's eyes merely shifting into space, the shock of her failure too much, it seemed. "Crystalitis is a physically disfiguring disease with no ill effects and no known cure beyond preventing its onset." Twilight said monotonously, looking at Rarity. The latter's crying eyes met her, confused, but slowly turning to even deeper sadness. "All Unicorns can protect themselves with sufficient magical energy, but those that solely focus on the telekinetic arts will often be horribly afflicted by high-powered spells." Rarity's eyes welled further, and she rose to her hooves. "Twilight, why didn-" "Psychological trauma often far outweighs any real physical issues." She finished, her dark eyes turning to Rarity. "Perhaps you should go lie down." Rarity's eyes locked with Twilight's the pure malice within scaring the element of generosity. "You're in trouble, Twilight." She said, deliberately censoring her more colorful initial plan. "You need help. Killing Pinkie an-" Her eyes scanned the room, distraught. "-Where is Rainbow Dash?" "She-" "WHERE IS RAINBOW DASH?" "She left, Rarity." She said, pointing to the broken skylight that allowed Rarity to see herself. Her body shuddered as Rarity briefly glanced at her disturbing crystalline appearance. Her throat caught for a minute. "She was a traitor just like AJ." "You and your traitors, Twilight! You're like a mad Unicorn Quee-" An unlit candle flew at Rarity, hitting her crystals and impaling. Twilight's tattoos glowed brighter, as did her horn. "Call me mad again." She said. Rarity stomped a hoof. "You'll join them both in Tartarus." The tailor's mind was racing. Her best friends, each and everyone going mad. Her, the most beautiful of ponies turned a brutal monster? A disgusting hodge podge of beautiful gem and distraught pony, in some mixture that made Pinkie's slowly rotting body seem more appealing, as disgusting as her final appearance was. Slowly, her hooves backpedaled, the form of twilight shrinking in her eyes. "So this is how it shall be, Twilight?" She asked. "War? Because you're too busy with searching to actually solve the world's issues?" A plate hit her full frontal, but the spiking crystals shattered it before it reached her, bouncing off harmlessly. A blink. "Fine, then." An ancient shield detatched itself from the wall, Rarity's horn glowing. It flung at Twilight, who wrenched it from Rarity's control. "Defend yourself. For you've far more enemies than friends, it seems." The Star-and-Moon emblem turned around to face Twilight, and the unicorn's face wrenched in puzzlement. Rarity didn't look back. The doors slammed forcefully. And then she nabbed her cloak from the doorway and slid it slowly over her face, the shame of her appearance too great. Giving had been her passion before, to help others on the house. But now, all she'd gotten for her troubles was a destroyed image, her only beloved thing, and for nothing but a corpse. Her clopping hooves echoed down the hall, as Twilight's eyes slowly transfixed on the ancient shield's logo. ==== Holland had once tried out for the SEALs. The idea of being only a few men against the world had appealed to him then, when he was youthful and less wise. Now, he realized just how clueless he'd been back at BUD/S, the SEAL training school. His ears roared with engine revs and monstrous roars, round two already having started only moments before. He was at the wheel, now, his hands ripping side to side, trying to outmaneuver the less-than-small heads as they crashed down, rocking the ship with each strike against the surface. "KEEP UP THE PRESSURE!" He screamed, and the minigunner quickly swivelled and put a burst into a swinging neck, making the Hydra abort his attack. He spun the wheel, and the careening neck passed precariously overhead, its owner wailing all the way. The Chief chuckled, his handgun clacking twice at a smaller head that was just regrowing. The beast screamed in anger, and another head lashed at the boat, tossing a huge wave into the air that splattered down all over the boat. Holland slipped a bit on his boots, but kept his footing despite the chaos. His three guns rattled away, their crewman slicing hard into the Hydra, but it just kept on growing. Killing it would take a bit more than they had. His hand reached for his radio ."Lima Bravo, Lima Bravo, this is Romeo Three. How Copy, over?" He called into it, the spray nearly making him flub up. "Solid Copy, Romeo Three. Send it, over." Said the Radioman aboard the Long Beach, which was closing with the Hydra faster than the small craft could. Its hull bounced hard, riding light waves at fifty miles an hour did that to you. Nothing like the perfect storm they'd experienced, of course, but it was still visible as its wake curved violently to meet the new threat, its forward cannon slowly tracking. "Need