Plans and Pancakes
Jason stirred, a slight bolt of pain lancing through his head before dissipating. He groaned and sat up, for a couple brief seconds mistaking the tent for the walls of Dash's house. Then his little fantasy came crashing down and he was forced to remember all the stuff they still had to do before he could even think about going home. He still had to get through these stupid woods, which were starting to remind him of the Ardenne woods more than anything. Then they had to capture the capitol and hope the griffins sent out peace feelers at that point. But if they didn't, that just meant more time spent on the front capturing other cities.
He sighed, looking over at Dash and tracing a hoof across the scar on her face and through a line of moisture. Loyal. The word bounced through his head, sinking in a few moments later. She really was the element of loyalty, he doubted anyone else would've gone through all this without even a thought of leaving. Or at least, the decision to wane off fighting and enjoy their rank.
But she always stayed by his side, through all her injuries, through all of his, and she never lost her resolve or her energy. It was amazing, really. And god knows she'd kept him from thinking about cutting back or returning completely. It's not like he didn't know he needed to stay here, but it was hard to, especially considering the irregular stream of nightmares.
This last one had taken place in the woods, presumably a few weeks later judging by the snow.
He had woken up in a fox hole next to Dash, gripping his rifle tightly under the tattered blanket. How he knew it was her, though, he wasn't entirely sure. For one thing her hair wasn't rainbow colored, which threw him a little. Long brown hair cascaded past the back of her helmet.
Dash hadn't seemed to mind the dream, although it looked as if she found it strange, especially considering her prolonged examination of one hand. But who was he to say? They only seemed to have partial control over things, anyway.
There was some squeaking and rumbling coming from across the clearing. It got louder and louder, building to a crescendo of suspense before a tree was flattened and a tank came rolling across, flanked by several soldiers. They looked like regular humans, something he wasn't completely expecting. He laid his rifle on the top of the hole, looking down the sight as he zeroed in on one of the soldiers, and pulled the trigger.
The gun didn't make any noise, but kicked back into his shoulder a little more than he had expected it to. He lined up the shot again and fired, watching the man fall as several bullets contacted the fresh snow in front of the foxhole. Jason fired several more shots, wondering in the back of his head when he'd have to reload.
TING!
The empty clip ejected out of the top of the gun, and he reached into his vest to pull out another one, shoving it none too gently into the magazine receiver and swiftly pulling back the charging handle and lining the gun up for another shot.
"Retreat!" Said another soldier from one of the foxholes. Jason fired the rest of his clip, waiting for Dash to climb out before following her. They ran backwards for a while, bullets ripping through the foliage around them. Some mortar shells started to fall as Jason dove for cover, a rag-tag trench, and quickly found himself at the bottom. He raised his hand to wipe some sweat off his forehead, and realized that it had come up from his gut red with blood. He stared at his hand for a moment, letting the gravity of the situation sink in.
"I'm hit!" He yelled. "Medic!" Dash gave him a quick look from her position and took off her helmet to wipe her forehead. Her hair started to change color as it ended in her bangs, with overtones of colors that were offset by the native brown. She knelt, peering over the edge of the trench before sending a couple more bullets downrange. Jason could hear a Browning machine gun start to fire, sending even more lead towards the enemy as another soldier landed in the trench, a red cross stuck on his arm. The medic pushed Jason onto his back and ripped open his shirt, hurriedly looking for the wound.
"Heh, at least take me to dinner first." He said, cringing when the medic found the wound and pushed down. It was somewhere towards the side of his gut, hopefully not a wound that would take him off the front, although he wasn't sure why he cared either way. He felt the medic pull a bandage around his midsection, jerking it tight with a heavy pull. Jason felt a pinprick on his shoulder before the pain started to evaporate, receding to a slight ache. He checked the injury. Still there. Must've been morphine.
