End of Things to Come
By A Random Guy
Camión Lechero, Teniente of the Bronxican Imperial Army, counted tonight as the twenty eighth night he served the border patrol along the neutral zone. It had been less than a month since he finished boot camp, and it was less than a month since the last assault along the border. He was a victim of pure circumstance, holding the lowest rank on the military ladder in the military that needed position replacements for the border patrol.
His night started with him climbing up the crumbling concrete that made up the steps of the watch tower. When he got to the top, he would begin following his military orders for the night, which meant looking out of a large slit in the concrete bunker and calling in an alert if anything suspicious happened in the zone. He couldn’t think of a more unnerving job in the entire armed forces.
When he stepped into the bird nest of the tower, everything looked like it always did, ancient, broken and cold. The stone walls of the bunker, which may have held against the mightiest assaults decades ago, were chipped and cracked with several large holes within the concrete. No one had a chance to clean up the place, as indicated by the walls, which were decorated by the imprints of past ponies permanently outlined by circles of soot. There wasn’t an artificial light in the room, since such a device would give away the position of the guard pony during the night, and would provide the same guard with a source of warmth. Pastel forbid if Camión was provided with such a courtesy.
Relatively high off the ground, the tower was exposed to all of the nightly winds that the palm trees outside rustled in, which entered the bunker through the missing chunks of wall, each gust bringing in a temperature drop that would freeze him to the bone. Camión’s appointed uniform was optimized for a tropical climate, which forgoes the need for jackets. Normally, regulation dictated that he would have to stand attention while on duty, but since there were never any officers to ensure that he followed regulation, Camión usually curled up in the corner least exposed to wind.
Like every other night he was at the border, Camión walked over to his corner, which was to the right of the slit in the concrete he was supposed to be looking through. He slumped down against the corner, balling up to shield himself against the relentless breeze. His breathing shuddered as he braced himself against the chill of darkness. He rubbed his hooves between his legs to create precious warmth from the friction.
His body tempted him to attempt to rest his eyes, despite the cold. But for his own sake, keeping in mind where he was located in the world, he forced himself to keep his watch on the field, lest he let a guerilla force overrun the tower and execute all within, among those being him.
When he first arrived at the border, his commanding officer joked that the tower had the best view in the entire base at night. If it wasn’t for his situation, Camión would have certainly agreed. The horizon was lined with distant specks of light, forming a cosmic serpent that slithered across the void of evening darkness. He paid close attention to each of the specks, unknowingly holding his breath every time one so much as flickered. He knew that each speck topped off a tower similar to his, well outside of artillery range.
It reminded him of his home, in a way. His childhood home, El Stabledor, was quite similar, albeit significantly less prone to be ground zero for an enemy push. It was a small city lining a valley deep within Bronxico. He remembered spending nights similar to this on top of the local mountains, earning front row seats for a long day of trekking, staring at the valley floor that was surrounded by darkness, broken by the city lights strung along the base of the mountains.
This, however, was not El Stabledor. The only mountains were a pair of ancient walls staring each other down, the valley was a flat plain that spanned miles across the horizon, plagued by a pattern of craters, and the city would blow apart anything that came within striking distance.
In fact, even looking at the lights too long was beyond advisable for him. Being a white unicorn, he stood out against the darkness of his bunker. Keep his head out too long, and a passing clandestine scout could gain a story of how he separated the horn of a unicorn from the rest of his cranium.
Camión, being a soldier, was forced to stand the night. Every day he had only this position to look forward too. His superiors kept telling his that a promotion could put him into a more bearable position, but they always were vague on what would earn him that promotion. He was beginning to suspect that the army wanted to keep him here, since everyone thought boarder guards didn’t last long enough to earn promotions.
The trees outside rustled as a large breeze passed over them. Camión curled up tighter as he braced himself form the incoming gust. As he drew in his limbs as tight as he could, the wind currents swept over him, bringing the cold heart of the night temperatures. His skin felt like it was going to be torn off from the icy breeze. The song of the breeze whistled through the bunker, Camión’s teeth chattered to its tune, just like they did every night. These were his afterhours at the border, only the serpent of lights slithering across the horizon keeping him company.
Yet, there was another tune signing along to the winter breeze. It was a high pitched tune, feint at first, but becoming more noticeable as the wind died down. Camión couldn’t think of what was making the new noise. He could only describe it as a tiny squeak, something that was foreign to his ears.
Paranoia struck him, and he ducked from the slit to avoid being hit by a mystery weapon being pointed at his bunker. His breath froze within him, his adrenal glands flooding his bloodstream with its respective chemical, prepping him for a fight or flight scenario. He heard stories of soldiers hearing odd sounds in combat zones, only to fall prey to an enemy unicorn’s magic.