fires now, Romeo is going to get mission killed, over." Responded Holland, ripping the wheel right as a head smashed his way. It skirted side-by-side off the port side, and the gunner there racked the slide on his machine gun and pulled the trigger down. The seawashed deck specked red a bit. "Wait one, Romeo Three." Said the Radioman. Several other SURCs were approaching now, their guns creating a deadly mass of steel that sawed off every head that grew above water. There was more than one way to defeat a Hydra, after all. "All, I say again, All Romeo elements are to immediately clear the target. Flank speed, over." Said the Radioman, relaying some new orders. Holland looked at it puzzled, but held his tongue, instead affirming the order. "Romeo three copies all, out." His unspoken questions were answered when the loud chopping noise of a four-bladed rotor echoed out from behind the Long Beach, which had swerved right and gone parallel with the target. The strange form of the MH-60S Knighthawk slowly lifted off, turning a hard right and revealing the big green toy sitting on one of its mountings. Holland was no expert, but the golden propeller at the back told him pretty much everything. He gunned the engine and cleared the way as the helo slowly lowered itself to launch altitude. = Aboard, Lieutenant Robert Mills grinned slightly behind his white and black helmet, the facemask a grinning visage not unlike the Joker, echoing his similar call-sign: "Joker". His hands danced around the cockpit, one snapping on the engine-powerers that made the engine start, the other hitting the ignition and flipping the fuel mixes, the engine's quiet bulk whirring ever slightly, the hull quaking as fuel dumps into the engine compartment, and the black talons of the white bird claw and find purchase amongst the skies, a slow and persistent whirr meeting his ears through the sound dampened cockpit. His hands settled on the collective and stick, the engine slowly reaching maximum RPM. His eyes shifted to his right, where the Co-Pilot was doing much the same as him, just finishing his checks. He made the A-Ok signal, and Mills turned back to the Crew Chief, a man in a flight suit that manned the guns and weapons console. He was currently seated with his goggles up, and gave his A-OK as well. Clear for launch. Mills turned his eyes over the gauges inside the small, cramped cockpit, and, satisfied, turned himself to face the small port side control tower, the single man inside looking at him with interest. He tapped the radio button and spoke. "Lima Bravo, Lima Bravo, this is Bravo One. Requesting permission for takeoff, over." the Lieutenant said, loud and clear. The man inside nodded and snapped a salute. "Bravo one has takeoff clearance. You are first in line, no major air threats, remain a distance of 1 kilometer and run active torpedos. You have launch authority. Lima Bravo out." Mills' hand snapped to his helmet, his other hand pulling the collective just slightly, the helicopter slowly pulling itself off the ground. His hand dropped and nabbed the stick, the MFDs lighting up and showering him with information as he slowly left the deck, rotating left and pitching forward, the cockpit's noises quickly droned out by the noise of the engines, which brought him high into the air. The in-cockpit intercom would have to do all the work from here on out. "Pitching left to waypoint one." He said in a clear voice, glancing back at the Crew Chief who gave the A-OK. "Master Arm on." Said the Crew Chief, flipping the big switch that primed every weapon aboard. "Torpedo arm on. Sonar warmed. Depth set shallow. High drop. Recommend five knots maximum." "Affirm." Mills returned. His stick shifted, the hull pitched, and it slowly turned horizontal. The craft ducked low, the crew ready and raring. Through the forward windshield, the thrashing beast was a klick and a half distant, chasing the loud and annoying helo rather than the large warship and her slowly-recovering SURCs. It closed slower and slower, the Co-Pilot occasionally glancing nervously up from the controls. Mills stood steadfast, and then turned to the Crew Chief. "Drop." "Three. Two. One. Dropping." The craft shook a bit, and suddenly jolted upwards with less weight. Mills jammed the collective and twisted right, strafing the craft sideways as a white line of wake slowly closed with the target, seemingly transfixed by the wake before them. It closed... the heads were inquisitive, and one bended low to the water. It opened its mouth, and Mills cringed in a bit of horror as the torpedo ran straight in. He turned to the Crew Chief. "Report." "I can detonate if need be, sir. I still have it." He said, reporting that the torpedo was still able to be detonated. The beast was swallowing now, laughing heartily. "Do it." He said, and