As the afternoon sun raised high into the sky, eventually three of the pilots were wounded up by Quatre and Applejack. With the alicorn’s magic and the earth pony’s skill with lassoing animals, Duo, Wufei and Trowa were all caught by their legs and bound. Though it really wasn’t his style, Quatre levitated his friends out into the back behind the house and dropped them to the ground. He summoned a great, big metallic cage around them, so that even if they were to somehow break out of their ropes, there was less of a chance of them escaping that. With their moans, and sobbing, and occasional fits of laughter, they stayed there rolling in the dirt. This gave both Applejack and Quatre a chance to clean up the house and fix the things that had broken.

Heero was the only one that wasn’t put into the cage, and Quatre made a firm decision on that. Having little Applebloom by his side seemed to bring out a part of the Wing pilot that Quatre had always known was somewhere deep inside him. He wasn’t acting violent, irritable, or crazy anymore, but was being very friendly and brotherly to her. Heero could bring out his gentleness if he felt comfortable in allowing it to leave him. Just knowing that brought a great deal of warmth to Quatre’s heart.

As he and Applejack repaired the front door outside, they both heard the younger sister giggling somewhere behind them. Turning around, both she and Heero were just a few yards away in the grass. Heero was lying on his back with Applebloom sitting on his chest in what looked like a play fight. They were pretending to punch each other with both of their hooves meeting at the same time, defending one another from attacks, and tapping each other’s cheeks. Quatre levitated tools with his blue magic and smiled, as he watched the scene unfold. Heero took Applebloom off of him and sat up, and then started punching the very air. He was saying things to her that she took great interest in by jumping up and down on her hind legs, as she tried to copy him in his punching moves.

After everything was taken care of, the other pilots weren’t released until Quatre was sure that all of the alcohol had left their system. By that time it was very much into the late afternoon, with the sky a golden pink, and the stars were slowly appearing in the sky. The ponies inside the cage were sleeping everything off. They all awoke to a loud “poof” as the prison disappeared in a puff of blue smoke, and the ropes holding their legs together became undone. With nothing less than a pounding headache, the three sat on their hindquarters rubbing their foreheads. Quatre stood before them, looking very displeased, with his eyes squinting and brow furrowed.

“I hope you all now understand why I don’t drink alcohol,” he said. His face then lost the aggressiveness and smiled, making ice bags for each pilot appear on top of their heads. “See if you can balance those there for a few minutes. They’ll help you feel better. Applejack says so.”

Wufei pat his ice bag to put more pressure into the coldness seeping into his skull. “I feel disappointed in myself that I had lost complete control. She must never want to see us again.”

“No, she’s fine!” laughed Quatre. “I had told her a little bit about each of you guys, so she seemed to feel bad about getting mad at you all.”

“Wait, what exactly did you tell her?” asked Trowa. He got on to his legs, perfectly balancing the much needed gift on top of his head. “You have to be careful about what you say with ponies here, you know. We’re on a secret mission.”

“I wouldn’t try to badger him about it, Trowa,” mumbled Duo. He got up and tried to gain his footing. “Quatre isn’t a stupid guy, and from what I can kind of remember, Heero shouted something about being an assassin. Now Heero was the stupid guy for saying that to her.”

He closed his eyes tight and flattened his ears, preparing his body for a good thrashing. One that never came. It was then that Duo had opened his reopened eyes and noticed something. With a single leg, he began pointing to every pilot, muttering numbers under his breath. When he got to himself, he put his hoof back down and looked at Quatre.

“He’s actually been playing with Applebloom the entire time,” said Quatre. He raised a hoof and pointed all over the grounds. “They were just having the time of their lives out there!”

Wufei and Duo walked up to each other and glanced at their eyes, right before they started bombarding Quatre with a multitude of questions.

Further away from all of these words where they couldn’t even be heard, the pilot in question was sitting with Applebloom on a tall hill overlooking the apple trees and the sunset. They were side by side, their bodies barely touching each other. Heero was a silent stone while Applebloom was a busy bee. She was collecting little yellow flowers from the spot she was sitting in, and was doing her best in making a circlet with them by using her teeth and hooves to tie them together. She was humming a cute tune to herself as she worked on her project. When she was done, she put the flower crown on Heero’s lap.

“It’s done!” cried Applebloom. She clapped her hooves as Heero picked the crown up to examine it. “Me and mah sister used to make ‘em all the time! Do ya like it?”

