//------------------------------// // "The Presence of Alcohol" // Story: The Winds of Change: Fog of War // by AgentSnail //------------------------------// "The Presence of Alcohol" It was a long walk back to the camp, and the pony corpse draped over Jason's back definitely didn't help. Neither did the slow moving ponies either, for that matter. He smiled to himself, remembering the warm presence leaning against his side. Dash. He was more than a little grateful that she had made it through the battle unharmed, although she had yelled at him for diving over her to block the spear and ending up in the pile of griffins. 'If you're going to die, the last thing I want is for you to die saving me, I'd never get over the guilt.' She had said, punching him in the shoulder. Apparently, all that she had seen was him fly into the crowd, her view quickly closed over by griffins. Then she saw him get hit by the spear in midair, and took off after him as soon as she could. He leaned into her a little more, slightly annoyed that her armor was still between the two of them. He let out a sigh of relief as they crested the hill and the camp came into view. Jason turned back to take a look at the town. There were clear specks of ponies below, their armor reflecting the light from the torches. It was quite a surreal sight, watching the groups of ponies clash with the remaining griffins below. "So what now?" Jason asked Shining, who was walking a ways ahead. "I guess that's your choice. You could go back, or you could choose to see this thing through to the end." Jason turned his head to look at Dash as they started to move between the first set of tents. She shrugged, sighing as the emotions coming off her turned sour. Shining stopped, turning back to the escort and hostages. "All members of Team Green Bean, you're free to go, get to the infirmary if you need to. It's tent F1. Make sure the hostages get there as well. Whoever's holding the griffin tie him to one of the beds." He turned away from the resulting solute. "I still want to talk to you two though. And you, Eravel" He walked into his tent, holding the flap open as Jason, Dash and Eravel entered. "We've got to figure out what to do with this city down there. I made sure that we're wrapping up as few civilians as possible in the killing, but there's still the risk that griffin military members will still be there undercover, and they could rise up later." Jason shrugged. "Use some counter-insurgancy tactics." "I knew that, but we don't exactly have a lot of experience in the topic." "Eravel, how much did people seem to dislike the government?" "I dunno, they couldn't really say without the risk of being killed. I definitely didn't like it, my friend didn't either." "Okay," Jason continued, "Assuming the people don't like the government, and by extension the army, all you have to do is make the griffins feel safe, let them know that your society is better and that they can safely point out any threats. It worked wonders in a couple of wars. An ongoing one too, or at least it's probably still ongoing. They couldn't have possibly finished the war in a month and a half." "So you're saying that all it takes is a little protection?" "Well our soldiers have to look nice and preferable to the griffin army, but yeah. It was a lot harder in the war that's going on now though, because the insurgents tended to just go into a populated area and blow themselves up or lay bombs all over the place, so they're harder to root out in time. Others had guns and were well known terrorists, so the civilians would just point them out, and it was much easier." "Your world was like that?" Shining asked, his jaw slightly ajar. "Well, not really. If I were to explain it it would sound really violent, but it's not like we were all evil. Most of us were good peop-- ponies. It was pretty much fringe groups that stir up most stuff; communists, nazis. They just grew because they had appealing party platforms." "Parties?" Eravel asked. Jason facehoofed. "Right, you don't really have politics. You elect people to office in democratic countries based on what they say they're going to do, although people don't usually check for the validity of politicians' claims. In other parts of the world, though, people often take over and become dictators. Like Stalin. He had a party platform that was favorable to the huge poor population, and it was mostly the same with Hitler, who led the Nazis. Propaganda and the lack of information, along with fulfilled promises of food pretty much allowed them to keep power." "And what happened to them?" "There was World War Two, and my country helped destroy Hitler's Germany, and then kept a Cold War going with Russia until it fell apart. You have my computer right?" Shining nodded, pulling open a drawer and passing over the device. Jason powered the computer, surfing through his pictures before turning around the computer. They looked confused, trying to figure out what the picture was. "What is it, a weird cloud?" "This is a test of an atom bomb. That cloud is over forty thousand feet tall." There was a gasp. "We only ever dropped two in war, it's really more of a threat. Anyway, let's get off of this stupid tangent, I'm getting sick of making us look bad. We did so much good, I'm really