A flare flew into the suddenly nighttime sky, lighting up the area as bullets started to fly out of the bushes. He heard a few thuds as something fell into the trench, and he looked around for a moment before his eyes focused on a stick grenade, laying menacingly between the three of them. Jason jumped forward and threw himself over the thing, swearing for a second or so before it went off. He was thrown a few feet above the rim of the foxhole, flailing his
He landed back in the trench, specifically thinking against looking down at his chest as his vision began to darken. The morphine appeared to be doing its job, he could feel what was missing, but it was detached, like he was the surgeon. His head was jerked to the side as Dash turned it to look into her eyes, a glint of moisture giving away the fact that she was probably crying.
Jason fumbled a hand around his neck, pulling off his dog tags and handing them to her. It was the only thing he could think to do as she finally disappeared into the black spot that was taking up his field of view.
That's when he had woken up, not really shaken by the dream itself but depressed by what it held. He had somehow gotten over how real everything felt in those things, like the snow that had gotten into one of his boots and stung as it melted, or one of the branches that had scratched his face. Jason looked over at Dash, who looked like she was starting to stir. She opened an eye, her face lighting up as she threw her hooves around his form and started bawling into his shoulder.
"I thought you died!" She sobbed. "I don-- that was terrible."
"I know." He could feel his eyes start to fog up. "I'm sorry."
"Why would you be sorry?" She asked, choking back a sob.
"Because I provide the setting for these things. It could've been a happy little green field, but no, it's World War Two."
She wiped a hoof across her eyes, and it came away more than a little damp. "Listen, Jason. It's not a big problem. I can deal with it as long as it doesn't last. Plus, it's not all bad, I got to see something that I wouldn't have seen here."
"Y-you're recovering quickly."
"Well it's not hard to when you're not actually dead." She sighed. "And I have a lot of questions."
"That figures."
"But before I ask any of them, do you think we can just cuddle or something? So that I know you aren't just going to poof away?"
"You don't need to ask." He hugged her tighter, and she sighed gratefully. It was more than a few minutes before she stirred again, craning her head to give him a kiss.
"I love you, Jason."
"I love you too." It was a few more minutes before she finally spoke up again. "So I was a human there?"
"Yeah."
"So how was I not stumbling all over the place?"
"I think that's from me, if I'm subconsciously in control of the dream, I'm probably in control of giving you the ability to move fairly easily. I dunno, we at least know that I'm controlling the dreamscape now."
"Why did you throw yourself on that thing?"
"I didn't want it to kill all of us." He felt her arms squeeze around his chest.
"You need to have better dreams."
He chuckled. "I'll work on it."
Another brief silence. "So that was war for you?"
"Well, without air support or heavy armor. That war was about seventy years ago, war's gotten more complicated since then."
"So like, worse then having your chest blown open?" She asked, her eyes tearing up at the memory.
"I dunno, being set on fire's pretty bad. Some things are illegal in war, even. So you can't use chemical weapons, weponize diseases... I think napalm's illegal too." He scratched his chin in thought.
"What about those mushroom cloud things?"
"Atomic weapons? No, those are legal. No one uses them though, they pretty much kill everything, and then nuclear radiation blows all over the place. There were two countries developing long range war-heads, and without anything to stop them, they'd probably go ahead and use them. So you'd think we'd go bomb the shit out of labs capable of creating a weapon specifically designed to kill Americans, or at least people in the free world. But no, we tried to negotiate with the insane leaders. Hopefully everything isn't blown up by now."
"So yeah, sorry to break of your rant here, but I was a pretty regular looking human?"
"I guess, there aren't really many women in the military, though."
"So those were fingers, those little brittle looking things?"
"Yup. I'm guessing that was as vivid for you as it was for me?"
"I think so, I thought it was real." She scratched her head. "It felt natural though, standing like that, moving my fingers. Are humans usually that heavy?"
"No, soldiers just carry lots of stuff." He paused. "How long till the Running of the Leaves, by the way?"
"A couple weeks at least. Winter's pretty much delayed as much as possible. Like for harvest and stuff."
