The Howlers' Delight

by Night Striker

Chapter 3

“I am commander Golden Star. You will give up your hostages or we will kill you.”
I looked through narrowed eyes at the bipedal creatures in front of me. They seemed to be confused at what I said. “You know, the mares besides you?”
They all looked around again until the tall one said, “We don’t have any hostages! These mares were helping us out of the woods!”
I had enough of their ignorance. I turned to Maple Shade. “Maple, I want you to send a warning spell right by that tall one. He seems to be in charge.”
When Maple Shade fired off the shot, not even half a second later the creatures had their L-shaped objects pointed at us.
“Ha! What are you going to do with that? You’re too far away to use clubs!”
How wrong I was.

This freaking pony in golden armor was getting really annoying. Then it turned and whispered something to the brown pony besides it. After that, I have no idea what the hell happened. Some giant burst of light went by me and I heard the girls gasp. I knew this was not a good thing and I pulled and aimed my ACR. My soldiers followed suit. That’s when the pony made the biggest mistake of his life.
“Ha! What are you going to do with that? You’re too far away to use clubs!”
I turned and looked at my men all with their weapons trained at anything besides the girls. I looked back at him. “You will apologize for that!”
He seemed to snicker. “Oh yeah? Or what?” He turned and told the mare next to him loud enough to hear to kill me. I decided to make him regret that.
“Hey, asshole!” I yelled, causing him to turn and look at me. “Whoever said these were clubs?” I turned and looked at my soldiers. “Drop the big mouth, let the brown one live. It had no idea what it was doing.” The soldiers all brought up their guns.

“What is he thinking?” I thought as Golden Star ordered me to shoot magic at these creatures. “They were just talking peacefully with the mares, you dumb buck.” That’s when he royally pissed them off. He told me to kill them loud enough for them to hear and then told me not to in a whisper. The tall one that was their leader turned and looked around him to see all the other creatures around him training their L-shaped objects at me and then I could see him saying something to them. The open end went from me to Golden Star.
“Who said this was a club?” it said and it ordered them to do something. Then, suddenly all the L-shaped objects flashed bright lights and made loud bang noises. When we all turned to Golden Star we could see he was dead and was covered in holes. That’s when the tall one started to walk closer to me to examine the body. It then fired two more shots into his head in looked at me.
“I’m sorry,” it said slowly. “But he needed to learn his place.” He then turned and walked back into the line with his men. They then turned and walked towards the Apple family property along with the girls and the old guard Fast Skies.

“Did you have to kill him?” I asked.
He just looked at me. “I had to. He was a threat to my soldiers’ and my lives. I cannot allow something that endangers us to live.” He then turned and continued walking towards Applejack’s barn where it was decided that they would stay the night while we try to find the princesses for them. But now I have the feeling that thanks to them killing Golden Star we have less of a chance than ever. I flew to catch back up to him, clipping him on the ear. He just turned and smiled.
“What is it?” He asked, not taking his eyes off the barn in front of him.
“I-I just wanted to know why you killed him. Don’t you think it’s going to be harder to get a peaceful leader to help you if you go around killing ponies?”
He turned to look at me with a small frown visible. “Well... I never knew they were peaceful. But anyways, as I already said-”
He was cut off by one of the soldiers running up to him waving a bagel. “Sir, I have found my bagel. Let’s record it in the history books.”
Garret stared at him. “Aren’t you the mentally-challenged soldier Sam brought with him?”
He nodded over-enthusiastically. “Yes, sir!”
Garret turned away slowly. “Of course... What’s your name?”
He just stopped and looked at him and said, “I’m the Bagel Man. The Bagel Man, the Bagel man who lives on Bagel Lane.”
I was feeling very awkward. So, I turned to walk away. But stopped when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
I turned around to see Garret smile and shake his head. He turned back to the soldier. “Go find us a history book and I’ll scribble that in for you, ok?”
He nodded again and strode off with a quick “Sir, yes, sir.”
He then turned back around.

“Now, where were we?” I said when I turned back around. “Oh yeah, we were talking about how I would get a peaceful ruler to help me if I killed someone. Well, you see, as I already said, he was endangering my soldiers’ lives and I did what I felt was the right decision at the time. Just as we are trained to do.” I turned and looked at her again. “Hey, just out of curiousity, how did they find out you were sixteen?”
She shivered at this and uttered, “You don’t want to know...”
“Oh, but I do.”
She frowned at this. “No, you don’t. It’s very... Disturbing, to say the least.”
I looked down at her. “Point taken.”
I turned back to walking into the barn. She followed me and my men inside as we were unpacking our gear. She would continuously ask us what this and that was... Every. Little. Thing. She asked us what everything from a cell phone to a tent was. A tent!
“One does not simply not know what a tent is,” I whispered to my men, getting them to burst out laughing and causing Fast Skies to look out from the inside of the tent with a confused look on her face. I just waved it off and she smiled and ducked back inside. That’s when I realized what my troops were laughing at. She was in the command tent!

