Chapter 1
Scrawny. Lanky. Small. Gangly.
Pipsqueak had been called all of that and more since he was a foal. Which was exactly the reason why ever since becoming a colt, he'd started going by the name “Pip” instead. That had been a bit easier to do since moving out of Ponyville a few years ago. Though despite his change in moniker, that didn't change the fact that he was slightly smaller than the average male at his age.
None of that mattered however, he thought. He'd make up for his lack in size with tenacity; with spirit.
“ROOKIE, YOU LITTLE BRAT!”
Unfortunately his eagerness to prove himself didn't endear him much to his superior.
While the younger brown and white pony began to struggle to keep standing still on his thin frame, fighting against the lactic burning that had been growing in his legs, the fifteen minutes of lecturing had apparently no effect on the larger, more muscled stallion pacing about before him.
“There used to be a time when ponies learned what it was like to take responsibility and do what was expected of them! When colts became stallions! Not because they wanted to...because they HAD to! But what do I find you doing? Trying to make excuses...of all the nerve...” the stallion muttered a few more things under his breath before continuing.
“I'd start callin' you a filly from now on if that didn't simply insult all the girls in the world that are tougher than you!”
It wasn't the first time the gritty-looking stallion, whose age began to gray what seemed to have once been an orange-hued mane, deigned himself a taskmaster that needed to scream and holler whatever it was that was bothering him that day. Be it something he read in the paper to a stubbed hoof. Today was a more pointed criticism of Pip's attempt to take down a serial burglar. Whether the result of breaking the sting or the subsequent chase ended in failure wasn't important, Pip thought. His intent was at least a good start, wasn't it?
There had certainly been a number of instances that Pipsqueak would be remiss to disregard the seriousness of his past mistakes. Losing the trail of a purse snatcher; accidentally breaking a shopkeeper's expensive vase; refusing to pitch an extra twenty bits to his superior so the stallion could have some “quality time” while the white-and-brown recruit had to wait awkwardly in front of a “massage parlor”.
That had Pipsqueak's first mission since enlisting.
It was a sting operation that required some undercover work, and it was up to the then-rookie Pipsqueak to be on the lookout for anyone suspicious while his superior gathered information. Well, actually now that he had time thinking about—while ignoring the cussing out currently in progress—that last one seemed a bit of a stretch...
But otherwise, there was never a time that Pip could be beaten in amount of effort to succeed. Since of course, the department of the Trottingham town watch included just him and his sergeant.
“And another thing! Where the hell is that medicine I asked you to get? It's a matter of national security that that medicine is delivered to my office by the end of today, do you understand me!?”
Pipsqueak sighed, wondering when it was ever “important to the defense of the country” to fetch the sergeant's hemorrhoid medicine. The teenaged pony let out another slow tempered exhale through his nostrils at the thought.
“Don't sigh like that, rookie!” the grizzly-looking earth pony dressed in mismatching armor admonished.
Pipsqueak's eye twitched at the name. It had already been a year since he joined the town watch, after becoming of age to serve, so there was no point to still call him a “rookie”, was there?
“Sorry sir...” Pipsqueak replied with half the enthusiasm of a foal wanting to do his chores before being able to go play with his friends.
“Tsk...” the sergeant bared his large incisors, worn and slightly crooked from time into a scowl. Glancing at his superior, Pipsqueak couldn't help but notice a garish-looking piece of parsley stuck in the gap of his teeth. “I don't like that attitude, rookie! Give me...agh...” before finishing his order, the pony rushed out of the room, leaving the only other member of the town watch to stand at attention. “S-stay there until I'm finished with this urgent...urg...business!”
“Yeah, yeah...” came a tired reply as the younger pony rolled his eyes. “He should really lay off the spicy food...” Pipsqueak felt like reciting his usually internalized mantra out loud would somehow break him out of this repetitive cycle.
