//------------------------------// // The Setback // Story: The Winds of Change // by AgentSnail //------------------------------// The Setback Jason awoke to a slightly uncomfortable pressure on his chest. He opened his eyes and sighed, nudging Dash with a hoof. Evidently Scoots had gotten to sleep at some point last night, but hoe guessed she was too tired to make it up to her bunk. She was sprawled over Jason's chest, hooves extending in random directions and hanging over his sides. Dash woke up and let out a quiet 'aww' at the sleeping filly, who briefly stirred, slightly curling her fore hooves, before returning to her slumber. They laid there peacefully for a few more minutes before Jason mouthed the words 'we should get up' to her and made some pointlessly misleading gestures. She somehow understood what he meant and nodded, watching him carefully throw Dash's side of the blanket over the filly before magically lifting her off of him and setting her down gently on a pillow, which she quickly wrapped in her hooves. They both smiled again before quietly making their way out of the room. Jason noticed a strange smell, which he realized was coming from the bandages that hadn't been replaced since last time he was out, however many hours ago that was. "Dash I need to change these bandages." "Yeah, I know." She said, getting a wiff of the dried on blood. "That can't be good." He nodded and they entered the infirmary, past several now awake and groaning ponies and the rhythmic beeping of machines. Jason walked up to a nurse, who stared at him with a blank expression. "Are all of you like this?!?!" Dash yelled before seeming to calm herself. Jason gave her a look before turning back to the nurse, who still had the same expression. "Would you be able to change these bandages? I really don't know what I'm doing when it comes to anything bigger than a paper cut." The nurse nodded and pulled out a dishearteningly large pair of scissors before slicing off the old bandages much faster than he was comfortable with in a line along his back. The bandages remained stuck to his chest. "This is going to hurt." She said. Jason nodded as she went to forcibly pull the bandages off. She grabbed a corner and quickly pulled. "AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!--wait that wasn't that bad." "This one wasn't actually stuck." The nurse's neutral expression changed to one of slight sheepishness. "Oh," Jason rubbed the back of his head. "So when are yo--AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!" The nurse held up the liberated bandages, wincing a little at Jason's yelling. "That was a little worse than I was expecting, to say the least." He looked at his chest to see that the crack had seemed to heal, although he realized he didn't really know what it had looked like yesterday. "We need to sterilize the wound. Lay down over there." Jason followed her directions as she moved a few bottles around before selecting one that was to her liking. Dash came over and looked at Jason's chest. "How does it look?" He asked Dash. "Better. A lot better." "It sure doesn't feel that much better." The nurse came over with the bottle and tipped it onto the wound. "What're you doing with that--AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!" It was like someone had poured liquid fire inside his wound and it was working it's way into every single bit of surface area he had. Some writhing later the pain slightly subsided and the nurse came back over with a roll of bandages. "What was that shit?" "Minor disinfectant, it's just a little sting." She started to wrap the bandages around his torso. "Did you think that maybe it would work differently on a changeling?" She flinched a little before finishing a final wrap and cutting off the bandage with her teeth. She left the room without another word as Jason turned to Dash. "What the hell is wrong with her?" She shrugged. "They're all pretty weird." Jason struggled to get off of the bed before she grabbed his hoof and pulled him up. "I really hate this whole injured and out of action thing. I just hate having limits that are lower then the ones I knew a couple days ago." "I know what you mean, I got stuck in the hospital for a few days while one of my wings was healed. It was the most boring three days of my life until Twilight introduced me to books, but I--" She trailed off, creating a brief moment of silence between the two before Jason guessed what she was thinking. "You miss them?" "Yeah, I mean we're so close to getting back, but I'm so scared that they won't see past what I've done and see me as a friend anymore." Jason pulled Dash into a hug. "If they can't see past that, then they aren't good friends. I'm sure your friends will still love you, they'll have to face the facts that you didn't really do anything wrong, and kinda helped save Canterlot." "Yeah, I guess you're right." She paused. "What do you think happened to our stuff and that griffin?" "Well Shining got someone to move our stuff next to the bunk this morning, and I have no idea where the griffin is. Here I'll ask this