The Preparation II
Shining left the map room, making a bee line for his troops. Jason turned back to the map, attempting to find any large flaws in his planning.
"If it makes you feel any better, I'd volunteer." Sky spoke up. Jason had almost forgotten that he had been in the room this whole time; neither him or Star had actually said anything in the time since they had entered. His wife elbowed him, eliciting a quiet "What?" from him and corresponding gestures.
"I'm glad to hear that," Jason responded, "I'll make sure he doesn't end up anywhere too seriously dangerous." She sighed.
"You better not die, honey. No pressure." He turned and nuzzled Star.
"No worries dear."
"Well then Sky, can you go to the group out there and wait with them until we assign squads." Sky nodded and shared a kiss with his wife before moving towards the door. Jason turned to Dash. "So, no big holes in this plan, besides the obvious risks?"
"No, but I hope this works out for the best, it's all just a wildcard bet from here on out."
"At least we, the two of us, can kinda change the outcome. Hopefully anyway. Most soldiers would love to be able to singularly change the outcome of a battle. Not like we're very important, but you get the idea." There was silence from outside as Luna apparently finished her speech. Silence was probably not a good thing; he doubted the ponies were awed into silence. Maybe, if they were lucky, the crowd had become deaf from Luna's volume and ended up missing the fact that the speech had ended.
Some applause started, and slowly grew in intensity, yet never really reached a fever pitch. "Shall we go out and discover the status with Luna's speech and the applause?" Dash asked. Apparently they had been thinking the same things. She walked to the door and pushed it open to a room full of ponies. They moved around the bulk of the crowd, hugging the walls as they made their way towards the ledge, where a proud looking Luna was standing.
"Is that a good sign?" Jason asked Dash, gesturing to the princess's general manner. She shrugged.
"Hopefully she isn't proud of what would have been a great speech a thousand years ago."
"War doesn't really change that much, it couldn't be that different." They finished their walk up to the stage, and greeted Luna. "I hate to ask, but what did you tell them?"
"I informed them of their importance in the survival of Equestria, among other things."
"Thant doesn't sound too bad." Luna shot him a glare and he shrugged. "You were just gone for a thousand years, I didn't know what would happen." He turned to the crowd and cleared his throat, causing the ponies to return their attention to the ledge. "Alright, so can you ponies get in the groups from before?" There was the noise of thousands of hoofs on stone as the room sorted itself out into two groups. "Alright, so before I ask for volunteers, I just want to remind you that as of now, you ponies could easily be the only possible way to take back Canterlot and keep the Griffin threat contained. The fate of this nation rests on your shoulders. That said, I hope you can rationalize joining the resistance as possibly one of the most important things you could well ever do in your life." He sighed. "And you will be reimbursed for your efforts, although that hopefully won't be the reason you join."
"Alrighty, with that in mind, step forward if you volunteer, and the rest of you move to the side of the room and join the other group." Dash followed up. As an afterthought, she added, "If two parents of the same family remain in the volunteer area, it is under your jurisdiction to pick a parent to stay with the foals." A fairly large group left the possible volunteer group. She couldn't help but notice that most of them were well dressed and held a privileged air about them. The Canterlot Elite. The fact that they didn't volunteer didn't surprise her, yet she noticed that a few of the well dressed nobles had stayed as volunteers. Probably those new money nobles, the ones that had come from poverty and built themselves up.
"So here's what we're going to do. Form squads, two ponies of each race to a squad, then elect a team leader who will come by and get your team name and assigned area." Another massive amount of noise as the ponies sorted themselves around into the new groups. The first leader, a large gray earth pony, walked up a few minutes later. "Hey. Name?"
"Irontoe."
"Alright, your company name is Alpha, you are assigned to block G8, tunnel seven first stop." He wrote the information on the stallion's fore leg. "Forward that information to your squad. Next!" Another stallion walked up, this time a unicorn. "Name?"
"Dusk."
"Company Bravo, block G7, tunnel six first stop." He followed the same process of writing. "Bring that info to your squad. Next!" A mare walked up, which was slightly surprising. Jason was about to begin the process again when Shining Armor made his way over. "Hold on a sec." He said to the mare before diverting his attention to Shining. "You ever trained ponies before?" He nodded.
"Yeah, I was the drill sergeant for a while until they found someone louder, but I should be able to train the ponies. Speaking of, the guards look about ready, I stationed them in the barracks to rest and prepare, so that's all good."
"Alright. I'm just assigning militia squads to city blocks, then I'm going to give a brief follow up speech and they're all yours." He nodded again.