Ducking didn’t seem to make the sound go away. In fact, the sound increased itself by a couple of octaves. Camión searched frantically around, trying to find a glow that would indicate the presence of a unicorn charging its horn. All the holes in the walls remained dark, nothing seemed to be coming from the slit, and the stairway remained as lightless as he left it. Then a speck of yellow caught his eye.
His gaze locked on to the color, which was located in the back corner to his left. At first glance, it seemed as if a small round object got itself caught in a spider web. But the yellow object shuddered, the gossamer material he thought was a web shifted around. The object in the middle was shrouded by an intricate network of silvery lines.
When his eyes finally focused on the object, it became apparent that it was the source of the squeaks. Despite common sense, curiosity overtook the poor unicorn. He crawled over towards the back corner, keeping his movements subtle to avoid alerting an unknown enemy.
As he got closer, the squeaking became louder, little by little. He inched his way towards the corner, keeping a steady slow pace in case the object was movement sensitive. When it was within reaching distance, the unicorn reached out with a hoof and poked at the object, not knowing what else to do. He almost jumped back when a pair of eyes popped out from the yellow ball.
A tiny head rose from the ball, its eyes locking with Camión’s, the squeaking ceased to fill the air. What creature is this? He thought. Is it a spying device?
The little ball squeaked some more, which to Camión seemed like it was speaking Bronxican. “Hello, there,” it seemed to say. A tiny limb pulled its gossamer web closer to its body. “Please don’t take my wings.”
“Why would I take your wings?” he replied.
Its limb began massaging the web. “Some ponies have been tracking me down for weeks. You might be one of those ponies.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not one of them. I’m a soldier of the Bronxican Army. I’m sworn to protect the weak.”
The little creature seemed to chuckle. “Nice to know you think I’m weak. Protecting the weak… Everypony seems to say that- Achoo!”
It shuddered as another gust of wind passed through the bunker. Camión felt like he needed to do something, so eh reached out to bring the creature in for an embrace, which had to be warmer than out of the open. However, the creature’s head lashed out from its web and bit his hoof when it got close, sending his limb reeling back in pain. “I said not to take my wings.”
“I wasn’t taking your wings. I wanted to share my body warmth with you.” He shook his hoof as he tried to deal with the pain the little nip brought him. “You seemed to be in need of it.”
The creature looked away sheepishly. “Oh, well you did it without telling me. A little warning would’ve been nice.”
The creature’s web opened up to reveal a pair of transparent wings. It fluttered them to gain some air, and glided over to Camión, who let the creature land on the base of his neck. The creature folded its wings up again, protecting itself from the elements.
“So, what are you?” he asked as he curled up against the wall, keeping in mind of the creature, folding his forelegs over it to protect it from the wind, yet leaving enough room for it to move comfortably.
The little creature rubbed its limbs together in an effort to keep itself warm. “I’m a breezy.”
“I never heard of a breezy before.” He never even imagined anything like a breezy before either. The creature’s tiny pony body looked surreal to him, with its head and legs being comically oversized for its body. Its wings reminded him of a giant insect more than a mythical horse creature. “Is there a name I should call you by?”
The breezy looked up from its rubbing. “Depends, do you have a name I should call you by?”
“Camión Lechero, Teniente of the Bronxican Imperial Army.” He checked the horizon outside of the slit to make sure all was normal in the outside world.
The breezy puffed a few breaths of warm air between its limbs and proceeded rubbing them together. “Mine’s Star Wisp. So, lovely night we’re having.”
“Heh, doesn’t get any better than this.” Feeling some of his extremities going numb, he rubbed the sides of his legs in an attempt to revert the feeling. “You mentioned something about ponies following you. Is it something that I should be concerned about?”
Star shook her head. “Lost them yesterday. They don’t have the spells to track me across the border before I’m deep within the Bronxican interior.”
“So they’re Equestrian?”
She nodded. “Some nasty ones, too. If you see some ponies in black cloaks, keep your distance. They’re vicious close up.”
“Sounds familiar,” Camión replied, leaning his head back as he tried to remember what he heard about such ponies. “Legends of cloaked ponies spinning, slashing, and dancing through brigades of the best soldiers, as if they were preforming on a stage. Are those the one’s you’re talking about?”
She nodded again. “Yep, I saw one carve up a couch trying to look for me within seconds. All that was left were splinters and stuffing.”
“Do you know why they want your wings?”
Star shrugged. “I didn’t listen to the details while I was flying for my live.”