“I don’t see what they’re doing in there...” Applejack said as she turned towards us. “Don’t y’all think they oughta be out by now? Especially Fast Skies?”
Then I heard the strangest sound... There was this low cheer and a small “clink” noise followed immediately by strange music.
“Twilight, what the hay is that?” Applejack asked as she turned to me. We all turned back to the barn door to find flashing lights visible under the door. “What the hay are they doin’ in there?”

“Well, this is the last crate, men. Then we can hit the sack,” I said as I opened the overly large crate in front of me.
“No way!” I yelled out, causing all of the men to run over to me asking what is it. “Does anybody here know how to DJ?” I asked, pulling out the mixing board. I don’t think I’ve ever seen bigger smiles. And to make it better, the freaking crate had booze in it!
We set all the equipment up (with the help of Fast Skies) and after five minutes we all cheered and clinked our glasses together. Then we had one of the boys up there playing some good old deadmau5. We had the strobes going and everything! It was great. Or, well... At least it was until the freaking six ponies that everyone keeps calling the Element Holders opened the door.

“What the hay!?” Applejack roared as we entered the barn to a sight of the soldiers having some sort of party. Applejack asked after the record scratch signaling the abrupt stop of the music, “Where the buck did y’all get all of this stuff?” she asked, looking around.
One of the soldiers pointed with a beer to the big crate filled with beers and records. “Over there... We found all this shit in there while Fast Skies was in the CO’s tent.” He said this in a weird way, getting a chuckle from everypony and a punch from Garret, followed by a roaring laughter.
Fast Skies flew over with a bunch of beers in her hooves. “Come on, guys, have some! This stuff is great!” she said, obviously drunk. Celestia help whoever has to share a tent with her tonight.
Better yet... “Everypony, listen!” I yelled getting everypony to look at me.
“What is it, Twi?” Applejack asked.
“You guys do know that Fast Skies is staying here with you, right?... And you just got her drunk.”

I looked at Fast Skies chugging another one of our endless supply of beers. Then I turned back to Twilight.
“Yeah, so? If drunkenness is anything like it is on Earth, the worst she will get is a massive hangover.”
She seemed to smile at this. “Yeah, well guess what?-” She was interrupted by the screeching of tires. Wait, screeching of tires?
Immediately, my men snapped up with their weapons. The girls seemed freaked out. Fast Skies just looked... How do I put this nicely?... Drunk.
I could see a convoy of three vehicles up ahead. I drew a head count and saw I was missing three of the soldiers.
“Son of a bitch,” I said over the roar of laughter when a Sparta remix of “I can’t wait to eat this bagel” played over the humvee speakers. The humvees pulled up into the barn... Which I still can't understand how they managed to fit them in and still get us room. When the soldiers climbed out, who was driving them? It was freaking Sam, Jake, and, God bless his soul, Bagel Man. He will be the death of me.
Right after that strange occurrence, I saw the soldiers looking up.

I saw all of the soldiers and girls look up, so I looked up, too. What I saw shocked the buck out me.
Somehow, in her drunken state, Fast Skies had managed to attach a rectangular piece of cloth with a blue square with white stars and red and white stripes on the rafter. I was about to tell her to rip it down, and that’s when the soldiers did the strangest thing in the world. They placed their right hand over their hearts and said some strange “Pledge”.  That’s when I realised it. The rectangle on the rafter was the same emblem that was on the arms of the soldiers. I looked over to the girls and they nodded, realizing the same thing.
Immediately after that, two of the soldiers took out stringed instruments and began to play with the others, stomping their feet clapping their hands and cheering in general. It had to be the most interesting sight in the world. When I turned to the girls again, they had all joined in and were stomping their hooves and drinking “beers” which I believe were some type of alcohol. That’s when the commander came over to me after another song that I’m sure you need their appendages to the dance. He had Fast Skies wobbling behind him, trying to stand upright.

“Twilight,” I said, looking behind me to check on our barn drunk. “Twilight, why does she have to sleep here with us instead of going to her own home?”
Her answer shocked the hell out of me. “She lives here... Applejack offered her the barn to call home. But I don’t think she can do that with you pon- I mean humans hanging around. No offense.”
I looked at her and casually smiled as well as clapping and cheering for the ever-so-talented “Bagel Man” and Jake finishing another set of banjo/guitar songs. I turned back to Twilight.
“Twilight, it seems to me like she’s having a lot of fun here,” I said as I pointed to the drunk mare behind me trying to dance on her hind hooves with a couple drunk soldiers.
I turned to them. “Okay, guys. One more song and then it’s time to hit the sacks,” I said.
I got replies of “Aww,” “Please?”, and “Boo, you suck!”, followed by one or two drunks slumping to the ground. The song they played I couldn’t help but join into. They played the Earth favorite “Cotton-Eye Joe”. Not one soldier stayed out. Even the drunks managed to get out onto the floor and do the dance. I turned to see the mares behind us looking confused but I couldn’t help but laugh and continue our party.
After the song was over, I placed Fast Skies in one of the humvees and closed the door.  Then I walked back to my tent to see that the soldiers were returning to their tents for the night.
I  turned to the six mares turning to leave. “Thanks, you guys. For everything,” I said as they waved goodbye and left. All I can remember after that is a strange dream...