"Can't wait." He chuckled as he made his way back over to what Jason assumed to be the barracks. Jason ran through the rest of the squads without further distraction. He had run out of military alphabet letters to use and had given the last squads roman numerals I-X. It sounded cool he supposed. He made his way back onto the ledge and signaled for the attention of the ponies, which were now situated in small groups.
"So, you have your squads now, and as you may know, this is a stealth operation. Don't let the griffins signal an alarm, and stick to the shadows. Every squad has ponies from all three races, so you should use that to your advantage. Find the skills of your members and work out some sort of strategy for who's best situated to do what, because once you get up there, most plans are going to go to hell." He paused. "Now I've said this before, even though it wasn't to any of you. Those griffins up there are trained to kill. Do not show them any mercy, because they will never show mercy themselves. Hesitation and stupidity are the number one killers on the battlefield. Don't be one of the ponies that dies being affiliated with either of those things, and work as a team to make sure none of that happens." He sighed, reaching the end of his speech. "All of you are to report to Shining Armor for basic training, then wait for orders to move out." The ponies stared for a moment before breaking into tentative applause and starting to shift to the back of the room, where Shining stood waiting.
"Nice speech, although hopefully it doesn't scare them before they even get up there to fight," Dash said.
"They should be scared. I don't want them thinking this is just a walk in the park. I mean, I did the same for you and everything went fine there." He paused. "Although I guess you aren't just any pony," He said, nuzzling her neck. She blushed and nuzzled him back.
"Yeah I guess, but I have stuff to get back to, stuff worth fighting for. I doubt that all the ponies here are really doing this for much more than for the bits. That doesn't exactly scream loyalty."
"Well it's all we got. Most of the tough zones are covered by the royal guards and us, so at least that's taken care of."
"I'm taking off these knives. I don't want to have to worry about cutting ponies' hooves off." She said. Jason laughed.
"Yeah that's probably a good plan." He untied the rope around her hooves with his magic and stashed their knives off to the side of the ledge. "How about we take a look at those food supplies?"
"Well I am pretty hungry..." They started walking through the now much emptier room, watching the last of the recruits disappear into yet another room. Apparently a very large room, considering how many recruits they had. They walked past the door and on to another, less hidden door that read, "Rations". Dash pushed the door open and immediately gasped, a sound that was quickly mirrored by Jason. Thousands of cans were shelved in floor to ceiling racks extending hundreds of feet into the distance.
"Hopefully there are can openers around here somewhere..." He said. Dash nodded, still in awe, and she and Jason trotted around the large room attempting to find can openers. As it turned out, the room was long but skinny, boasting only a few isles of shelving. Eventually they found a small length of shelf completely devoted to can openers, and pulled a few off the shelf. After getting lost for a few minutes, they found the entrance again. Jason pulled a can off the shelf and opened it. "Carrot?" He asked Dash. She scrunched up her face.
"I hate carrots. You'll never get me to eat one."
"Is that so?" He shifted into Dash and dangled a carrot in front of his mouth. "Looks like I will, for all intensive purposes, get you to eat a carrot." He dropped the carrot into his mouth and chewed it briefly before his eyes went wide. After a few seconds, Dash waved a hoof in front of his face.
"Jason, you okay there?"
"Yeah, you could say that, considering I can actually taste this!" He started shoving carrots into his mouth. "dh andfk thhrrt ahd fodj." He swallowed. "I never thought I would miss food so much!"
"But why would you suddenly be able to taste stuff after two weeks of no changes whatsoever?"
"Beats me." He had finished off the last of the carrots and moved to grab another can. "Oh, wait." He transformed into Alternis, and took a bite of some green beans in the can he had just opened, before realization crossed his face. "Okay, so here's what happened. Apparently, when I made a transformation into an 'original' pony, I just did stuff with appearances, so apparently I didn't actually make taste buds, until I transformed into you, in which case I'm biologically the same on the surface, so now I have your taste buds."
"So you like the same foods I like?"
"I'm going to assume I do."
"So apparently I like carrots?" She made an over-exaggerated retching motion.
"Maybe? Let's worry about that later and just bring out some more can openers and food for the ponies that aren't training right now." She nodded and started pulling cans off the shelf and into one of the carts that was near the entrance to the room. After they had the cart filled past the brim, Jason got behind it to push.
"Maybe you shouldn't be in my form when we push this out?"
"But what if I want to see their reaction to two Dashes?"
