Collateral Damage

by Jordan179


Chapter 1: A Special Assignment

"Do you have to be gone a whole day and night, dear?"

Falcon Lee Punch, former Lieutenant of the Day Guard, sighed as he regarded his beautiful young wife, Strawberry. She was pouting at him, and he had to admit to himself that she certainly knew how to pout very prettily. Her curvaceous form was as attractive to him as it had been when he'd met her ten years ago, even if it was perhaps more curvaceous beneath after she'd borne him two foals. Rose-pink eyes blinked at him from her sweet strawberry-pink face, framed by the purple mane he loved to touch. She was difficult to refuse when she got like that.

He'd been 39, an overaged Lieutenant in the Guards, disciplined and one of the best unarmed-combat fighters in the whole establishment, a master of the Feather Blade and other techniques, but unlikely ever to be promoted any further due to a distinct lack of interest in leadership. He was smart -- but lazy. So he hadn't really been giving up much of a future that night at the Summer Social when he'd looked across that dance floor and into Strawberry's lovely eyes for the first time in his life.

He'd still looked handsome in his uniform, and he had a quick way with words. He'd spoken to her, found out that she was from a farm family which owned berry orchards northwest of Ponyville, the town in which his section was stationed. Most of what he remembered of the night was dancing with her, drowning in those rose-pink eyes, talking with her outside, heart tumbling in a turmoil of emotions he'd never felt for anypony, despite a quarter-century of experience with the fairer sex.

He'd had a repuation as a bit of a mare's stallion, but he'd treated her very respectfully during the ensuing month of courtship. In fact, he'd had to cool things off once or twice: Strawberry was innocent, but very eager once she'd dipped her hoof in the waters of love. They had eloped, at her suggestion, right after that month -- he'd taken accumulated leave; they'd had a quick wedding on the outskirts of Canterlot, and then taken the train for a week-long honeymoon at Neighagra Falls, during which they'd more than made up for that month of painful restraint, to their extreme mutual delight and one pleasant consequence.

The pleasant consequence of that week of passion, nine-year-old Blackcherry, was sitting on the couch, playing at dolls with her little sister, three-year-old Raspberry. Falcon smiled to himself as he regarded his young daughters. It was so sweet to see how Blackcherry was always kind to her younger sister, always willing to play with her despite the fact that Raspberry was barely more than a toddler. His family meant more to him than any possible military career, in fact he'd resigned within a year of his marriage to be there for Strawberry and their first foal.

But he did miss the military life at times. In the Guards, there was always the prospect of action and adventure, even if most of the time nothing much happened beyond routine patrols. One never knew when a pony would get in trouble, bandits strike, monsters attack. His old combat skills were getting rusty, even though he conscientiously peformed his exercises every morning, and he yearned to discover if he still had the right stuff in the pinch.

Besides, there was a nice fat bonus riding on this assignment. And he'd already agreed to it. Ponies were counting on him. He couldn't bail on them now. Especially not his old buddy Orange Streak. Orange was not only his old friend, he was a Captain now, he had influence. If he handled this well, this might be the route to future military contracts. More money for his family.

"Well yes," he said "that's how long it's going to take me to fly to Appleloosa, get some rest, pick up the package, fly to Canterlot, deliver it and come back home. Remember, I can't do full speed all the way and turn around immediately. I'm a pegasus, not an airship."

Strawberry frowned.

Falcon hated to see a frown on that pretty little face. He reached out with one hoof, stroked her hair and cheek gently, then ducked his head down to nuzzle her right under her jaw, where he knew from long experience she was especially sensitive.

Strawberry giggled. "You rogue!" Then, as he continued nuzzling downward along her jugular, "Not in front of the fillies!" She was blushing bright crimson. "Anyway," she whispered, "you can have plenty of that when you come home tomorrow evening." Her eyes shone with love as she looked at her husband.

"I'll take that as a promise," Falcon said, grinning. "Hey, little berries!" he called to his daughters. "I'll see you two tomorrow!"

"Oh no, daddy, do you have to go now?" asked Blackcherry, cantering over to him and rubbing against his chest. "I drew a picture, I wanted you to see it ... it's in my room ..." Her green eyes, so much like his own, gazed worshipfully up at her father. Her coat was pinkish-purple, like her mother's mane, and her own mane was two-tone pink, like her mother's coat but darker.

