It can never be said that I don't respect authority when that respect is due. My blatant disregard for Celestia's apparent rank is quite simply my way of showing her that I have no inclination to blindly follow a ruler without them proving themselves. She seems to think that I'm an ass because I enjoy it, but, in fact, the opposite is true. I just think she needs to realize that this world doesn't cater to the whims of royalty anymore.
Hopefully she figures that out before someone tries to shoot her...
Today was a good reminder for me as to why I absolutely hate politics.
I had met up with a number of the other teams of background ponies and their human counterparts. Apparently not all of the humans had taken the wonderful "magic pill" that they were offered, as they wanted to know everything involved in the process. When they were told that they would no longer be completely human, they flatly refused. This left the reinforcements that could be sent to Equestria in a state of severe deficiency. As it stood, only the Elements of Harmony and Vinyl had their partners converted. I was in charge of our new little guerilla force while the Princesses explored avenues of obtaining support against Chrysalis and the Changeling army.
The political nonsense started when I received a call from the Office of the President. How they found out who I was escaped me, but the call amounted to what I hoped was going to be a meeting with my former boss. I liked the current President, a woman from Kansas by the name of Loretta Reiser. She was, surprisingly, ex-military and knew most of the Armed Forces inside and out. This didn't detract from her ability to relate to the people of the United States, what with her recent legislature that pushed for tighter crackdowns on repeat violent offenders, gangs, and their ilk. That didn't stop the smaller scale crimes, like those Mikael had committed, ranging from petty theft to outright embezzlement.
But no, instead of meeting with the POTUS, I was sitting in front of the desk of some nameless paper pusher who was reviewing my private petition for informal tactical training of the Equestrians and their partners. I was doing my absolute best to keep my temper down, since the endless stream of questions all amounted to variations of either "Why do you need this?" and "Who will be in charge of the operation?"
I had argued with Celestia for hours, pointing out that I wasn't the only ex-military partner. That aside, I tried to tell her that I was far from qualified as a leader in any capacity. Every one of my objections was promptly brushed aside as she pointed out the last week's occurrences, ranging from me killing Mikael to our rather violent escape from Club PON3, and finally my unintentional act of volunteering to deal with the lower echelon of bureaucrats and brown-nosers.
Which brings us back to my standing plight. This paper-pusher was dangerously close to needing to order a new desk, as he badgered me with queries about the necessity of having beginner-level courses in firearms safety and concurrent classes in self-defense.
"In case you ignored the wonderful little dossier that Mayor Mare put together for you to read, I'll tell you exactly what is going on." This caused the man to give me a sharp, annoyed look, which I returned as I continued speaking. "This whole planet is under threat from a separate world's more unpleasant denizens launching a large scale invasion in order to suck out every last positive emotion our kind can possibly possess. They have the ability to shapeshift into any form, fire little bolts of potentially lethal energy from their bodies, and have little to no sense of mercy." I was nice and didn't remove my glasses, since I already had to deal with this annoying man questioning my professional status on the grounds that "no twenty year-old has naturally white hair" among other things.
"If you are quite done feeding me fairy tales and nonsense, Mister Cross, can you tell me the real reason you need all of this training?" The sneer on the man's face was making me more and more angry by the minute, but I choked down my fury once again. I really wished that Celestia had allowed me to bring Fluttershy along. Aside from having weapons-grade cuteness almost all the time, she had the Stare. I could have obtained entertainment by watching this little paper-pushing dirtbag piss himself until he relented and simply approved my request.
Instead I had to grit my teeth and restrain my urge to introduce his tesicles to the heel of my boot as he discarded every bit of factual data in front of him. "Sir, you have only a few moments of my patience before I simply leave and let you deal with the women who are, in essence, my new bosses." I stood and placed my hands on both sides of the desk as I leaned forward. "And trust me, the older of the two is a royal bitch when she wants to be. Now, if would kindly discard your bigotry, ignorance, skepticism, and any other inhibitive aspects of your current mindset, maybe we can obtain a satisfactory concordance in which I can train my subordinates to handle themselves in the event that one of these Changelings attempts to attack any of us again."
I watched as the politician grabbed a stamp from one side of his desk and slammed it on the top sheet of our petition documents. He lifted it to reveal a big red "DENIED" in the middle of my preliminary report. He smirked, sliding the papers forward. "Have a nice day, Mister Cross. Do try to not bother your government with such silly requests again, it can be considered a federal offense. Just for your future reference."
The average desk weighs almost two hundred pounds on its own. Most of them end up weighing in at a sold three hundred when loaded with all necessities for whatever the owner's job requires. Take that math and compare it to this: I can, on a good day, lift three hundred and fifty pounds above my head, using proper techniques and safety. This man had just treated me like I was beneath his attention, denied my rather serious request for training of a foreign military force, and told me to basically quit wasting his time.