Heero smiled and put the crown on his head. He looked down at Applebloom, who was now pressing her hooves into his side so that she could get a good look at him.

Applebloom snickered and put her body back on the ground. “It actually kind of looks funny on ya. Ah thought it would be a good idea. Ya can take it off.”

The stars were now more present in the sky, twinkling to their own rhythm. The sun was halfway over the horizon of the land now and it was starting to get dark. Applebloom sighed and lay down on the grass with her legs spread out. She planted her chin into the dirt, and raised her gaze up to the heavens.

“Ah really like the stars,” she whispered. She looked at Heero, who was also looking up at them. “Heero, what do you think about the stars? Do you like them?”

The sky had turned purple and the balls of gas became even brighter. It had come to his attention that as the sun was now almost gone, the sight of the full moon was upon them. Heero’s eyes glistened, just like the cosmos above their heads. This fascinated the filly, for the stallion seemed to be in deep thought. He wouldn’t answer her questions for another minute, but would continue to stare out into the nothingness of space.

“The stars are beautiful,” Heero finally said. “But they get boring after a while of being so close to them.”

“Huh?” Applebloom wasn’t really sure how to take that answer. Then she saw his wings and laughed. “Oh, yer talkin’ ‘bout flying up there!”

Both ponies looked behind them to see that the Gundam group had arrived. Quatre was in the lead and walked up to the two of them, as Duo made the other two stop dead in their tracks. He pointed to Heero’s head and started whispering to them, snickering with his little grin. Trowa seemed to find the flower crown just as amusing as he contained his own laughter, while Wufei just looked un-amused because of Duo’s comments.

“Hey Heero, we should get going back to the house,” said Quatre, as he reached them. He looked down at Applebloom and waved a hoof. “Hello, Applebloom! I’m Quatre!”

Applebloom waved back, as Quatre turned his attention to Heero’s new sign of royalty. Somehow the yellow flowers nestled within the mat of brown hair didn’t seem out of the ordinary, yet at the same time it was something very strange to see. The slight breeze pushed the smell of the flowers to his face, and he was tempted to lean into Heero’s hair to sniff the crown. The green pegasus took it off his head and held it out in his hooves.

“Could you send this ahead of us back to my room?” asked Heero. He looked down at Applebloom, smiled, then back at Quatre. “I don’t want to lose it.”

Quatre nodded and took the crown with his magic. In a puff of blue, sparkling smoke, the item was gone, headed straight to the house. With that comment, Applebloom jumped on to her legs and tackled herself right into the green pegasus. It was her form of a hug, as Heero gave his own indication of kindness with a nuzzle to the head with a hoof. Quatre smiled at the two of them, as he also heard the reactions of his fellow pilots behind him. He turned to see that Duo had fallen to the ground on his back, his body twitching. Trowa was standing over him, poking him with his legs, while Wufei stood there speechless.

When Trowa looked up and saw Quatre’s concerned face, he waved him off. Just as soon as he did that, Heero gave one last big hug to Applebloom and departed from her side, heading right up to the black pony on the ground. With his front legs, Heero picked Duo up and threw him into the air. Duo yelped and twirled to straighten himself out before flapping his wings to catch himself. He hovered in the air and looked down at the one who antagonized him.

“Watch your language,” said Heero, as he walked under Duo. “There’s a child nearby.”

A joyful hum was heard as Quatre too walked under the flying pegasus. Wufei and Trowa followed, with the blue one still trying to shake off what he had seen. Duo flew up to the alicorn to catch up to him, and continued to stay at a decent pace to fly right above his head. With Heero as the leader now, they were heading off the farm and through the grassy hills once more, as the day officially turned into night.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Walking through the streets of Ponyville during the night made Quatre very uneasy. With the silence all around them, it reminded him of the first night he had ventured out with Luna. The breezy wind that had been at Sweet Apple Acres had now reached here, as the flags flew and hanging signs of nearby shops swayed with their creaks. The echoing of their hooves, and Duo’s flapping wings, confirmed what Quatre was thinking. Not a pony was in sight, and not even the bars seemed to be open. The only lights that were coming from anywhere were from the dismal little candles in some of the homes, and the very brightness of the stars and moon themselves.

