Vice Principal Luna turned towards Captain Umbriel, who was still scrutinizing her.
"Umbriel?" she asked.
"Yes, vice principal?" replied Umbriel.
"Seeing as it is now known that Sunset Shimmer is no longer in our world, could it be possible at all to call off the searches for her? Is there really any point in having your men scouring the school for someone that you know isn't there?"
"You are most certainly correct, Luna." said Captain Umbriel. "Don't worry your pretty little head about it."
He held up a hand, and flicked a switch on his helmet's attachments.
"Attention personnel of the Umbriel Corps., this is your commanding officer speaking." he spoke into his built-in radio. "The target has been confirmed to be beyond school property. All searches are to be called off until further notice. Return to regular patrols in the hallways and on the grounds."
"That ain't gonna be a problem, sir!" said Lt. Sigma's voice on his receiver. "I've got my eye on some o' the students here as it is!"
Then Umbriel turned to face Vice Principal Luna, and casually brushed his armored hands together.
"Well, that's that." he said, quietly. "You didn't seriously think that I would just let my soldiers harass your students all month, did you?"
Luna said nothing; she clearly didn't want to question Umbriel's methods any further than need be.
"I can be very gentle with children and teenagers, myself." continued the captain. "I have a son of my own, who's graduating from middle school next year, and a daughter in high school. I even have a niece, who is simply adorable, once you look past her unfortunate disabilities."
"Really, you have children?" asked Luna. "And do they look up to you that often?"
"Actually, my daughter and I rarely speak; she lives in Japan and only stays in touch with her aunt. And my son lives with his mother on the other side of the country. We're not married, and they're both illegitimate offspring. Not that there's anything wrong with that."
In the gymnasium, Pinkie Pie's celebration party was still in progress. Attending the party were Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and several other students. Lieutenant Sigma, Major Canopy, the rest of Proxy Squad, and a handful of other Chrysalis Syndicate operatives were also present.
Sigma had his helmet and a part of his mantle removed, revealing him to be a slightly overweight man with spiky dark brown hair, a short frizzy beard, and a slightly visible underbite. He was recounting to Fluttershy, Applejack, and a few other students about one of his previous assignments during his time with the Syndicate.
"So, ya see, I was all on m' own--well, not entirely 'lone--but Cannie over here was still a civvie at the time." Sigma gestured towards Major Canopy. "I had a bunch o' hitmen all 'round me. They all had silencers all on their guns, so I had ta be careful not to get shot in the back, cuz I wouldn'ta heard it. So I spun around, smackin' 'bout everyone in my reach, and gunning down ev'ryone else in sight, when suddenly some blighter went 'n' popped a blinkin' .22 straight into ma cranium!"
He pointed his armored finger at the edge of his scalp, where a brownish scar was barely visible. Applejack's eyes widened and Fluttershy gasped,
"Goodness!" whispered Fluttershy.
"How'd y'all survive gettin' a bullet stuck in yer head, Sigma?" asked Applejack, curiously.
"Because I was there to call the ambulance." said Canopy, finally taking notice of Sigma's story. "Plus, I was able to bust a couple of caps of my own into the punk that shot my colleague over here."
"Good thing the bullet was small, and only barely grazed the lobe, or I woulda been done for." added Sigma. "Sure, it went 'n left me with a bit o' brain damage, but at least it didn't affect my motor skills, 'part from my accent goin' all off th' fritz! Can't even tell what accent I'm speakin' with righ' now! Anyway, you were a purda goo' shot yo'self, Canopy. 'Specially since ya never even used a gun before then!"
"So, whatever did you do before you...uh, joined the Syndicate?" Fluttershy asked Canopy, who was detaching her helmet.
Canopy finished removing her helmet, revealing her to be a somewhat middle-aged woman in her late thirties or early forties. Her grayish-green hair, which was worn in a sleek, 1950s-esque style, sported a graying streak along her smooth bangs, and her emotionless face seemed slightly coarse and rough, especially above her cheekbones, her heavy eyelids, and along the edges of her tall, stark forehead.