just showing you the worst parts." He paused. "Just as an example, we're so advanced in medicine that we can give someone a replacement heart or preform brain surgery. Without magic." Another gasp. "You can do all that?" Shining asked, checking his face for signs of lying. "Yeah, it's just science. We got a guy on the moon forty years ago, and we have thousands of satellites in orbit. We can see so far into deep space that it's like going back in time to when the universe was still newly born." "What do you mean, back in time?" Dash asked. "Light doesn't just come to your eyes, it has to travel there. And in the huge scheme of things, it travels really slowly. I'm not saying anymore right now, I'm tired. And I could go on for years about how many things we've discovered or created. But seriously, I'm going to fall over." "Yeah, me too. That shit's hard work." Dash agreed. Jason bid Shining a goodbye before he left the tent with Dash. She looked over worriedly as soon as they got outside. "What're we going to do about the war, are we going to stay?" She asked. "How about this, Dash. We'll find out how far we are from the capitol and how long it'll take to move out, and then we'll decide. I'd rather stay here if we're just going to get called back before it's over. I really don't think it's going to last that long anyway. We're just one army of several, and the others are pretty much just marching forward, there's no griffin resistance to the east yet." "You sure it'll be fast?" "Well I'd be stupid to say that for sure, everyone always makes that mistake, but it couldn't be long." "I guess you haven't really been wrong yet..." "Yeah, only all the time." He chuckled. "But I'd like to be right now more than ever. I really miss Scoots though." "No kidding." She pushed through the entrance to the tent. "I wish I could see that cute little orange menace." "I hope she's having fun without us, and hopefully not destroying the town." "Yeah." She looked at him expectantly, and he stripped off her armor. She sighed gratefully and walked over to the mattresses, literally falling down onto one of them. "It's not hard to guess that we aren't doing anything tonight?" "You mean like sex?" "Well I was going to be subtle, but okay." Jason chuckled, sliding his saddlebag off his back. "We'd probably just fall asleep in the middle." He yawned. "Ha, yeah. I was kinda joking anyway. Throw me an apple." He reached his hoof into the saddlebag, tossing her the least blemished one before walking over to join her. He slumped down, much less gracefully than Dash had. "Still clumsy, eh?" She asked, smirking. He rolled his eyes. "At least I know what I'm doing where it counts." He brushed a hoof over her shoulder, grabbing a blanket with his magic and pulling it over them. He shivered for a moment before he got up and grabbed the extra blanket out of his saddlebag. As he was carrying it back to the bed he shifted into his regular Alternis pony form, laying down next to Dash as he wrapped the second blanket around the two of them. She kept the presence of mind long enough to bury her muzzle in his shoulder and throw her forehooves around his torso before passing out the rest of the way. Jason sighed, stroking a hoof through her mane as he put his arm around her head. He moved his head, resting it hers. He took in a deep breath, taking in the smell of sweat, with her normal airy freshness underneath. But try as he might, he couldn't get to sleep. Maybe it was Scoots, or just general homesickness, although he wasn't sure why that'd strike now. Or maybe he was just scared. Scared of dying, scared that Dash might get some irreparable injury and he'd have to say to her that he couldn't do anything, that her injuries were healable but she was still going to die from blood loss. And he didn't think he'd be able to get through it. When his family had died, sure, he'd gotten over that. It still haunted him sometimes. But he could only blame himself so much for that, he couldn't have blocked a bullet or healed them up. Fuck, he couldn't have taken one of the gunmen hand to hand. But this was different, it was his job to look out for her, and he didn't want her to be the victim when he fucked up. He looked down, watching a tear hit her mane and slide off. He couldn't lose her, not after all this. She was the only pony, well only female more importantly, that he'd ever loved, that he'd ever wanted to spend the rest of his life with. She was his entire world, no matter how much he teased her and joked around. And just the thought of her head, eyes lifeless and foggy as he cradled it in his hooves was too much to bear. Another tear fell, hitting her inside the ear. She jumped and woke up with a start, turning her head to look up at Jason. "What's wrong?" She asked, immediately going from tired and annoyed to concerned. "I-- I got into thinking about what would happen if I couldn't save you, if your injuries were too much to heal. And I couldn't bear the thought. You're irreplaceable, and you mean the world to me. I wouldn't know what to do if you died, I'd probably go insane. I guess I haven't really needed to care about anyone for a while, and I guess that just makes you seem that much more important." Dash furrowed her brow, trying to think of something to say. She