Quatre quickened his pace and caught up with Heero, who seemed to be just as tense as he was. His eyes were darting all over the place, his eyes flickering to every small sound. Quatre looked behind him to see how his to his other friends were doing. Trowa and Wufei looked to be tired, but nothing else. The yellow one yawned and the blue pegasus was fighting through his sagging eyes. Quatre looked all around in the air for Duo and couldn’t see him at first; it was his golden cross that gave him away. His black coat made him blend into the darkness almost completely, and his purple eyes looked to have their own glow to them.

“We shouldn’t have stayed as long as we did,” said Wufei. Now to complement Trowa’s yawn, he gave off his own. “Princess Luna made it clear that she didn’t want us roaming Ponyville at night.”

“Hey, she didn’t say that,” Duo pointed out. “She said that we weren’t going to be going on secret night-time missions because of our screw-up.”

To this, Wufei huffed and slowly began accepting the wrongness to his statement. Trowa looked around, his own ears twitching.

“Speaking of which, where is Princess Luna?” he asked. “Shouldn’t she be out here protecting the town?”

“I’m sure she’s around here,” answered Duo, but his own doubtfulness was showing through his voice. He coughed to clear that up. “The moon is up and the stars are out, and doesn’t she bring that stuff?”

Quatre’s seriousness was brought to light as his own thoughts were confirmed through his friends.

“When Luna was banished to the moon, Princess Celestia took control of both day and night,” continued the alicorn. His steps became heavy as his body started becoming more alert to the area. “If we haven’t seen Luna by now, that means that she has lost control of the night and is at the castle. Celestia must think it’s too dangerous for her sister to be out.”

“Well then, wait a second,” started Duo, as he lowered himself closer to the ground next to Quatre. He was barely flying now. “Doesn’t that mean that maybe it’s too dangerous for us to be out then?”

“Quatre can protect us,” said Heero. His sudden statement into the conversation brought a clearer focus to the situation at hand to the others. “I know he can.”

And yet another sign that Heero was changing, possibly for the good. Quatre was so touched by his words that he walked closer to him and nuzzled his head. It was the best and only thing that he could do right now, for as soon as he did that, he started concentrating on his surroundings. The pilots huddled closer to each other with Quatre in the middle, forming a close net of friends. With the alicorn being their top defense and offense with his magic, he himself had to be protected at all cost. Every organism that crossed their paths was given a quick once-over, from the occasional mouse to the annoying fly.

With just a few blocks away from town hall, Quatre’s horn gave off the familiar black sparks that everyone knew too well. They all stopped, and the outer ponies looked around for any signs of enemies. Quatre looked at his horn to see that these sparks weren’t as big, nor strong, as the ones he had felt previously. Almost intuitively, his eyes floated to a barrel that was outside one of the many dark homes in the area. Flapping his wings for a second, he leaped over his friends’ heads and walked on over to the very object that gained his most dire attention.

“Quatre, what do you think you’re doing?” hissed Wufei. He leaned his body forward, yet didn’t move his legs an inch. “Return immediately to us!”

It felt like his head was in a misty swamp, for his ears couldn’t comprehend what his friend said. Quatre continued his journey to the barrel, and upon reaching it, his horn stopped sparking. He placed his hooves over the edges to get a look inside to see its contents, with his horn now glowing a bright blue color for light.

His friends walked up to him and peaked into the barrel as well. What was inside it were ten black rocks, the same as the rock that was charmed and locked away in Quatre’s room. They sparkled under the magical blue light.

“There are so many of them,” muttered Trowa. He looked at Duo, who was standing right next to him. “The single one that you found the other night is nothing compared to this.”

“They don’t seem to be dangerous,” said Quatre. He wasn’t sure how he knew this, but something inside him was telling him so. “At least not yet. The presence of the Abyss hasn’t made it full force with these rocks, but we should still take them back home with us so that I can hide them away.”

The rocks levitated with his magic, and they were off. In a short dash back to the house, the pilots threw their door wide open and made room for Quatre, who ran up the stairs to his room. As he entered it, he walked over to his desk where the magic book, the library book and his enchanted box was. It was something like a purple jewelry box, holding on to its possessions with two golden locks one could just flip up to open. Using his hooves, Quatre did just this, right after he enlarged the box more to hold its new items. He then closed it as fast as he could, releasing a great deal of relief.