"We can screw with ponies all the time after we get out of here. Plus, it kinda makes me feel strange, and I even know which one of us is fake." They pulled the cart to the door after hopelessly overloading it, and managed to push it through and across the room to the group of bored foals, mothers, and nobles. After overshooting the destination because of a lack of brakes, they stuck a few rocks under the wheels of the cart and started tossing food. The reactions were generally pretty telling, with the foals and mothers looking at the food gratefully while the nobles looked frankly disgusted.
Jason tossed a few can openers to the ponies and moved the remaining cart supplies through the door of the room that the troops had apparently gone through. It was at this point that Jason realized just how crazy the pony that had built all this must have seemed all those years ago. He couldn't say he wasn't thankful though. His only question was hoe he had gotten this much money. Was there slave labor a few hundred years ago? That would cut expenses, to say the least.
As they pushed into the room, the stench of sweat met them and they both flinched a little. "God damn, this is worse than the football locker room. I didn't even think that was possible!"
"What's football?"
"It's like the most complicated sport known to man, and probably ponykind. It would probably take an hour to explain, partially because there's five ways to score points and a huge number of different positions. Then there's plays that are meant to look like other plays and different formations for the same positions depending on the formation of the other side."
"How exactly do you even know what's going on?"
"It just clicks eventually. No other sport I know can have so many different things going on at a time. That's probably why it's so interesting." He paused. "Anyway I'll show you when I have paper and a spare hour." He chuckled. "So then the Canadians, from the country north of mine, go and make a more complicated and completely senseless version of football. Basically you watch it, and as soon as you think you understand it they run a play that completely destroys everything you thought was truth. Like women." Dash shot him a glare. "Technically I didn't say mares. Anyway, there was this one play, and they basically punted the ball back and forth a bunch of times before it went out of bounds. I guess that's why it's not all that popular. They have eight teams and two of them have the same name."
"How can sports be so complicated?"
"I guess it's a lot easier to make sports complicated when you have arms free and can still run and jump and stuff. The whole, 'walking on two legs' was nice. Oh, and fingers. Those are the other reason." Shining stopped yelling at the ponies he was training, and turned to see Dash, Jason and the cart of food.
"Alright, troops. Lunch time." The ponies cheered tiredly and made their way over to the food cart.
"We should leave before we get mauled by hungry ponies," Dash said.
"Yeah, you're probably right." They left the room as the ponies got to the cart and started demolishing the food.
__________________________________________________________________
Thirty-Two Hours Later
The cave under the mountain was silent. Training had gone to schedule and the ponies were outfitted with weapons from the near endless armory. Everything was in place. Nearly every pony was asleep somewhere around the base, resting up for the impending attack. Most of them were calmly sleeping. Jason was an exception.
Sure he was asleep, but his mind was still thundering with the unheard noise of a dream.
He was in that alley again, the one he had run to after the bank was robbed. He couldn't think, he had no idea where he was going, but on he ran, into the rain, into the haze. One of the robbers ran out the door behind him, advertized by a loud screech of rusty bolts and a door slamming against the wall. After they had killed half the people in the bank, his young, scared mind had managed to infer that they were not taking hostages. That's when he had made a break for the door. He looked at the singed hole in his hoodie sleeve remembering the whistle of the bullet that had caused it.
The man's heavy footsteps drew nearer as Jason pushed a garbage can over behind him, cutting his hand on the metal rim. He didn't stop running to check the injury, he didn't feel it. He was almost to the end of the alleyway, almost to the safety of the cops that he could hear had arrived.
The rain continued to pour down as a gunshot rang out, the corresponding bullet hitting a dumpster as he ran by. Another gunshot sounded, followed by a burning pain in the side of his gut. He fell and clutched at his side, rolling and screaming in pain. With some strength he didn't know he had, he got up and picked up another trash can, throwing it at the man before he had time to react. Another gunshot sounded and a hole appeared on the side of the plastic can. Part of one of Jason's fingers disappeared, just like that. The trash can hit the man at shoulder level, liberating the gun from his hands and sending it flying backwards down the alley.
Jason looked at the mouth of the alleyway and made a split second decision. He turned back towards the robber and ran, jumping over the trash can to get to the gun. Then he tripped and flopped onto the ground. The man had apparently grabbed his foot as he ran by, and was now smiling viciously, murder in his eyes. Jason reached for the gun, only able to get the tips of his remaining fingers on the gun. The man behind him laughed.