"Yeah, okay." He rolled out of bed and stretched, scratching his leg through the short fur.
"You wanted to compete?"
"A little." She nodded.
"We'll see about that." Dash said, and they both became silent. "Hey, Evening said that you could make your fur longer, right?"
"Yeah, I can do that." Some flames washed over his body, leaving what appeared to be a pile of hair. "I think I overdid it." Came his muffled voice. Another wave of fire left a rather fluffy looking Alternis. "How's this?" He asked with a smirk.
Dash got up and trotted over, running her hooves through his fur. "Wow, this is great! How did we not think of this before?"
"Because we thought about important things?"
"Pfft, this is important. We need to cuddle like this, you'd make an even better pillow."
"Tonight." He corrected. "Not now."
"Aww, what can we possibly have to do?" She paused. "Don't answer that."
"Better question, what do you want to do first? I could ask the changeling things, or--I guess we should probably just get to Shining first, then we can do this other stuff." He nudged her side. "Fun stuff."
"Ooh, I like fun!"
"Oh yeah? I still have that rubber spider, and this time, I'm going to use it."
"Why didn't you scare Eravel?"
"I thought about it, do griffins have the diet of birds or lions or a mixture or what?"
"I dunno. I think I've seen him eat fish before."
"Yeah, okay. The other reason was that I thought maybe he'd be like 'wow, I've never seen a rubber spider before!' I guess that's more sad then funny though."
"You should ask Shining about the status of that city."
"Windforge?"
"Yeah. So let's get going then, the sooner we finish this the sooner we get back, and all that." Dash replied, slinging her saddlebag over her haunches.
"Usually I say that..." Jason pouted, crouching and trying to make himself look vulnerable.
"With all the extra fur, that almost works." She giggled. "Too bad I specifically made that disguise ridiculously masculine."
"Yeah, you're right, whenever a guy tries to pout he looks like he's having some sort of muscle problem." He shifted into a much smaller mare, probably one he had made up on the spot. He reformed his pouting expression. "But now..."
"I think it only works on stallions, Jason."
"I'll just keep trying." He rolled over onto his back and looked up at her. "Whatever I'm begging for, give it to me..."
"You're so weird."
"Please..."
"Jason, you can stop."
"But I almost kinda put work into this..."
"Hey, not to ruin the moment we weren't having here, but how much energy does it take to do that?"
"I dunno, not that much. It was pretty tiring when I first got here, but that could've been due to inexperience rather than a lack of energy. It's still weird though, I thought I'd be used to it by now, but at least it's fast enough to skip all the movement of bones and stuff. Twilight pulled this spell on me when she thought I was a threat, and it was one of the most painful things I've ever been through. Worse than being stabbed, that's for sure."
"It slowed down the transformation, I take it?"
"God, it was agonizing. Bones sliding all over." He shivered. "Ick."
"Doesn't sound like Evening's going all crazy today, that's pretty good I guess." Dash said.
"Yeah, unless she's just going crazy in a different way." Jason replied, walking over to the corner of the tent and picking up his guitar. "We need to play something. I don't care if we have an audience, but I want to get something together."
"I know how you feel, I've been itching to do something with the drums, but it's not like we ever have time."
"God damn, the one thing we never have."
"It's kinda funny, really. But hey, we'll look back on this and wonder why we cared so much."
"Ugh, maybe you're right." He turned and walked out of the tent without another word, chuckling at the hurried hoofsteps behind him as Dash caught up. "Can't stay away, huh?" She leaned into his side, sighing as she caressed his fur.
"You're extra soft, why wouldn't I?"
"It's funny, I should be the one sticking to you, considering my survival basically rests on you."
"Oh yeah, I forgot. You better hope I don't go mad with power."
"You have a lot of power now and you've hardly even used it, so I kinda doubt you'd let having partial control over my life go to your head."