"I used to be a telemarketer." said Major Canopy, whose natural voice was dry and monotonous, but still clearly feminine. "I've also been a proud dabbler of Kickboxing since I was fourteen years old."
"And how'd y'all become a soldier?" asked Applejack.
"Well, Ziggy--I mean Lieutenant Sigma over here tracked me down and coaxed me into joining the Chrysalis Syndicate." said Canopy.
"And by 'coax', I of course mean that he basically stalked me and flirted with me...aggressively. It wasn't until I decided to help him fend off those guys he was fighting that I decided that he didn't seem like a totally impolite brute."
Applejack was about to question how one could flirt in an aggressive manner, when Fluttershy spoke.
"What got you interested in her, mister--I mean, Lieutenant Sigma?" she asked the lieutenant.
"Well, it's a kinda funny story." said Lt. Sigma. "I was submittin' a report, when Intelligence Officer Embryo--that's what Cap'n Umbriel was called back then--decided to show me a prank call somebody on the 'Net made to a bunch o' clueless telemarketers. It was pretty friggin' funny, but it was when Canopy got called that I really got interested."
"So this guy that sounded like a redneck of something--no offense, Applejack--kept telling me to stop calling his number, but didn't even attempt to tell me what his phone number actually was." recounted Canopy. "So to be courteous, I decided to give him my first name and personal extension, when he suddenly threatened to come over and attack me or something..."
"And then Cannie went 'n told the caller 'bout how she knew Kickboxing and threatened to 'rearrange' his face, and in such a cool, casual manner." finished Sigma, a joyful grin on his rugged face. "And that showed me just how bloody awesome Cannie was, and cemented her in ma mind as a stone-cold fox! So then I spent days looking for her address on the Internet--since the blasted prank call had most o' the names 'n' locations beeped out!-- until I finally foun' wher' she was, and the rest is...well, history."
Sigma put his arm around Canopy's waist, and patted her hip. Canopy rolled her eyes and turned her head away sheepishly.
"Wow, so y'all got hooked up because of a prank call?" asked Applejack, amused.
"That's right." said Canopy, flatly. "Sure, Sigma wasn't even the caller, the call was done two years before we met, we lived on two separate parts of the country, did completely different jobs, and I was already the mother of two little children, but somehow I'm here now: making a living as a soldier for some covert paramilitary organization, wearing some scary-looking power armor, and going steady with my squad leader over here."
"Aww, that's so sweet." said Fluttershy.
Canopy's face seemed to glisten with sweat, and she began to pant silently.
"Well, I'm going out for a smoke." she said, turning to Sigma. "If you need anything at all, I'll be outside. I figure it's time for me to relieve Sergeant Craw of his guard duty."
"All right." said Lt. Sigma. "See ya later, Canopy."
Canopy put her helmet back on, and left the gymnasium to go out to the front lawn. As she went outside, there was suddenly a deafening burst of electronic music, which began to resonate throughout the gym. Some students covered their ears, while the Syndicate operatives simply tuned the music out through the audio filters on their helmets. In half a minute, the music quieted down ever so slightly, and Lt. Sigma went to the middle of the gym.
There, the school's local disk jockey, Vinyl Scratch, was in some kind of trance-like dance battle with a Chrysalis Syndicate soldier with oddly-designed armor: He had what appeared to be a synthesizer attached to his right gauntlet, which seemed to be the source of the music, and a computer-like device on the left gauntlet; his helmet had surplus audio attachments that resembled headphones, a straight horizontal black visor with a red dot that constantly sweeped left and right.
"Oy there, Remix!" shouted Lieutenant Sigma over the noise. "At ease there, souljah!"
Remix turned around, and silently gazed at Sigma before turning back to face Vinyl Scratch. The two then continued their dance-battle. Sigma just scoffed at him, prompting Remix to raise his right arm to face it backwards and extend the index and middle fingers of his hand into a gesture that someone as street-smart as Lieutenant Sigma would recognize as an obscenity; clearly, he didn't want to be interrupted by anyone. And then he proceeded to re-sync himself with Vinyl's movements like it was nobody's business.