Did you know that a fully loaded desk can become airborne when thrown by an angry Texan farmboy? I didn't, at least not until right then and there, when I wrenched the furniture sharply to the side and sent it crashing through a nearby wall. This had managed to get the little politician's attention rather quickly. I stood tall with my arms crossed. My voice resonated as I projected it with the same authority my old TI had used when "whispering sweet nothings" after one of my major screw-ups.
"Let me make this perfectly clear to you, oh horribly over glorified sack of hot air. I am in the standing enlistment of the Princesses Celestia and Luna of Equestria, Goddesses of the Sun and Moon, and currently displaced refugees. I am not paid enough to deal with little insects like you. I am lined up to be paid for military training and the assisted retaking of their overrun homeland. I have been shot at, chased across the country, been stripped of my very status as a human being, and a number of other things that would take too long to list." I still had my glasses on, but the air around me was starting to spark with the output of my magic. Security officers had rushed in already, but they were too scared to approach me. Even Luna had appeared in the office to see what caused the disturbance. I was too focused on the politician to notice that a growing crowd was watching me scare the piss out of a bureaucrat with extreme prejudice.
"Y-y-you can't do this!" He squeaked. At this I removed my glasses and proceeded to deliver the angriest glare I could muster. It wasn't too hard, since along with the foolishness I had just been dealing with, I was missing a very important ingredient in any of my activities that occurred during daylight hours.
Celestia took away my coffee.
"Well, I'd say that went fairly well, wouldn't you, Luna?" I said cheerfully to the Lunar Princess as we walked away from the White House.
Luna groaned as I hummed Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. "You demolished an entire office, traumatized a leading politician, and nearly put the Capitol Building into lockdown! How is that remotely 'well'?" Her nearing use of the Royal Canterlot Voice caused me to temporarily pause before I returned to my humming.
"We got the training approved, at least." I replied, mimicking directing a symphony as the signature crescendo approached in my head. "Now we just need to get them conditioned for the prospect of possibly killing the Changelings when the time comes. The hardest ones will be the Elements, since war and harmony aren't exactly two peas in a pod."
At this point Vinyl ran up to the both of us, a panicked look on her face. "Bass Drop!"
"Dammit, woman! Call me Max!"
"Yeah, whatever! Listen, we have a problem." Vinyl was trying to catch her breath.
I raised an eyebrow, pulling out my phone. No messages from any of the other partners. I looked back at Vinyl. "What is so damn important?"
Vinyl's look of panic turned to one of mischief. "You haven't taken me out on a date yet!"
The facepalm I performed at that moment was so hard that I unintentionally used magic with the smack, creating a crack in the ground at my feet from the sound wave. I rubbed my temples, ignoring the looks of shock from the nearby tourists and politicians. "That was your emergency? You want me to take you on a fucking date?!" I growled as I felt a headache coming on. I swear, Vinyl was going to be the death of me if Chrysalis didn't kill us all first. "Don'y we have other things to worry about?"
At that moment, I was reminded of a very important fact: women are evil. Vinyl put her hands together and produced a heart-wrenching puppy dog-eyed look. The piteous expression was painted across her face as she started to tear up. 'I thought she couldn't do that trick... Dammit.' My cute glands were about to explode, since I was even more hard pressed to say no to the DJ. I had the money, but I needed to supervise the Equestrians' training.
I maintained eye contact for a second too long, since I felt my resolve melt. I reached over and gave Vinyl a hug, trying to stop my traitorous mouth from releasing a series of words that I had been trying to avoid since Vegas. Oh, how miserably I failed...
"Vinyl Scratch, would you like to go to dinner this evening?" I asked, releasing her from the hug to look her in the eyes through our glasses. She raised her glasses before performing the same action with mine.
"I would love to, you sexy sound technician..." She replied before pulling me down into a kiss.
'Fuck inhibitions, she's beautiful...' I thought as she grabbed my hand and we walked to my car.
As we were about to get into the Evo, we were flagged down by a mosh pit of reporters. I glowered harshly at the crowd, which only seemed to attract their attention tenfold. I sighed as the questions began.
"Mister Cross! Jennifer Grace, Capital News. What do you have to say about the reports of the appearances of cartoon characters in the United States?"
"Maximus, right? Darius Yates, CNN. Is it true you are no longer human? If so, how did this happen?"
"Mister Cross!" A third reporter began before I raised my hand for them to stop. A number of cameras were pointed at myself and Vinyl. I looked around the crowd to make sure no one was about to speak again.
I took a breath before speaking. "I am not at liberty to discuss any details of the current development. If you have any questions, they can be directed to my acting superior, Princess Celestia. Now, if you all don't mind, I am on my way to dinner, and I don't want to speak to any of you for the rest of the day."
"But, Mister Cross..." The man from CNN began again before I shot him a look, silencing him.
"In case that wasn't a sufficient hint, I'll speak a bit more plainly." I looked around, making sure everyone was paying close attention. "It's not my job to deal with you people, now piss off."