"Well the thing is, and this sounds really corny, it's like I can feel the fact that you aren't here for the sustenance. I can tell that you're pulling love when you're not disguised, but it's not just pulled in immediately, but more when you actually feel love for me. Maybe I'm just making something out of nothing here, but it's always nice to know."
"Has it always been that way?"
"It must've, I guess I don't have any specific memories. Wait, you know what? I think you're right. I don't really remember that happening back in Canterlot, or before, really."
"Great, more unexplained stuff." He sighed and pushed into Shining's tent, quickly taking in his surroundings. A smile broke on his face as he noticed that Shining was still asleep in bed, next to a peaceful looking Evening. He peered over at Dash, who seemed to have been thinking the same things, and they advanced on Shining's bed with the spider in hoof. Jason got up to the bedside, dangling the spider above his face and signaling for Dash to wake him up.
She poked at a shoulder while Jason brushed the spider along his muzzle and attached it to the upper bunk and backed away. Shining scratched at his snout with a hoof before his eyes slowly opened and focused on the spider hanging in front of his face. He didn't move, simply watching the thing hang above him. Jason jiggled the thing with his magic and Shining jumped, before he disconnected the spider from the ceiling and stuck it on Shining's nose.
That's when he finally lost it. He smacked at the spider as Jason levitated it around on his chest, then one of his legs. Shining let out a yelp as he rolled out of bed, before managing to squish the spider against the floor with a hoof. He seemed to immediately recognize that it was rubber, and turned to look at Jason and Dash, who were barely containing their laughter.
Jason was the first to break down the rest of the way, tears of laughter readily flowing out of his eyes as he tried to compose himself. Dash didn't look much better, and only managed to contain her laughter through sheer force of will. Jason got up off the ground a few moments later, meeting Shining's withering gaze.
"Oh man, I needed that." Jason said, wiping a residual tear from his eye.
"Yeah, I'm so glad." Shining responded.
"Hey, I'll make it up to you, okay?"
"Oh really?" He tapped a hoof to his chin in thought.
Dash elbowed Jason in the side. "Why would you offer that?"
"I dunno, I'm being a good sport."
"I can appreciate a good prank. You'll be on my list of ponies to get back, but you know. But for disrespecting your superior, hmm..." He gave the statement time to sink in, although it didn't seem to have that much of an effect. "Go grab me some food, I'm starving. Then I'll call us even. Well sorta, I still owe you a prank."
"Sure, I'll get your silly food, but you have to come up with some sort of plan while I'm gone. I don't want to rush stuff around here, but I want to be in the capitol before the running of the leaves. And I know we can do that. I'm not sure about the rest of the army, but this is a kickass group of ponies here. Oh, and see if Eravel can get some training for ponies in archery. Maybe it doesn't really work with hooves, but it's worth a try.
"Ha, okay. Whatever you gave to the changeling's sure working, but I guess I'm surprised we're all such heavy sleepers around here. It's definitely not a good thing."
"Yeah. You want anything in specific?"
"Eggs, hash browns, it's all pretty much the same."
Jason chuckled and reached into his saddlebag, pulling out the bag of Doritos, which he had kept closed with a couple of paper clips. He opened the bag and passed Shining a few. "Here, fried stuff from my country." Shining took the chips and eyed them strangely, biting off the corner of one as a test.
"These are actually pretty good!" Shining said, taking another bite. Jason noticed that Dash was eyeing him imperatively and he passed her the bag.
"Never underestimate the power of fried food."
"Oh, that reminds me," The general started. "We found another thing, but I honestly have no idea what it is." He gestured for them to follow him around the desk.
"Is it another gun?"
"No, definitely not." He reached under his desk and grunted as he dragged the object out and set it upright. "It's like a black glass window, but nothing comes out the other side."
"A television." Jason said, walking over to the screen. "It's not on, so it's not going to do anything." He directed some magic towards it and pressed the power button, watching at the screen quickly lit up with blue light and displayed a message that read: 'no signal'.
Shining gasped. "That whole thing lights up?"