Every once in a while, Remix began to diverge from Vinyl Scratch, as if trying to get her to follow his dance patterns instead. A few times, he was successful, but Vinyl made a few changes of her own that Remix almost seemed compelled to follow. Their dueling styles seemed to confuse the other, and by the end of the dance-duel, neither participant was dancing the same way as when they began. When the bass-boosted technopop they were dancing to died away, both dancers stopped dead in their tracks.
"Wow, dude." panted Vinyl, clutching her ribcage and rubbing beads of sweat off of her sunglasses. "For a heavily-armored soldier, you sure know how to get down!"
Remix simply nodded, not uttering a word in acknowledgment.
"Silent, huh?" asked Vinyl. "That's pretty cool of you, too. In fact, you've probably got the coolest armor out of all these soldier-guys here. No offense to any of your buddies."
Once again, Remix expressed indifference. The only part of him that was moving was the red dot sweeping back-and-forth across his visor like a raindrop being pulled by two sources of gravity.
"This round goes to the guy that looks like a Cylon!" exclaimed Pinkie Pie, who was apparently judging their competition.
On cue, Remix typed a few buttons and keys on his wrist-mounted device, and raised his arms trimphantly, to the chagrin of a few of Vinyl's friends in the crowd around them.
"Oh, yeaaaaaaa-aaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!" shouted, to the students' surprise, a purely electronic voice, which emitted from the microphone attachment on Remix's helmet. Said voice was clearly from a text-to-speech program, except it had been autotuned, distorted, and vocoded to make it seem as though the otherwise monotonous voice was displaying emotions.
"[By the way, the name's Remix. Corporal Remix, Proxy Squad," said the robotic-sounding voice.
"No way, are you a robot?" gasped Pinkie Pie.
"Nah, Remix over here ain't a robot. He just doesn't like using his normal voice that of'en." chuckled Lieutenant Sigma. "So he went and added a who' buncha stuff to his armor. That 'Cylon' look, as ya call it, ain't the only thing! He's also got a computer built int' one arm, and a self-recordin' synthesizer on his otha' arm! If anythin', Mixxie's livin' proof that action ain't the only thing that speaks louder than words!"
"Well, good thing Remix ain't gonna be replacing me in the long term." said Vinyl. ""I kinda like being the school's 'official' unofficial DJ, so I'd be crushed if this guy was trying to put me out of business."
"Who said I wasn't trying?" droned Remix's electronic voice.
"Excuse me?" asked Vinyl. "You trying to challenge me again, robo-breath?"
"Would it matter if I was?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I rarely play my skills to a competitive level, but I can already say that I am Wolfgang Petersen. And you are Uwe Boll."
A few people gasped at the notion of Remix not only questioning Vinyl Scratch's skills to the point of comparing themselves to two German filmmakers of opposite reputation, but the fact that Remix's text-to-speech program actually pronounced Uwe Boll's name accurately.
"What the--did you seriously just compare me to that--Wait, how'd you get your program to get his name right?" questioned Vinyl. "I mean, whenever I do something like that, I'd get 'you-we' instead of 'oo-vah'."
"When foreign words are involved, I type some names and words phonetically. I sometimes wonder why others don't try doing the same." explained Remix.
"Okay, so you wanna rematch or what?" asked Vinyl.
"It doesn't matter to me either way. Bring it on. Anytime. Anywhere."
"Okay, then." said Vinyl Scratch. "You. Me. The arcade downtown. 11:30, tonight. Ten songs non-stop on DDR. First to make it past midnight without giving into exhaustion wins."
"Challenge accepted." accepted Remix, amid the enthusiastic onlookers' gasps and cheers. "See you there."
Then Remix turned back to meld back into the crowd of his fellow Chrysalis Syndicate soldiers. He stopped in front of Lieutenant Sigma.
"Congrats, corporal." said Sigma. "You just made yerself a friend."
Remix did not know whether he should take Sigma's comment as a compliment, or insult him for what seemed like a sarcastic quip, so he simply shrugged and proceeded to walk around the room.