guy." He got the attention of a guard, who saluted. Jason waved him off, fighting a grin. "Do you know where the griffin we took prisoner is?" "Yeah, he's in that room over there." "Thanks." They both walked into a new room with several jail cells lining the walls. Jason managed to get past his disbelief that another room was built down here to look around for the griffin. Dash found him in a particularly nice cell near the entrance, passed out with two legs hanging over the side of the bed. Jason raked his hoof on the bars, to his annoyance finding that the griffin had not so much as stirred. He walked over to a wall of numbered keys and grabbed the one corresponding to the griffin's cell, quickly unlocking the door. He walked over to the slumbering griffin and shook his shoulder around until he awoke. Eventually the griffin opened an eye, a slight smile dawning his face when he saw who it was. "We have a few questions for you." The griffin yawned. "Alright, if it'll get me out of here, fire away." "What's your name and status in the griffin army?" He sighed. "My name's Eravel, and I was just a foot soldier with the griffins. Basically just a punching bag for the hardened soldiers." "Alright, do you know any other information about troop positions, anything like that?" "No, since your counter attack they all moved out of my sphere of knowledge. Generally though, we were told to take Canterlot or die trying, so I doubt there's going to be much of an attempt at retreat. We're all pretty much expendable anyway." "So we're going to have to be a little more serious about this than." He rubbed his chin. "And since they're all in the castle, that doesn't exactly make for an easy victory. Thanks for the information. Until we decide what to do with you, I'll make sure you get an extra blanket and some more food." The griffin nodded as Jason re-locked the door and left the room. "If what he's saying is right, we have to kill all the griffins, right?" "Unfortunately, yeah, and the longer we take to kick them out of this city the closer they come to discovering us or bringing in re-enforcements. I really hope the army here didn't get any letters asking for troops out of the city." Jason turned into the map room, which had the pieces located in the same places as before. "So we have troops all around the castle," Dash moved pieces around on the board. "And all of these in the middle of the city are gone except for these two spots, right?" Jason nodded. "So have we actually attacked since the initial troop movements?" "I guess not, I should probably ask Shining about that, see what he knows." There was a loud hustling outside, prompting them both to peer out the door at a caravan of ponies and stretchers moving into the infirmary. "Yeah, he's probably attacked." They both trotted into the infirmary, slightly shocked at the new influx of injured ponies. Shining came through the door behind them, wearing a rather stony expression. "I suppose you may want to know how these ponies got injured?" He asked. "Yeah." Jason replied. "Well we were all in our positions, circled around the castle, when the griffins staged a counterattack towards a slightly weak point in our lines. We repelled them, but when we pushed them back to the castle we started getting decimated. There's no way we're getting through those walls with head on attack. In total, nineteen dead, twenty seven wounded, and an almost equal number of known enemy casualties." "Do we know anything about their total numbers?" "Not much, just that there are still at least a couple hundred. We could starve them out, but griffin re-enforcements could arrive by then, and that would spell disaster in this situation. We also can't destroy the building because Princess Celestia is in there." "Why can't anything ever be simple?" A few nurses ran by quickly. "I'll figure something out. We'll tell you when we have something." He followed after the nurses, trying to find the patient that had evidently gotten them worked up. He saw them disappear into some curtains, parting them himself shortly after, then taking a gasp at what he saw. There was a pony in the bed, more bloody than he was yesterday, passed out in the bed. One of the nurses were attempting something with a blood transfusion, rigging it up to an IV while the other put pressure on one of the wounds. Jason gently shoved one of the nurses aside before she gave him a questioning look. "What do you think you're doing?" "Stopping the bleeding." Before the nurse had time to react he pushed power through his horn and into the bloodied pony. Dash felt a tugging at her back hoof, and turned to see Scoots. "What're you doing here Squirt?" She said a little nervously; she wasn't exactly keen on letting Scoots see mortally wounded ponies. "Trying to find you guys, I got bored. What're you two doing?" "I'm not doing too much. Jason's trying to heal that pony over there." "Oh cool!" She scampered over to the side of the bed to watch. "Scoots wait it's---" She sighed. This could be interesting. Or not. She gave the kid credit though, it took her a full five