"Yeah, it doesn't do much unless there's something plugged in, but you know."
Shining stared for a few more seconds before he finally tore himself away and returned to his desk. "Tank found this thing, and brought it in yesterday." He handed over an Xbox controller.
"Okay, this thing controls another thing that controls the TV."
"So where does it plug in?" Shining asked, looking at the controller in Jason's hooves.
"It's wireless, it just sends signals over to the 'mother' computer, which we don't have, as it turns out."
"Like, through the air?"
"Yeah."
"Is it dangerous? Are we going to get cancer or something?"
"No, it's comprised of low energy waves. The sun does hundreds of times more damage. So, you want those eggs or what?"
"Yeah, go ahead, bring me food." Jason heard Dash chuckle. "We need to figure out how this stuff's getting teleported, though."
"Just as soon as I figure out all this other stuff."
"So why are you so fluffy today?"
"Dash wanted to see if I could. And it turns out I was able to." He chuckled and turned to leave, feeling Dash bump against his side as he exited.
"So what happened to those boxes?"
Jason sighed. "The surprise ones?"
"Yeah, where'd they go?"
"I sent them to Ponyville."
"Oh, like to a mare or something?! I saw the jewelry in those" She shoved into Jason, sending him stumbling away.
"No, to the blacksmith!"
"Why would you do that?"
"I can't tell you, but I'm sure you can figure it out. You have to know I'm not cheating on you, right?"
"I guess, it's not like you're ever away from me. But why then?"
"He'll be sending something back, you'll find out in a few days. Maybe even tomorrow, depending on how fast transport is. But then again, I don't want to show it to you until after all this stuff is over. I guess I was just preparing ahead of time."
"Ahead of time for what?"
"You would be disappointed if I ruined it, possibly for the rest of your life." Dash went silent, looking at the ground in thought.
"Fine, you don't need to show me. And I'm sorry for doubting you, even a little."
"I would've probably done the same thing, whether I can feel your love or not. I know we're more trusting of each other than a normal couple, probably, but there are levels of conspicuousness where it still instills doubt. Try not to think on what I'm talking about too much, I want stuff to be a surprise."
"Yeah, okay. I'm not that dense. I've caught on to what you're talking about."
"Well damn." He sighed. "Forget everything."
"No problem." She giggled. "It doesn't need to be a surprise." Maybe she wasn't on the same page, he thought, maybe she just thinks it's regular jewelry. Good. Or maybe not, maybe she didn't want anything binding like that. Now wasn't that harrowing...
"I'm glad. Wish I had a hamburger right now though."
"What is it with you and meat?"
"I miss it. I didn't act like a carnivore or anything, but it's one of the things I miss."
"Well don't we still have the beef jerky?"
"No, it got burnt in the fire."
"So that's why it smelled so good..."
Jason chuckled. "Yeah. You ate most of it already though, I don't think you're really a herbivore by nature."
"If I wasn't you'd only love me that much more."
"I don't think that's possible. I love you too much as it is."
"Yeah, you should really cut back, you're going to get fat."
"If it were possible, I'm sure I'd be way past that point." He held open the flap of the mess hall for Dash, and she preformed a fairly good imitation of Rarity before entering. They walked over to one of the benches, much less deserted than the last time they had been there. But that was mostly because of their unusually early hour of waking. Early meaning eight, in this case.
A pony delivered a few plates to some ponies sitting next to Dash and Jason, before turning his attention to the pair and briefly saluting. "We got eggs and hash browns, as usual, also a few pancakes for a change. That's more of a side, we don't have that many." He paused. "I haven't really seen you around here much." He pointed to Dash. "And I haven't seen your friend at all, he new?" Jason chuckled and dropped the disguise, slightly glad that the waiter didn't jump. He waved off a salute.
"We'll take the--well, the only choice." The pony nodded and chuckled, quickly retreating into the kitchen.