"No time for that now," Falcon said, rubbing Blackcherry head playfully with a hoof, then kissing her on its top, smooching her hard until she twisted away, giggling. "The bold courier is off on a vital mission! You be a good little Cheerilee and take care of your sister until I get back home!"

Blackcherry laughed. She loved her father's pet name for her.

Something bumped him repeatedly around the forearm. He looked down to see Raspberry's purplish-pink face gazing up at him under its pinkish-purple mane. Her dark red-purple eyes fixed his own.

"I wanna hug! I wanna hug!" the little filly insisted.

Falcon obliged, sweeping up Raspberry in one foreleg, squeezing her, kissing her on the forehead and then tossing her up onto his back to launch into a quick orbit of the living room, his youngest daughter laughing in glee as she rode her Papa.

"Take me flying outside!" she said.

"No time for that now, either," replied Falcon, landing and putting Raspberry back down.

"Awww. ..."

"Be a sweet little Berryshine and mind your momma and big sister while I'm gone," said Falcon, using his special name for Raspberry. You'll scarcely miss me!" He kissed his youngest daughter on the top of her head and then turned to his wife

Strawberry stepped over to him.

"See you later, darling," he said, and reared up, wrapping his forelegs around her and kissing her firmly on the mouth. Her lips parted, and the kiss briefly became passionate.

"Ewww," said Raspberry. "That's yucky."

"I don't think that's appropriate," added Blackcherry, with an air of great solemnity.

Falcon and Strawberry parted and regarded their offspring.

"Be off, rogue," she said playfully, poking Falcon in the chest with one hoof.

Falcon grinned, opened the door. "Gotta fly," he said, waving a hoof.

"See you," whispered Strawberry.

Falcon launched himself into the late morning sky.

***

"They're all around us," hissed the old Pegasus to the big burly Earth Pony, his yellow eyes darting back and forth madly. "They could be anywhere. Anypony. I've seen them!"

Appletree sighed and rolled his own eyes.

"Sure, old-timer," he said soothingly. Being the Sheriff was a good job, but it meant that he had to deal with all sorts from time to time. Thermal Soar was one of them, a crazy prospector who had started as a geologist but gotten his brain fried by staying out in the deep desert a bit too long. He was always bringing back wild stories of strange objects, lost cities and monstrous races, and sometimes even had an ambiguous artifact or unusual fossil to sell for the supplies for his next journey.

Appletree himself had been in one of the first families to settle Appleloosa, as part of the expansion of Equestria southward into territories which had previously belonged to wild Buffalos and jackrabbits. He had seen the land blossom under the care of his relatives: wells sunk, irrigation ditches dug, wheatfields and orchards growing where there had previously been only scrub country.

But a new land was a wild land, and aside from occasional hostility from the wool-heads, there were unscrupulous Ponies who thought that fleecing the settlers was the best way to make their fortunes on the frontier. Appletree could plant and buck trees as well as his kin, but his true talent lay in his toughness. He was not an exceptionally-violent Pony, but he had all the famed stubborness of his folk, and something in his gaze made all but the most desperate outlaws back down without any need for fighting. And if it came to fighting, whether with hoof or bow, those outlaws soon found that Appletree was as tough as old wood.

For twelve years now, Appletree had kept the peace in this county, and he liked his profession.

Thermal Soar wasn't a bad sort, though, simply a bit touched in the head. When Thermal was in town and sober, he was generally good company. When he got drunk, he sometimes had to cool off for a night in the jail, but he never made much trouble even then, and after he started to sober up a pony could have a nice conversation with him. Appletree had learned all sorts of interesting things about rocks and land formations from the old ex-scientist, chatting with him in his office over some coffee and apple juice.

But now something had Thermal more than usually worked-up. He had found some sort of mummy out in the deep desert toward the Badlands, something which he'd brought back wrapped in a tarp, something which he refused to let anypony see, claiming that "they" might have spies anywhere. He'd paid to have a special message ported to the Unversity of Canterlot, and darned if a message hadn't come back, bearing the famous Eerie Eye of the Night Watch!

Someponies were certainly taking this more seriously than Appletree dreamed possible.

Thermal grabbed one of Appletree's big hooves with his own more delicate appendage, stared up into the big lawpony's eyes.