“Ah, I see.” The conversation broke down, leaving the wind singing alone in the night. Star Wisp curled up tight against Camión’s body. Camión continued his duty of looking out across the outside world. It felt odd having another soul accompanying him during his shift. It was a good odd, since the soul wasn’t another member of a military, providing him with a different taste of company since he was drafted. Also, the breezy tickled when she moved, so there was that kind of oddness.
“So, are they tracking down other breezies for their wings?” he asked, attempting to break the silence.
Star Wisp looked away, her leg rubbing died down as she brought her legs inwards. A moment passed before she said anything.
“They can’t,” she replied, with solemn hanging from her words.
Camión sensed this may be traveling into a dark place for the breezy. “Did something happen?”
“There… hasn’t been another breezy in this world since… since the last migration, when I was left behind.” Star looked out of the slit towards the emptiness of the nightly void. “That was decades ago, when politics finally broke out into violence.”
Camión couldn’t tell exactly, but through the dark he thought he could see a small tear running down the breezy’s face. “Have they been hunting you down for that long?”
“No, *sniff*, they started a couple of days ago, when they discovered where I was hiding. But I have a feeling they’ve been searching for much longer than that.”
The unicorn soldier tightened his embrace, but still left room for the breezy to move. “Don’t worry about them. As a soldier of the Bronxican Army, I swear not to let an Equestrian even touch you.”
Star Wisp gave the soldier a smile. To his surprise, the yellow breezy grasped his forelegs and pulled them in for a tighter embrace. She snuggled in between his limbs and body, fully emerging herself in the stallion’s warmth.
However, the moment was shattered by a hammering voice the pummeled through the darkness. “Teniente! Why are you not at your post?!”
Camión jumped to attention reflexively at the sound of the voice. Star Wisp was barely able to hold on to keep herself flying away from how quick he went from a curled up position to standing up. The unicorn’s hoof shot up to his forehead for a salute that was ingrained into his head. Unlike his breezy companion, Camión was forced to look straight ahead in his fall in position, unable to see who was coming up the stairway.
A bulky earth pony in full military garb trotted up the steps, a light swinging from his vest in synch with each of his steps. “Is the night watch we posted not watching the night?!”
“I was watching the night, sir!” Camión yelled back in obedient response as his superior capitán walked into the bunker.
“Is that right?! Because from what I was hearing downstairs you were chatting it up instead of doing your job!”
“I was talking to this breezy while I was doing my job, sir!”
“Is that what that thing is?!” The capitán walked up in front of Camión, his light blinded Star Wisp as its beam swung over her. “Call me educated now, because that ugly bug looked like something crossed between an overgrown cockroach and your mother!”
Camión flinched as the capitán spat the insult at him. His training forced him from retaliating, lest he risk corporal punishment. Star Wisp, on the other hand, felt like more liberty was needed in dealing with the insult.
“Hey, bub,” the breezy squeaked, “I don’t take kindly to being compared to other ponies’ mothers!”
“Well, the cockroach can talk! Call the presses! We have a miracle at the Border Base!” The capitán leaned in close to the breezy, his voice blasting her like a typhoon. “You are trespassing on military property! You better understand that this bub can order an execution for such a crime!”
“You do that, and you’re going to have diplomatic crisis on your hands!”
“Have you not noticed?! We are at war! We are far past worrying about a diplomatic crisis!”
“I’d think you’d want to worry about those, since your mother is a diplomatic crisis,” Star Wisp retorted, taking the cheap shot when she saw it.
“That’s it! You lost your right to live!” the capitán furiously roared, reeling his hoof back for a punch that would crush the breezy.
Star Wisp closed her eyes as she braced herself for the capitán’s hoof. Camión flinched back as well, seeing as his superior officer was about to punch him in the chest.
However, the blow did not come to pass. The breezy was hit in the ears instead by the sound of flesh ripping apart, followed by a deep grunt, finishing off with a thump against a concrete wall.
Star Wisp opened her eyes again. Her view of the capitán was replaced by the settling flourish of a black cloak. A twisted blade pointed out from the cloak towards a wall, where the superior was slumped against, silently unconscious and bleeding from his foreleg.
The blade swooshed through the air and pointed itself at the breezy, the cloak swung with it to reveal the muzzle of a pony sticking out of the darkness of its hood. The double obsidian blade Star Wisp looked down spiraled towards her from the hilt, the tips of the metal close enough to prick her if the wielder so much as twitched.
The breezy looked up, hoping to see if Camión was going to do something to save them. But all she saw was another twisted blade pressed against the unicorn’s throat, likely held by another pony that was covering his mouth with a hoof.
A voice came from the cloaked figure pointing the sword at Star Wisp. “Give us the Breezy, and we will spare your life.”