eventually just hugged him tighter. "I'm sorry." He pushed her back so that he could look her in the eye. "It's not your fault, really. A lot of it's from the healing, honestly. I mean, if there's something I could do, it's much easier to blame myself, and that's what I'd probably do. It's a blessing in disguise, I have to choose who to heal and how much, it's like I'm trying to play god. I don't like it. But like I said before, you're irreplaceable, and that's what makes it hardest." "Jason, calm down. I'm not going anywhere." She leaned over and kissed him, effectively derailing his train of thought. "And I hate seeing you like this. If you're worried about this all the time, it's probably going to make the chances higher that it'll happen. When you're not as worried you tend to know what's going on and make better decisions." "How do you do it?" He breathed. "What?" "How do you get past all the worrying that I'm going to die?" "I just look at it differently. I think of the things I can do rather than the ones I can't. The best case scenario, as it is." she poked him in the chest playfully, trying to get him back to his usual self. "You should try it sometime." Jason let out a dry chuckle, looking her in the eye. "I will." He leaned forward again to kiss her before pulling her into his embrace. "I love you Dash." "I love you too, Jason." She smiled, resting her head on his upper foreleg as she usually did before ruffling his feathers playfully. Jason shuddered, poking her in the side in response. She let out a yelp, evidently she was fairly ticklish. He'd have to remember that. Dash settled back down, giggling lightly, before pulling him tighter against her and sighing. "I like listening to your heart beat." She muttered. "It's slower than most ponies, and it's calming." She adjusted a hind leg, knocking it into one of his. "You really are the perfect pillow." "I'm sure you have a lot of experience." "I do, thank you very much." She giggled again, before he breathing gradually became deeper and he figured she'd fallen asleep. He smiled into the darkness, amazed at how quickly she could always turn his mood around. It wasn't long before sleep claimed him as well. ___________________________________________________________ Jason awoke, recalling the events of his dream. It had been one of the most peaceful dreams he'd had in a while, that was for sure. He'd been flying alongside Dash, just flying. He distinctly remembered that the sky was full of clouds, and never seemed to end. They had been diving for a fairly long time, and he couldn't even remember seeing the ground, let alone getting closer. And at some point he had split off from Dash, more fell behind than anything, as it turned out. Shortly after the color spectrum filled the sky as Dash preformed her trademark Sonic Rainboom, and he watched in awe as the wave spread out. And that's when he'd woken up. Dash stirred next to him, her breath becoming more shallow as she rolled over to look at him. She leaned in for a kiss before Jason could get a word in, giggling when she saw his expression. "Good to know I still make you flustered like that." She said, running a hoof along his side as she assumed a ponderous face. "You know, you never showed me anything fast from your world, and your computer's right over there..." "I like how you use the same tone of voice when you want me to do things as when you're trying to allude to sex." Dash chuckled. "I still get you to do things, so I guess it works." Jason returned her chuckle, turning his head so that he could see the computer as he levitated it out of the saddlebag and over to them. He laid it on top of the covers and opened the lid, watching as his background popped up and the computer returned from sleep mode. "So I have a few things, most of which are pictures." She nodded as he pulled up a photo album. "This is the coolest plane in the history of planes. The B2 bomber." "And this is tied with that plane. F22 Raptor, which is a fighter plane." "How do those things fly?" She asked, leaning closer to the screen. "Their wings don't even move!" "They go really fast. The second one I mean, the first one's more focused on silence then speed. Anyway, it would be cool to pilot something like that, going at speeds that fast." "You said mach eight?" "Something like that." He clicked a few times, putting an arm behind her head and around her opposite shoulder. "And this is a video of a rocket taking off, although I can't remember which mission this was." He played the video, turning down the volume after the computer started to vibrate from the bass note the engines produced. Dash's 'yeah right' look turned to a look of surprise as the rocket left its starting blocks and accelerated into the upper atmosphere. "So where's it going?" She asked, looking over at him expectantly. "I dunno, it could be going out to repair the Hubble space telescope, or something else. I'm not sure when the last time was that they put men on the moon." He clicked a few more times. "Here's a picture, by the way." "Wow..." She paused. "Why do you have all this stuff on your computer?" "I thought they were cool things. Each one used to be my desktop background at one point." He smiled. "But here's something actually relating to speed." He started another