"I haven't had pancakes in a while." Dash said. "I wonder who sent the batter out, I kinda doubt it was Pinkie, she's too small of an operation for this kind of stuff."
"He didn't say it was a lot, though." Jason said, sliding a salt shaker back and forth between his hooves.
"Why do you use so little magic?" She asked when the salt shaker flew off the table and landed in a puff of dust.
"I'm not used to having it, all I had before was a pair of hands." The waiter came back and set down a pair of plates before walking away again.
"How can you not be used to this by now?"
"Hey, I got walking and running down, even flying. Have some patience, eventually I'll remember that I have magic."
"That one time you hardly remembered you had wings."
"And all your laughing while I was hanging off that branch helped a lot, Dash."
"But it was so funny, your wings were fluttering nervously and everything."
"Why, why do I stay around you all the time?"
"Because you love me." She poked him on the nose and nuzzled his shoulder. "And you think I'm cute."
"Oh yeah, that's the reason."
She punched him in the shoulder. "Glad you think I'm so deep."
"Meh, I try."
"You are really pretty though." He said, taking a bite of egg that he realized after the fact would be tasteless. She blushed.
"Sorry to ruin all this, but I'm going to turn into you to eat, alright?"
"Yeah, it's still you anyway." He smiled and shifted, blowing some of her mane out from in front of an eye. He took another bite.
"I never really liked eggs..."
"Then why'd you change?"
"I thought maybe it'd change, and it kinda did. Not that much though. Basically I'm looking forward to the pancakes. "
"Yeah, I haven't had anything sugary since... Ponyville, I guess."
"I know what you mean, it's still weird to not eat though." They ate in silence for a time, thinking their own separate thoughts as they quickly polished off their plates. Jason waved down the same pony that had gotten their food, and he trotted over.
"Get I get an extra plate? Shining made me get him some food."
"Oh sure, just a sec." He trotted off into the kitchen, returning a few seconds later with a couple of containers.
"I can't really let you take the plate, so I just grabbed some containers and stuck it in there. Hopefully that'll work."
"Yeah, it should be fine." Jason levitated the containers off the pony's back and onto the table, before getting up with Dash and moving towards the door.
"He's probably not going to be happy that we ate first." Dash said as they left.
"He just said he wanted food, not when he wanted it."
"Oh, loopholes." She smirked. "I'll race you!" She took off, moving in a blur towards Shining's tent.
________________________________________________________
"Dash trotted into Shining's tent, a victorious look on her face. Shining moved a piece on his map before looking up and throwing a wave. A second Dash walked in with pretty much the opposite expression on her face. "Thanks for all the warning there, Dash." She giggled, subtly gesturing to Shining and Jason's form.
"I dunno, Dash." She replied. "It was pretty close."
"Dash, you were at least two seconds ahed."
"AAAAAAHHHHHH not this again!" Came another voice. Jason turned and looked at one of the bunks, where Evening was tangled up in a couple blankets, struggling. "Oh wait, you're Jason." She pointed to him, and he dropped the disguise, figuring that it was probably too late anyway.
"So, Jason." Shining started. "I got some stuff together here." He gestured for the changeling to make his way over, which he did. "I figured we'd need to surround them out there, but we don't actually know where they are, specifically. So what I did was create several teams similar to the one you hd two days ago, and we're going to move them out and kinda pincer off the back of the force. That's your job. Then the rest of the ponies are going to come in from the front."
"There's a lot of guesswork involved here." Jason said, setting the food on the table directly adjacent to the map and making sure that Shining noticed its presence.
"Well, we don't know much. But this is a lot better than waiting for another attack."
"Yeah, that's definitely true. When are we doing this?"
"I thought maybe tonight, if we're able to get teams together by then. I think we can, and this way there'd be one less day for them to attack again."
"Hopefully this'd allow us to better catch them off guard." Jason said, scratching his chin, before he looked over at Evening to see that she was chatting pleasantly with Dash. "Alright."
"Alright what?" He asked.
"Alright, I'll do it."