"Out in the deep desert," Thermal whispered, "toward the Macintoshes, where the land's all dry and twisted and worn -- uplift and erosion and something else like a great explosion from the southeast, but following the pattern of no volcanic or meteoric event science can explain -- there's a hill, crowned by a ring of stones older than anything I've ever seen before. Older than the first Hearth's Warming. Older than the Cataclysm. Older, mebbe, than all Ponykind.

"I was there, once. Saw a filly down there -- most beautiful mare you ever did see, a pretty pink Pegasus standing on the hill and beckoning up at me. I came down to see what was the matter, and she said she'd strained a wing, could use some company while she waited for it to heal up a bit. We fell to talking and, well, that was twenty years ago and the sap ran a bit more lively in me then than it does now. And we did what came naturally." He smiled, and for a moment Appletree could see the younger stallion he had once been. Then his face darkened. Afterward she told me to go. And I asked why, and she said "They'll take you."

"I wouldn't listen, and she just ran away behind a stone, and there was a flash of green fire. And when I looked behind that stone, a horrible monster hissed at me, and I screamed and flew away like all the devils o'Tartarus were nipping at my hooves. And that was the last I saw of Tootsie Pop, and the first I ever saw o'the Buzzies." He hissed the name. "First time I found out they was real."

Appletree chuckled to himself. "Buzzies, huh? Next thing you'll be telling me you pal around with the Sass Squash."

"They are real," Thermal insisted, "and this time I have proof."

"What kind of proof?" asked Appletree, willing to listen to more of the tale.

"I've been out in the desert that direction more'n once," Thermal said. "Never dared go too close to the hill again, but sometimes I've watched from a distance, and I've seen the Buzzies out there, a-flitterin' around the hill and goin' in an' out o' a nearby mesa. Whole thing's riddled with caves -- must be their hive or summat like that. I have notes -- maps -- they're all safe in this here packet," Thermal clapped a hoof at a large oilcloth packet on his side. "Night Watch wants to see `em. When I told them what I had, they wanted to see it right quick!"

"The maps?" asked Appletree.

"That," replied Thermal, "and the mummy. Do you know what that mummy is?"

"What is it?"

Thermal leaned close, looked both ways as if afraid of eavesdroppers. Then he hissed the answer.

"It's a Buzzy."

"They're that small?" Appletree asked. That tarp had only looked big enough to contain a foal, or at most a young colt or filly.

"Naw," said Thermal. "Adults are as big as you or -- well, at least as big as me," he reconsidered as he examined the brawny Sheriff. Few Ponies were as big as Appletree. "I'm guessin' it was one o' their young 'uns, went out into the desert for some reason long ago, got lost or injured, couldn't make it out, died out there. Got buried by sand, mebbe centuries ago, so the varmints didn't get at it. Uncovered by some desert wind -- you'd be surprised at the things you can find out there in the deep desert, buried long ago and revealed to a sharp eye like mine.

"I swooped down and there it was. Shaped like a pony, but all covered in black chitin, like some enormous bug. Stubs o'two wings -- those woulda been membranous in life, least they were on the Buzzy I saw twenty year ago. Big eyes -- empty now o'course, but once they would have been multi-faceted and shimmering and strange beautiful. Holes in the cannons and pasterns -- coulda been weathering but I think they're normal for Buzzies. Don't know what they're for -- weight reduction mebbe? They fly -- mebbe they're like our hollow bones ..."

"Can I see?" asked Appletree, with some interest.

Thermal shook his head.

"Better you don't." The old scientist explained. "They keep their secrets. I cain't be the first to have seen them. But a sighting's just hearsay -- I know you don't believe me. But physical evidence? They'll kill to get that back, I reckon. Kill ... or worse. I don't think I'm gonna live very long, less'n I get out o'here fast. Or be free very long, if there's any truth to some 'o the legends.

"I'm old," he continued. "My life's near over. Nopony'd miss me if'n I was gone. But you -- you ain't old yet. You have a wife and family. I don't want to make it so they have to get you, too. You're my friend."

Appletree felt strangely moved. The old Pegasus was nutty as a squirrel, that was obvious. But he thought the danger was real, and he wanted to keep Appletree safe.

Not that Appletree was too worried about monsters from a campfire tale. But it was the thought that counted.