Star Wisp’s eyes looked all over the room for a potential place to escape. Despite her searching, even if she were to find a route, Camión tightened his grasp of the breezy, preventing her from flying away.
The unicorn tapped against the hoof against his mouth, signaling that he wanted to say something. The hoof let go, but the blade remained against his neck. “I am sworn to protect the weak! I won’t let Equestrian scum like you take her without a fight.”
“You know not of what you’re doing, Teniente. The Breezy you hold had the key to ending all of the violence.”
“Do you have a plan to exterminate us all then?”
“No, we have a plan to save us all from past turmoil. But you must give us the Breezy first.”
“Go to Tatarus!”
“Very well.”
The cloaked pony raised his hoof to give the order to his companion, but it stopped when a white hoof that came out of nowhere held it down. A voice echoed out from the void, “Enough, Let them free.”
The cloaked pony nodded. “Yes, my lady.”
He lowered the twisted blade, and his partner did the same. Both Star Wisp and Camión let out breaths they didn’t know they were holding.
“I am pleased that such a young soldier has such dedication to his duty,” the voice continued. An ancient white pony face emerged from the darkness as the white hoof lifted the hood from the head. “It’s rare that I see a white knight complex in a soldier, from either side of this war.”
Camión dug his hooves into the ground, instinctively preparing himself to fight. The cloaked pony grasped his blade in case on needed protection for his master.
“You demon scum won’t leave this place alive. This is a fully armed military base. One scream and every soldier will be here within a minute.”
“I assure you that if such a situation arises, we’ll leave alive and well. But there’s no such need for such hostility.” The pony swept dull pink and grey locks of hair away from her face with a hoof, revealing a pair of soft greed eyes surrounded by a wrinkled complexion. “Let’s start on more friendly terms. Hello, my name is Sweetie Belle, and I’m trying to save pony-kind.”
The breezy squeaked as she yelled her retort. “You’re not saving anypony by taking my wings!”
Sweetie Belle knelt down in front of the breezy, meeting her at eye level. “Your wings can save us all. A little snip-snip, and we can finish our time travel spell. Just think, if we can change the past, we won’t need to use your wings. It’ll be like they were never gone.”
Camión pushed her back. “You’re tricks won’t work on me. I was trained by the best in the world.”
“I don’t doubt it. The Bronxicans are known for their strength. Though, I prefer gentler means to an end. Tell me, do they sing to you in training?”
“Why would they do such a thing?”
“Well, I sing to my apprentices. They find it soothing. Usually I start with Hush now, quiet now, it’s time to lay your sleepy head.”
“If you think singing will save you from the Army, then you… *yawn*”
“Hush now, quiet now, it’s time to go to bed.”
Camión’s grip on Star Wisp lightened, allowing her to crawl out from his grasp. But for some reason, the urgency of the situation wasn’t dawning on her. A nap felt more appropriate for the time being.
“Drifting off to sleep, leave the day behind you.”
Neither Camión nor Star Wisp could keep their eyes open. Their eyelids began to flutter close as their bodies went limp. The unicorn toppled over as the strength in his legs left him.
Before he could drift off into the void of dreams, he managed to say one thing. “Siren… you’re the Siren…”
“Drifting off to sleep, let the joy of dreamland find you.”
The breezy and the unicorn were fast asleep in front of the three cloaked ponies. When the unicorn began snoring, Sweetie Belle gestured to the breezy on the floor.
“Cut off her wings and give them to me.”
One of the cloaked ponies lifted the breezy with a hoof. She took her blade and carefully separated the gossamer material form the rest of her body with the tips. When she was done, the wings floated down for the ground, but the other cloaked pony caught them before impact.
Sweetie Belle pulled out a flask from her cloak, and held it by the wings. “Hurry, put them in.”
The pony obeyed, and the wings went into the flask. Sweetie Belle sealed it with her magic and began to shake the bottle, mixing the new ingredient with the liquid previously inside.
“My lady,” a cloaked pony began, “this time travel potion, where, I mean when, will it take us?”
After sufficiently shaking the flask, Sweetie unsealed it and chugged the contents down her gullet. After the bottle was emptied, she replied. “I should be able to take us to before the war started. Now get close, I’m about to cast the spell.”
“And what are we going to do then.”
As her cohorts came in close, Sweetie Belle wrapped her forelegs around their necks and charged her horn. “With any luck, we’ll bring an end to things that came…”
Her horn gave off a sudden flash. The cloaked ponies felt a pull engulfing their entire beings. They felt themselves beginning their journey across the fourth dimension.
“… And we’ll change the things to come.”