video, featuring cars as they went around corners. "What are these things?" "Those are F1 race cars. I had these races saved to watch because I missed them, but, well, I guess I never got to see who won. Probably Sebastian Vettel though. Anyway, those cars are ridiculously expensive, and all those jutty bits are either air intake or wings pushing the car onto the road. I think I told you about this before, actually." "Yeah, but seeing it like this is awesome!" "Glad you think so." They watched the race in relative silence, Dash letting out small squeals of glee whenever the camera shifted to inside one of the cars. Jason looked at the clock on the computer, which was fairly correct ignoring the month and year, the day of the week, and day of the month. He chuckled to himself. The time read ten forty five, so he figured that Scoots would be in school right now. Probably not a the best time to see if she was alright. He pulled out the pad just in case she had written anything, but it came out blank. He floated out an apple, handing it over to Dash, who grabbed it and immediately took a bite without looking away from the computer screen. Jason took a brief glance at the screen before laying his head across her chest and closing his eyes. "I know I'm usually the pillow, but you're pretty comfy yourself." He smiled and dozed off, drifting in and out of consciousness as time drew on. When he woke up a few times later he got up off of Dash's chest and stretched, figuring that he had slept long enough. Dash had dozed off at some point during or after the race, and had her mouth wide open. The computer had gone into sleep mode again, the black screen displaying his slightly distorted reflection. Jason pushed Dash's mouth closed, chuckling when she didn't wake up. He started up the computer again, sifting through an array of sound effects he had bought a long time ago. He couldn't remember exactly what it was that had possessed him to do so, but 'trash can lid closing' looked pretty good. CLANG!!! Annoyingly for him, Dash only opened her eyes, not giving him a reaction anything like the alarm clock from yesterday. He sighed and closed the computer, setting it aside. Dash smirked. "I've been awake for a while." She said before he could ask why she hadn't at least jumped. "That was a great race though. Say, how did you know Vettel was going to win?" "He wins everything now. Some say it's the Red Bull car, but I think he's probably just a good driver." "I just think you've seen the race." "If I had, it wouldn't still be on my computer." "Touche." "So you wanna get up and do something? I think it's like lunchtime, so we could go over to the mess hall, or tent or whatever." "Yeah, I guess. I didn't know we had a mess hall." "We must..." They went silent for a few moments. "So we're staying? In the war I mean?" Dash asked, rolling over to look him in the eye. "Hold on." He grabbed the pad of paper and looked it over, letting out a light sigh of relief as he read Scoots' message. How did the attack go? Did you save the ponies? Are you okay? He chuckled and pulled out a pencil, scribbling down his response. We're fine, the griffin city is presumably taken. We may be out here a while longer to finish the war, so that we don't end up back there just to come back. But don't worry, we should be through the worst of it. I love you Scoots, and I miss you, and Dash is here feeling the same. Don't get too lonely, we'll be back before you know it. He set down the pad, wishing yet again that there was a better means of communication with the filly. "You wanna go see what happened to that griffin or something?" Jason asked. "I want to go get some food first." Dash replied. "Well that's not surprising." "I can't tell if you're being sarcastic." "I kinda was in my head, but then I realized that it's lunchtime and all you've had was an apple. By the way, we pretty much only seem to eat apples." "They're easy food sources, and like you said, we don't really eat that many different things." Dash replied. "Yeah." He looked over at her. "You know, it's funny how you can look pretty in every situation." She giggled. "I think you're just biased. Not that I'm complaining. You're quite the handsome changeling yourself." "Why thank you." He tipped his imaginary hat to her, before they both lost their straight faces and broke down into laughter. Jason put a hoof around her head and pulled her into a kiss. She giggled at his sudden boldness before melting into the kiss herself. Her exposed wing extended with a soft whoosh of air. "Mmm, you're good at that." "What, kissing?" "Making me want you." She said with a smirk. Jason raised an eyebrow. "I see," He looked at his imaginary watch, returning her smirk. "I do believe we have time." He pulled her over on top of himself, locking his lips with hers in another kiss. He pulled away a few seconds later, putting a hoof to her mouth before she could protest. "I gotta get that soundproofing spell up." He channeled some energy through his horn, listening to make sure that the silence from the spell had taken effect. "Done?" She asked. "Done." He replied. She smiled and leaned down, mashing her lips into his once again. _________________________________________________________________ Jason woke up with a start, worried for