Unwilling to look about the understaffed ('Why are there so many chairs in this room for anyway? There was only the two of us most of the time'), underfunded ('that calendar on the moldy wall over there is at least five years out of date'), under-appreciated ('nopony even realizes there's a town watch in this part of Trottingham') station around him, Pip's attention turned toward more idle thoughts.
While being to place of his birth, Pip never really considered it his “hometown”. No, that honor would have to go to another place in Equestria he had moved to when he was just a foal. Despite being smaller and a bit more rural, Ponyville was the place of his childhood. Where his friends were...until it became too dangerous to stay there a few years ago and he and his parents moved back to Trottingham. Just looking out the grimy windows of the town watch station would fail to show any signs of the fact that it was no less than a decade ago that a war ravaged all through Equestria.
A country of nearly unlimited space that was once a peaceful home to pegasi, unicorn and earth pony, Equestria was now a mess of vying areas that had been invaded by and dominated by foreigners.
Foreigners, who were so unlike the ponies that made use of the land, as well as both the magical and mundane wildlife and other creatures that had settled throughout the country.
With their technology, the foreigners made short work of the army and very quickly changed the landscape. Glass paneled skyscrapers of incredible heights; roads paved and grasslands and other woods developed, pushing back nature as though it were simply an irritant. What had once been the great cities of Manehattan, Stalliongrad, Trottingham, Fillydelphia and Canterlot were now just hubs within a great expanse of city. What could only now be called the megalopolis of Equestria.
But that wasn't the end. Not only had Equestria changed physically in practically every way, but the very spirit of Equestria had changed into something unrecognizable.
The disappearance of the Princesses Celestia and Luna was a shame that many ponies still to this day haven't fully accepted.
Initially terrifying was the behavior of the moon and sun, each setting and rising of its own accord without the control of the princesses or any unicorns. As though they each had a life of their own, much like the Everfree Forest. And even when unicorns had tried to take control of the celestial bodies, their magic, even when combined in great numbers, had no effect whatsoever on the pace or schedule of the day and night.
In an effort to reconcile such a traumatic event, ponies found it comforting to think of their princesses to have become the sun and moon respectfully. While their direct presence was and is sorely missed, there was a sort of false sense of security to attribute the astral bodies as their princesses. As for Pip like many ponies who had met Princess Luna or Celestia, found it a bit difficult to adapt in such a superficial way.
The scream-like creak of the wooden boards broke Pip out of his contemplations and signaled his dear sergeant's return.
“Anyways...back to where I left off...” Pip watched the stallion continue trotting up to him until they were not even an inch apart from touching snouts. “Your failure to solve these kidnappings is bringing a negative outlook onto my record, rookie.”
'Kidnappings? What happened to burglaries?' Pip clenched his jaw tight as he felt the other pony's breath uncomfortably close to his face. “Well how do you expect me to be able to solve a case like that if you never trained me in the first place?” the smaller pony snapped, causing the sergeant to falter backwards in surprise at the outburst.
A moment of quiet accompanied how unprepared the grayish-orange pony was for Pip's strong response before he resettled into a gruff demeanor. “Watch your lip, boy! That's the sort of things only rookies complain about!” He bobbed his head once like a toy balancing atop a slinky as he felt reassured in getting his groove back. “If you took some initiative, I wouldn't be on your case like this! Besides, what do you think I've been doing this past year, huh? Haven't I been taking you on missions? Showing you everything you need to know about keeping the peace?”
The parsley was brought to the center of Pipsqueak's attention once more.
“If I had half a mind I'd back-hoof you to show you your place! But you're lucky about the laws in place that prevent me from doing that! Since upholding the law is our primary function as town guard! What's more I-”
“Oh, is that so, Sarge!?” Pip exploded in an irrational rage. “Well if you had half a mind, you'd realize that those things you taught me about 'keeping the peace' was just looking out for anypony who saw you walk into brothels! Oh, I know exactly what those 'massage parlors' are`!”