seconds to get grossed out and leave the bedside, tongue hanging out of her mouth in an over-dramatically disgusted way. "I-is that pony going to be okay Dash? There's blood everywhere..." "I hope so Scoots, hopefully he wasn't too far gone. Jason can heal ponies, but he only really accelerates the process; he can't bring back the dead. Although he did say that introducing zombies to Equestria would be interesting, whatever that means." She sighed. "Hopefully he won't almost pass out like before." Scoots shot her a questioning look before Jason walked over, smiling. "I can happily say that that pony should make a full recovery. Or something, I'm not really a doctor, but he definitely has better chances than before." He said. "So then why aren't you all tired?" Dash asked. "Well I kinda directed it, if that makes sense. I just healed the parts of him that were causing him to loose a lot of blood." He tottered a little, almost losing his footing. "That doesn't mean I'm not tired though." "So what are these zom-bee things?" Scoots asked. "Ah, Dash told you about that huh?" He sighed. "It's more than a little scary, you sure you can handle it?" She nodded her head, creating a blur of orange and purple. "Alright then. Basically, hold on." Jason leaned over a sink and washed his hooves, splashing some water on his face and briefly shuddered. "Let's get into the main room." They started walking before Jason turned to Scoots. "So, zombies are formed from an imaginary disease that infects someone, kinda like when you get a cold. Basically, the person dies and re animates a few hours later as a zombie. Zombies have no actual intelligence, and just run on instinct to try to eat the living. If a survivor gets bitten and runs away, he or she will also succumb to the disease and turn. Where it gets interesting is the resulting survival against a stupid yet ruthless enemy. The only way to kill a zombie is to destroy the brain, or wait until they rot away years later." "So how, exactly, would it be interesting to introduce those to Equestria?" Dash asked, looking slightly annoyed. "Yeah, well pretty much all guys where I come from want to try to survive the zombie apocalypse, and a huge game market is devoted specifically to zombies." Scootaloo was looking at him with an expression that was a mixture between awe and horror. He quickly added: "It's totally fictional though Scoots, just a horror story." "Can I go as one of those for Nightmare Night?" "Sure I guess, when is that?" Jason asked. "End of the week." Dash said. "You know, the whole time I've been here I never asked the time of year? It was late spring where I came from." "Where did you come from, Jason?" Scoots asked. He shared a glance with Dash. "A magical land, far away from here, called America." Her eyes widened. "And why did you come here?" "I don't know how I got here exactly. Just kinda woke up in a field near Ponyville. Anyway Scoots, as much as I'd like to spend time with you, me and Dash have to figure out a usable plan to get the griffins out of the castle." "Can I come?" Dash looked at Jason. He shrugged. "Sure Squirt, just don't move the stuff on the map. It's really important." They moved into the map room, where Shining Armor was already. "Hey Shining." "Hey Dash, hey, Jason, was it?" "Yeah. This is Scootaloo." He gestured to her. "How goes it?" "Not too good, the only ways I see in are a sewer hatch and a frontal assault, and I don't like the ideas of either of those." "Yeah, I was thinking the same." He stroked his chin, absent-mindedly wondering if it was possible to grow a beard. He missed having stubble, but then again he hated shaving. "We can't really go for the frontal assault, and we can't besiege them because we don't have time. I'd say that our only choice is the sewer entrance." "How would that work anyway?" Shining asked "Are you even hearing yourself?" "Yeah, we'll just get a team together. Get your six best, and we'll all go in, in the middle of the night. Just get as many men as you can spare at the gates, and we'll open them for you. It's like the Trojan Horse, except simpler." "The what?" "Basically it was a military plan that worked brilliantly in a scenario much the same as ours. It achieved victory after a ten year long struggle in a single night. Oh, yeah, and it's all we got." "Need I remind you that you're hurt?" "I have another twelve hours to recover. I'll be fine." He paused. "Anyway, grab six men and tell them that you're honored to report that they have been drafted as a part of Team Green Bean." "Team Green Bean?" "Yeah, and I have code names all sorted out too---" He noticed Shining's stare. "Come on, how funny would it be if foals were in classrooms in ten years and they were like 'Teacher, teacher, can you tell us about Team Green Bean?' or if some old scholars somewhere were discussing it? 