some reason that they had slept through the rest of the day. He sighed. one fifteen, not too bad. In the afternoon, he hoped. He got up, trying not to disturb Dash, and made his way to the tent exit. He opened the flap, letting out another sigh when light flooded inside. He walked back over to the 'bed' and gently shoved Dash's shoulder with a hoof, making her roll over to the side. She snorted as she woke back up, blushing when she realized that Jason had heard the noise. "You're cute when you're embarrassed." He said, pulling her up with a hoof. "Apparently I'm better then lunch, eh?" "I'm not going to lie, yeah. Way better." She paused. "I'm still hungry though." Jason chuckled. "How about we leave before we end up all over each other again. Not that it wasn't fun and all." Her stomach rumbled. "Probably a good call." She walked over to the tent exit, pushing her way through the flap. "I have no idea where I'm going." "Yeah, we could ask Shining. I'm kinda curious about how the battle ended, actually I know who won, but hopefully we didn't lose a lot of troops." He broke into a trot, eager to at least taste something again. Funny how that worked. He burst into Shining's tent, noticing the stallion at a table with a mug of cider. "Hey, thought I'd never see you two again." Shining said. "We won, by the way. The troops got back about twenty minutes ago, after I got some replacements down there." "So how many did we lose?" "Twenty. Fourteen more injured. We've had worse. Or course, you seemed to take out the vast majority of them with your..." He gestured with his hoof that he wanted Jason to finish the sentence. "Gun. More specifically AUG." "Yeah, you two are fine though? I heard you got pretty beat up by that griffin we have in the infirmary right now." Jason blushed and rubbed the back of his head. Maybe he should've dropped this disguise by now. Ah well, he liked having fur. And feathered wings. "Yeah, he was a pretty good fighter. It made me kinda nervous that the troops we've fought so far aren't the worst we're going to have to deal with." "Funny, that idea struck me as well." Dash said, stroking her chin. "They can't all be that easy, you know?" "Yeah, I wish they were, but I kinda doubt that they are." Jason paused, pointing to the mug of cider. "Celebrating?" "Yeah," Shining started, "One of the soldiers brought it to me from the mess hall, apparently we got a shipment of cider today, and they're going to drink it. Maybe I'll join them in a while." "Where's this mess hall exactly?" Jason asked. "To the east." He pointed a hoof. "We're moving out tomorrow, so be ready. The lines across the valley have encountered the griffins a couple times, so we need to move before they get dug in or end up with a bunch of troops all over the place." "Alright, but like morning tomorrow?" "Yeah, I want to be gone before nine. I set it all up with Celestia, we'll be loading stuff into chariots and marching as far as we can on day one before finding a hill or defendable position to set up a new camp. We're keeping some of the tents here to act as a relay station for supplies and to watch over the city below. Hopefully we can phase out the tents and just use the town to store supplies." "That would definitely be easier." He turned to leave, figuring a party wouldn't be the worst thing to do with his time. Dash bumped into him, and he redirected his attention. "Don't get all drunk this time, okay?" "I'm not going to enter a drinking contest, don't worry. I may be a heavyweight in terms of drinking here, but it's not like I particularly enjoy cider. Of course--" He bumped his front hoof into something hard, and he let out a yelp of pain, looking for the source of his injury. "What is that thing?" Dash asked, pointing behind him. Ooh, maybe it's something technologically advan--- no. "That's a hubcap, and maybe some rusty screws. It's junk." They started to walk again. "What does it do?" "It goes on the side of car wheels, I think it just makes them look better, but I'm not an expert. And some of my knowledge is starting to fade." "Really, you're forgetting things?" "Well, little things, but it's a little annoying to keep forgetting stuff like that. I don't really miss being back there that much, but I definitely don't want to forget it." "Did you have a lot of money?" "What?" She poked him. "Well, did ya?" "I had a fair amount, yes." "How'd you do it?" "I got really lucky. Most of it came from me selling my parent's house. I couldn't stand living there anymore, so I sold it five years ago. And then houses dropped in value and there was an economic recession. So I stayed in an apartment for a while, then I bought a cheap house that was about the same for half the price. Like I said, luck." "How much could you possibly get out of that?" "Half a million dollars, after I bought the new house. About half of that's just sitting in a bank account generating interest, and I invested like a quarter in the stock market, and considering how cheap stocks were, that was a good idea. I was pulling in some profits before I got sent here." "And you got yanked from that?" "Well, it's not a big deal, the money'll still be there if I ever get sent back or something." "But you had so much!" "And nothing to buy, Dash, it didn't matter." He paused. "Plus, I