The excitement from seeing the look of despair on the bigger pony's face was palpable. There was something today that was pushing Pip to finally let out what he had been bottling up for the past year and a half of being part of the town watch and admiring the-now trembling sergeant as an idol. Was it the frustration of his work being unappreciated? Was it the endless days of doing shopping runs? Was it that damn parsley that somehow still wasn't noticed? Right now, no single reason was sufficient.
“And another thing!” Pip felt empowered by his new-found confidence and even jabbed his hoof against the more muscled pony's copper breastplate. “Even when I did bring in lawbreakers you just let them go! The shoplifter from last week! That pickpocket two months ago! Even that crazy pony that dipped his tongue into jars of jelly and resealed them! I. CAN'T. TAKE. IT. ANYMORE.”
He said it. Pip finally said it and he did what he couldn't imagine doing in a while. He smiled. He flashed his own teeth toward the sergeant, who by now was too disturbed by the quiet rookie's sudden change in personality to say anything much less try to reassert any sort of authority.
By this point Pip had run out of things to say. Even if he could say more, there was nothing he wanted to say anymore. The brown and white pony backed off now and took a deep breath while smiling. Without any further hesitation, Pip reached to the band of cloth wrapped around his left leg and took it off, placing it into the stallion's hoof. That band of cloth that supposedly marked him as a member of the town guard. That band of cloth that, when Pip had ordered ponies to halt in their criminal acts, had to be explained since nopony believed him.
But that didn't matter. Not now. Pipsqueak turned toward the door of the station and walked out, not embarrassed in the least by the creaks and squeals from the poorly maintained floor boards from ever step he took toward freedom. Not once was he stopped from his walk to the other side of the room, opening the door and closing it behind him.
Looking around the City of Trottingham as a civilian once again, Pip marveled at how nopony not so much as noticed the hop in his step. Ignoring such strange behavior was the norm amongst the Trottinghamites that were too preoccupied with their own busy lives.
The raucous of cars, music and pedestrian traffic buffeted Pip who was so used to the nothing inside the Town watch station. The television advertisements on the electronic billboards high above and clamored for attention of everypony below them.
All of this cacophony of alien sights and sounds was made possible only by the technology brought by those foreigners known as Humans.
Joining the unforgiving sea of ponies and humans to head home, Pip was knocked to the ground from behind. 'I'm being mugged!?' the pony grimaced at the thought. Twisting his body to meet his attack head on, the ex-town watch found himself being confronted by a gray coated unicorn filly.
A filly with teary eyes and a panicked look in her face.
“Please!” The girl pleaded. “You have to help me!” Close to hyperventilation, the unicorn's breaths were ragged and quick and the quick movement of her wide eyes accelerated while waiting for Pip to respond. “It's an emergency! You've gotta help!”
Fortunately, on one of his many “training missions” early on in his town watch career, Pip had already been a victim of such a tactic. While it had involved a number a foals that time asking for him to play with them, Pip was sure that this was also a scheme meant to relieve him of his wallet. Using a pretty young unicorn like this one was probably the more effective strategy at this point, since he simply wasn't in the mood to deal with children at the moment. Her blonde mane and tail, the large pink bow that accentuated the contrast with her gray coat, the fragile signals of her trembling frame that just asked to be protected from harm.
“H-hey! Aren't you going to help?” But Pip had to commend the filly for her acting. He was quite moved and persuaded by her panic. Her teary pitiable eyes, after looking into his skeptical and distracted gaze for a moment, suddenly arched down from the force of her furrowed eyebrows. “HEY, BUDDY! I SAID I NEED HELP HERE!” Without warning the filly grasped his shoulders with her front hooves and shook him about with more force than could be expected from such a small pony. “Did you hit your head when you fell? Come on, work with me here!”
'Wait a minute! That demanding tone, the brash attitude toward others...that starry cutie mark...no...it couldn't be...'
Pip pulled himself out of the angered filly's hold with his own hooves and shook the dizziness out of head, ignoring the stares of the passers-by who were curious with the strange events before them.
With a gulp, Pip stared back at the amber eyes of the crazed unicorn. “...Dinky?”