"What're you gunna do wit' 'dat boy? You ain't no murderer, you couldn't even pull 'dat trigger." Jason twisted around and reached out his other arm just as the man pulled his leg. He got the gun up and aimed at the criminal, who didn't so much as flinch. Jason hesitated. "I told you kid, ya ain't got the resolve ta--
BANG!!!
The man went limp, a neat bullet hole through his forehead the cause of his death. Jason just sat there looking at the gun in his hands as the rain continued to fall, watching the puddle of blood expand from the bank robber, watching his shirt turn red. Anot-
"Jason!" Someone was shaking his shoulders. "Jason!" He opened his eyes, seeing Dash partially propped up next to him in the small bunk with her hooves on his shoulders.
"What?"
"You've been making a whole bunch of noise in your sleep, rolling around, you looked possessed."
"Bad dream I guess." She stared at him.
"Must be more than that." Jason looked down, trying to figure out what to say.
"Would you be mad if it turned out that I lied to you?"
"I guess it depends. You know you can tell me anything right?" Jason sighed. She was right. He took a deep breath.
"Well remember when I told you that I killed three people out of self defense?"
"Yeah..."
"Well the hobo one wasn't real. That was one of the bank robbers that I killed. The same one that killed my parents." He lapsed into silence. "Sorry I never told you." Dash silently stared at him, although he couldn't tell whether her stare was of rage or compassion. She moved forward and wrapped him in a hug.
"It's fine, that's nothing to be ashamed at not telling me. I don't think any less of you for it. I'm just glad I'm worthy of hearing your past. I know you don't like to talk about it."
"Yeah, you're the first one I've told." She smiled and hugged him tighter. After a few minutes of silence, Jason spoke up. "How long till everyone gets up?"
"A few minutes. We have time." She said into his fur.
"Time for what?" He asked, feigning ignorance.
"Time for--" Alarms went off and they both groaned.
"I thought you said we had more time!"
"Why would you trust me? I'm was late for everything before you came here!" Jason chuckled and rolled out of bed.
"You coming?" She shook her head violently.
"I'm all warm, can't I just stay a little longer?" Jason smiled and pulled her out of bed with his magic while she tried desperately to get a grip on one of the bunk posts. After she was puled free, she turned and gave him a death glare.
"Hey, any other day I wouldn't have cared, but we have this cool attack thing today, and it requires us to get ready on time."
"Yeah, but we're the first ones up!" She complained.
"We were already awake!" Jason grabbed two cans of food as they walked out of the room, opening them with a can opener that he had kept. He handed a can of peaches over to Dash, starting on a can of beans himself. They both trudged over to the ledge and sat down, waiting for the ponies to show up.
A few minutes later, the bulk of the ponies filtered in and sat down with cans of food. Jason waited a few more minutes until the last of the ponies walked in before standing up and clearing his throat. The ponies knew the drill by this point and had already became silent.
"As you know, the attack starts in an hour and fifteen minutes." He looked over the troops, who's numbers had shrunk slightly after some ponies were considered not to be physically fit enough to fight. "You all know the drill, it's been pushed into your head over and over these last thirty six or so hours, and I can't say just how proud I am to see this large of a volunteer army in front of me." He paused. "But that is no reason to forget your training. Use it as a tool for your success. Nothing will go exactly to plan, and the most important part of war is the ability to adapt to every situation. Don't let the enemy do something you don't expect, use your team to avoid that possibility. You have forty-five minutes to prepare, then we all move out and wait for the time to leave these tunnels. If there are any team leaders that are unsure where they're going, come see me. Luna has agreed to rise the new moon today instead of tomorrow, so we have that advantage. Dismissed." There was a cheer before the ponies returned to eating and talking amongst their groups.
"You know, the odds are starting to tilt in our favor here." Dash said with a sly smile. "This may not be as farfetched as any of us thought."
"Thanks for having faith in my plan."
"Considering the fifty fifty odds I gave you a while ago, I have tons of faith." She giggled.
"And what are my chances now, O odds master?"
"Sixty five-thirty five?"
"I can live with that." The next forty five minutes went by much faster than any of them wanted, and soon enough they were all suited up, organized, and on their way. Dash and Jason walked down their tunnel with a fairly large group of ponies, which dwindled as they got closer to their destination. Pretty soon they were directly under their specific hatch.
"How long?" Dash asked. Jason pulled out a primitive watch.
"About a minute, wh--" He couldn't finish as Dash pressed her lips to his, kissing until the watch let out a quiet beep.
"You better make it through this."
"Only if you do." He poked her with a hoof, and she blushed. "Now let's get this block cleared."
"Fine by me."