was lonely. For the record though, money kinda can buy happiness. I definitely wasn't bored." "So why did you stick your money in socks?" "Stocks." He corrected. "They're like representations of a company that are defined on the worth of the company, and they go up and down based on how the company does. The idea is that you buy little parts of the company, and get money if the company goes up." "Okay, if I'm not going to understand it at all, just say so." Jason checkled. "I'll try to censor my normal conversation." "You better, I'm just feeling stupid when I don't know these things." "I know how you feel. You should have seen me when I was disguised in Scoots' school, I had no idea what any history was." Dash giggled. "That's a funny image, you not knowing what to say." He snorted. "Yeah, well we're here, so..." "Don't get drunk." She said, poking him in the side in warning. "And I will not get drunk." He replied, poking her in return. "I like how little self control you think I have." "Only in the presence of alcohol." She giggled, leaning over and giving him a kiss. "You may want to drop the disguise though, especially if you want anypony to recognize you." "Ah, yeah." Green flames washed over his form, taking his disguise with them. "Okay I'm ready." "I don't think I'll ever really get used to that. You changing, I mean." "I guess that's good, stuff won't get boring." He lifted her chin with a hoof, leaning over to kiss her again. "And you get annoying when you're bored." She punched him in the shoulder, and he chuckled. Dash smirked and walked into the tent, the voices from outside growing in volume. It was a rather mellow looking party, but of course it had only been started forty or so minutes ago. Jason let a smile grow on his face as he looked over the crowd of celebrating soldiers. One of them noticed their presence and saluted before he hoofed Jason a mug, grabbing another and sliding it down the table to Dash. He tapped his buddy on the shoulder, and word spread of their presence until everyone was at attention in the tent, saluting the pair. "Aren't we the popular ones." Jason said, looking over the crowd in awe. "At ease, guys. You're here to party after all." The crowd cheered as ponies went back to their party, another round of drinks quickly doled out. Jason took a sip from his mug, and started to walk through the crowd of ponies to find someone he knew. He spotted the two officers, sticking together as they always seemed to. He shifted his gaze to Tank and Eravel at a table in the corner, chatting with each other. He walked over and Tank finished a thought before looking over. "You look well rested." Tank said. "You really don't" Jason replied, taking another sip of his cider. "Everything okay with Morning Rain?" Tank shrugged. "Yeah, she's awake. She made me come here, so that I'd actually get out. Thanks for saving her, Jason." "It's my job, don't worry about it. I'm glad she made it." "So did we win?" Eravel asked, eyeing the cider suspiciously. Jason nodded as he took another sip. "Twenty killed, after the other ponies intervened." He paused. "You know, I never really express my gratitude towards you guys for staying on the team, but seriously, thanks." "Didn't one of the other ponies go insane?" Dash asked. "No, it's not really insanity. We called it shell shock for a while, but it's post-traumatic stress. We'll have to get those alternates onto the team." "Oh, Shining already got that together, he told me this morning." Tank replied. "You need to get code-names for those other guys by the way." "Oh yeah. Eravel, you're Hawkeye now. Congratulations." Jason said. "Hooray?" The griffin replied hesitantly. "Yeah." A pony tapped Jason on the shoulder and he turned around to see the pair of officers again. Judging by the blush on the mare's face, she was at least partially drunk. "H-hey, we won down there, right?" He asked, a little awkwardly. He looked kinda awkward. Star, something? Gazer? Or was it Grazer? "Yeah, twenty dead ponies as a result." Jason replied. "So how exactly did you and your team take out all those griffins?" "Teamwork and planning. And futuristic weapons." He shrugged. "I didn't really bring it with me, but it fires metal weights at high speeds. It was causing all the boom noises." He turned back to the table. "You still got that machete, Tank?" "Yeah, I really like this thing. You said it was military?" He pulled the machete and it's sheath off his back, tossing it to Jason. "This is the closest thing I have to futuristic, but I guess that's only because they make millions of these every year for the marines." He paused. "Those are guys in the navy, which is the oceanic army. We don't have a navy here, do we?" Tank shrugged. "I'll have the gun, that's what it's called, with me tomorrow when we move out, I'll show it to you if you still care." The mare whispered something into the male officer's ear and stumbled away. "Yeah, I'd love to see it!" He saluted briefly before looking around and taking off in a random direction. "Hey Jason," Dash started, pointing to an open part of the floor where some of the soldiers were dancing. Weird how this military wasn't all men, Jason thought. "Wanna dance?" "Alright, on one condition." "And what would that be?" He smirked. "You follow my lead."