the crewman pressed a red button. It was appropriately colored, they decided, as the helicopter twisted through the air and writhed its way back onto Long Beach's deck, where a horde of green and brown and blue and gray camouflage met the "Heroes" while the captain and crew looked on, smiling. For Mills, though, he had only one real thought: what came next? === The Wardroom Twelve officers were gathered once more, piled into the pitifully small room with tons of coffee and similarly khaki unforms. They crowded around a single screen, where one of the watch officers stood with Commander Downey, their eyes riveted on a screen capture from the radar, attempting to terrain map. It was a big green blob of green boxes, along with a single green line running in a jagged, almost fractal pattern on a northeast-southwest axis. The uninitiated may have been clueless as to what it meant, but for any Naval Officer it was rather clear what this was an image of: a city. A rather large one, by the looks, and coastally located. Perfect for figuring out just what was going on. "We all know what we're looking at, I assume?" Asked the skipper. Everyone nodded. "Good. Plan of action time, gentlemen. We've got the assets, now we need to do some reconaissance." He said. "We'll go down the line. XO?" The ship's executive officer wheeled in his chair to face the rest of the group. "We've got a bunch of bodies, two helicopters, a crapton of near-silent boats, and we're trying to piece together a plan? This is one of the stealthiest ships imaginable. I say we fly a team to a nearby empty terrain feature: remaining at distance, of course, and deploy an observation team to watch the city. Once we've ascertained the occupants, we'll recover them and make our next plan of attack." One of the pilots raised his hand, and the exec pointed at him. "Sir, fuel isn't exactly where it needs to be right now." He said, raising his coffee mug and sipping. "I seriously doubt we can waste the gear on frivolous hide missions. What if we send a nine man team ashore with a single boat, and have a small crew return it while the rest observe?" He asked. "Doable. I'm not sure if I like the idea if they have coast watchers, though. The wake is more visible than the helicopter." Said the exec, idly playing with a pen as he spoke. "The helicopter's going to be way too obvious, commander. We need something more." responded the pilot, his fingers tapping slowly on the desk. "The boats will work. Or we could simply observe by floating on the horizon and watching. What's the worst that could happen?" "We get hit by a missile and sink." Said the Captain. "I want other input-" He said, watching a few hands go up. "Ranas." The Filipino perked up a bit, and she began: "Why don't we just go straight in? We're out of contact with satcom and everything else, and if we're in a world where they can't kill hydras they obviously don't have the technology to deal with humans either. Why don't we sail directly in with a few boats flanking and the helicopter ready with rocket pods, and if things go bad we start shooting our way out?" She asked. Most of the table was silent on that note. "She's right." Said the Chief, from his corner. He was sipping a huge mug, and knowing him it was only his fifth. "The Chiefs have been talking, skipper," he said to the CO. "We're looking at men who've lost their families, crewmen who have nearly been killed by sea monsters, and we're going to play the whole sneaky-sneaky game? They're already hurting, and some shore time might be exactly what we need, for both intel and morale." Downey stood pondering that a moment, before nabbing a smartboard marker and doodling a line, steaming straight in. He pulled up the shoreline's terrain mapping, a rather accurate depiction of what they'd see coming in. Wasn't the future great? With a few taps, he began drawing lines and shapes. "We're going to sail to here." He pointed to a diamond where several lines diverged. One was colored differently than the others. "A single SURC will buzz in, hit the docks, and secure them. If the locals are peaceful, we find a good one and land." "If we're fired on immediately, this turns into a smash job. We have multiple surface contacts and lots of bad guys if that's a danger zone. We're going to hit all the ships with fourty mikes and charges, then ditch. That's the second colored line set. Should all go well, the SURC will return and guide us into port, possibly with a harbor pilot if they've got one." He doodled a few circular lines, roughly coinciding with the street entrance and halfway down the pier. "Two defensive lines if we visit port, and go in groups of 4-6 ashore. 24/7 watches, and mount some guns from the SURCs while we're in port. Any opposed?" They were all silent. "Alright, then. Time to go ashore."