His eyes drifted to the book that Heero had originally found for him back at Twilight’s library, the very one that he said he was going to read. The thought of the sorcerer that was depicted inside its page flashed through his mind, and he grabbed the book with his teeth. Lugging it downstairs, he met his fellow pilots by the foot of it and brushed passed them. The living room was lit up by the workings on the lights on the ceiling. Quatre took the book to the table and threw it down, and just as aggressively with his magic, started flipping through the yellowed pages. He found his goal and peered through the paragraphs about the unicorn with his rock.

“Merlin the Manic,” Quatre started, as the others crowded around him. “It says here that his actual name was Merlin White and he was a white magic user, who was head doctor of a village that used to reside within what is now the Everfree Forest, before it was deemed unsafe.”

Quatre’s eyes scanned the page, and continued reading off everything that he felt was important.

“It says here that one day he went to the mountain where Canterlot was in search to replenish his magical herbs, and that he returned with large quantities of these black rocks. In combination with his magic, he used these rocks to help him with his procedures and operations, which would not end in the patient’s favor. The leader of the village than banned him from any more medical cases and questioned him as to why he suddenly started using the rocks. Merlin then told him that…it was because the voices told him to.”

“A good healer gone stark-crazy mad,” snorted Wufei, shaking his head. “Is there anything else?”

“After this was done, something of a plague spread across the village, affecting only the fillies, colts, and foals. They were seen with high fevers and other severe ailments. With no one else in the village qualified to treat them, they sent for help from neighboring settlements. But by the time help arrived, it was too late and everyone who was sick had died. Merlin was accused of using black magic and was going to be kicked out of the village.”

With his magic, Quatre closed the book, along with his eyes. “That’s because that didn’t happen to him. Merlin died.”

“Did it say how he died?” asked Duo. “Did the villagers just go nuts on the guy or something?”

There was hesitation to this answer, as Quatre rubbed a hoof in between his eyebrows. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and continued.

“It said that the villagers had found him murdered and ripped to pieces in his own home. No pony came up to it, not even the other unicorns. And they didn’t think it was a creature, because the village had guards on its borders at all times.” Quatre looked at all of his friends before he said his next sentence. “Merlin’s pieces, along with all of his rocks, were buried in an unmarked grave in an undisclosed location in the forest.”

“But how is that even possible, when we have those same rocks upstairs, and appearing all over town?” asked Trowa. “Does this mean we’re dealing with a ghost?”

Without time to even think about that question, an envelope suddenly appeared before the group, hovering just above the book. This startled all of the pilots, making them take a step back. It was cloaked with a sparkling, purple essence. The envelope opened itself and presented to them a letter. Quatre stepped forward, reading the parchment aloud.

“Quatre and friends,

I am no longer able to protect Ponyville, or even Equestria. The Abyss has gotten too strong for me to handle, and sister has instructed me to stay at home and hide. She has told me that you all have passed her test, and I must agree that your bonds are starting to become mended. Upon seeing you all yesterday evening, I can believe that Quatre’s heart is becoming more powerful with these new memories. Thus, I am entrusting you all the task of scavenging through Ponyville at night and fighting away this evil, as I sit here in hopes of our salvation.

Do not fail us.”

As soon as the letter was finished being read, it exploded into tiny particles, drifting away into nothing. All of this sudden news left the group of friends with nothing to say. They stood in a circle, staring at the floor, as the information spun through their heads. It was Quatre, with his blue eyes filled with determination, who pounded a hoof on to the floor with enough strength to shake the entire living room.

“We may still not fully understand what’s going on here, but I can’t let history repeat itself!” he shouted. “Innocent lives are becoming gravely sick, and if it’s what I’m thinking, it’s because of those rocks being left out there in the open! This was a step in the right direction, but now we’ve been given full responsibility on what happens to everyone that lives here! It’s time to get to the bottom of this before anyone dies here, and we’ll handle this like the amazing team that we are!”

With great gusto, Quatre threw his hoof out into the open. He looked around at his friends, who were beaming with pride from his little speech. Duo threw his hoof in next, followed by Wufei. Trowa followed, and Heero’s green hoof finishing off their circle completed it. All five of them shouted and threw their arms up into the air at the same time, with excitement and enthusiasm. Their pact was created, one that could never be broken. With the wind howling and rattling the windows, Quatre couldn’t have been more satisfied to know that the group of ponies that were around him laughing were something he would like to call his friends.

Operation: Ponies

by Sammy LeDerp

Luna's Retreat