'I do say, that Team Green Bean sure left a large societal influence on the Canterlot sphere, do you not agree, compatriot?'" Dash was attempting and failing to hide her laughter, Scoots wasn't even trying. Shining just looked at them all with a look of disgust, which Jason tried to supplement. "Hey, if they find out about something called Team Green Bean they won't take it seriously, think of it that way." "You know, if we had any other plan and that counterattack of yours didn't succeed, I would never listen to you about any of this." Jason snorted. "We're way more fun than regular guards. Can't say we don't make things more interesting." "I'm just glad you don't treat battle itself like a game. Then I'd be worried." Dash seemed to snap out of her good mood. "Are you sure you want to go back up there Jason?" "We don't really have any choice." He shrugged. "I don't want to be associated with a lead-from-behind type of general, or whatever military position I have right now." "But what if something happens to one of you?" Scoots asked. "Nothing will, and we've already proved we can survive a lot." Jason said. Dash nodded. "Well in any case I'll go get some ponies together." Shining said, quickly leaving the room. "Ooh, what's this?" Scoots had started to touch random things on the map. "This is way better than a normal map!" Jason leaned over towards Dash. "What time is it anyway?" "Two or something, early afternoon." "Living in these caves just completely throws off any internal clock I have." They left Scoots to her own devices, telling her not to break anything, to which she quickly agreed. They walked aimlessly back into the main room before Jason suddenly stopped, causing Dash to run into the back of him. "What gives, Jason?" "I just had a thought about how weird all of this is. I mean, I get in a car crash that would have meant certain death, then I end up here, in a magical world of talking ponies. I guess I never told you, or maybe I did, but ponies don't talk where I come from. I wake up in a field with a new body and shapeshifting abilities, then I got chased out of town, met you, got chased out of town again, only this time was taken prisoner by the leader of this country. Then you broke me out, and we lived in the forest for a few days where you became my mare friend. Finally we fought through a battle, I got stabbed, and we adopted a filly. And it's been what? Two weeks or so?" "It's been a good two weeks, mostly." She nuzzled his cheek. "Yeah, I wouldn't take it back, but looking back, we sure were busy." "Not busy enough," She kissed him, "If you know what I mean..." "You really have to tempt me now, don't you?" "You make it too easy." She chuckled, before they both became silent. Dash sighed. "Seriously, though, what are we going to do with the next six hours?" __________________________________________________________________ With French accent: "Two hours later." "What the hell was that?" Dash asked. "I don't know, I couldn't hear it over the sound of my boredom." "I already know you're bored, you've been telling me about it for the past half hour." "Yeah, but back where I came from we had so much stuff that was more entertaining then this pebble." He sighed. Flicking it across the floor with his hoof. "This is more boring than the high school exit exam." Dash giggled. "Where's Scoots when we need her?" "You want to go look for her?" "I have nothing better to do, so yeah." They tiredly got off the floor and walked into the map room, where Scootaloo still resided. "You know, I like maps as much as the next guy, but this is ridiculous." As they neared the table, it became obvious that Scoots had moved the pieces around on the map and was creating her own battle, sound effects and everything. Jason chuckled, "Having fun there Scoots?" She turned around, looking guilty. "Uh....sure?" She tried to shield as much of the map from view as she could. "Don't worry about it, the placement of those things doesn't really matter that much anymore." She sighed, visibly relaxing. "You're almost as bad at hiding things as Applejack!" Dash laughed. The filly glared at her, causing Dash to laugh harder. Shining peered in to see the three of them, doing nothing important as usual, and got Dash's attention. "We got some soldiers together." He said. Dash nudged Jason, whispering the news to him. "Squirt, stay here, we'll be back in a while." She nodded and went back to the map. Jason and Dash left the room, escorted by Shining to a small group of ponies that had been assembled. As he walked by, Jason recognized one or two of the ponies, observing that none of the stallions had anything alike in build or size. Jason walked onto the ledge above them, and cleared his throat. "Because you're here, that must mean you've shown extraordinary strength, skill or valor in battle, possibly all of those things. But now you've been recruited for a much more important reason. As you may know, the griffins have dug in and are fortified in the castle. There is only one plan of action we can take, and that involves you six, with the fate of this war balanced on your shoulders. I can't even begin to think that all of you will make it out of this alive, but that's why we only chose the best. Now, do any of you refuse to accept this offer?" Silence. "Then I hereby welcome you all to Team Green Bean."