"All right, old friend," the big Sheriff said, clapping the scientist on the shoulder. "Ah'll hold off lookin' at your mummy. And when you come back to Appleloosa again, we can share some coffee and cakes." He smiled.

Thermal smiled back at him. "Don't think I'll be comin' back," he said, "but not 'cause I won't miss your company."

They were interrupted by two deputies, Greenapple and Longnose, coming into the office.

"Howdy," Appletree said to his two deputies. "Greenapple, take charge of my friend Thermal here and keep him safe until the courier from Canterlot comes, okay? He and a find he made are traveling back to the capital, Night Watch request."

"Got it, Sheriff." replied Greenapple. He was a tall and wiry green stallion with a long brown mane. There was something a bit wrong with his voice today -- sounded as if he'd had a slight cold.

Which reminded Appletree of something.

"Longnose," he asked, "didn't your wife say you were out sick? Flu or something?"

"Oh," said Longnose. His voice sounded a bit rasping, too. The long-nosed yellow stallion scratched his head, mussing his orange mane.

"Longnose was feeling a bit better," said Greenapple. "Wanted to come in to help out."

"Okay," said Appletree. "More hooves the better. But be a mite careful where you sneeze." He grinned at the long-nosed deputy, who smiled back at him uncertainly. "Well, I'm going to mosey along home now. Got a nice lunch a-waitin' for me." He nodded at Thermal. "Have a good flight. Hope I see you another day."

Thermal Soar nodded back at him. "Farewell," he said, in an almost sepulchral tone.

Appletree looked back at him one last time. The two deputies were standing to either side of the old prospector, guarding him with what looked like an odd zeal. Appletree had a strange sensation, as if he were leaving his old friend not to await a courier, but instead execution, or some fate far less describable. For a few moments he wavered -- considered remaining -- but then he remembered his sweet wife Pear Blossom, and how delicious were both her lunches and her other charms. And his fears were ridiculous -- brought on, no doubt, by Thermal's wild tale. Thermal would be perfectly safe in the sheriff's office, at the heart of the Realm's authority in Apple County.

He stepped out of the door, and into the bright Appleloosan sunshine.

For the rest of his life, he was to wonder what would have happened, had he instead insisted on remaining.

***

Thermal sat at a desk and nervously watched the clock tick.

Where was the courier? The message from the Night Watch had told him that one would come by noon, which was only half an hour away. He would not feel safe until he was in the capable hands of the Watch. Sweat beaded on his brow.

"You look thirsty," said Greenapple, handing him a cup of coffee. "Drink -- you'll feel better." The deputy stepped away to take care of something behind him, while Longnose sat at a desk and watched him.

Thermal gulped the coffee down gratefully. He felt immediately better, as promised, from the warm caffeine-laden brew -- though the taste was a bit off -- Greenapple clearly wasn't as good at brewing it as was Appletree. The benefits of long experience, he thought wryly. Soon he'd be in Canterlot -- they had much better coffee there, by his recollection.

"Thanks," he said. He was relaxing now. As he sat there, the room was almost swimming with his calm, the lines of the objects around him wavering. His eyelids felt very heavy.

Green light blazed behind him.

He was so relaxed that this fact did not disturb him, even while a part of his brain was frantically trying to remind him just where it had seen exactly that color green before, on a hill crowned by menhirs older than known history. He should have been terrified, but there was nothing in him but a sleepy calm.

The coffee ... he thought in his last moment of full rationality. ... drugged.

He turned, slowly in his chair, to see a tall, elegant bright-orange coated, light green-maned Pegasus mare standing behind him. She had chocolate-brown eyes, which regarded him with a strange sorrow.

"Tootsie ...?" he breathed in disbelief.

She nodded, her eyes still sad.

He tried to get up to greet her, but his legs gave way and he started to fall.

Tootsie caught him, held him up. She was surprisngly strong. She held him close, whispered:

"I wanted to let you go. I did, back then. Why didn't you just stay away from our Hive?" Her voice was sweet, almost loving.

In the background he heard the sound of the bolt being thrown on the front door. Green light shone from that direction as well.

"My Princess, the building is safe," came a buzzing voice.

Thermal ignored it. He already knew what had him -- his mind was still awake, though his body seemed to be falling asleep. He was fairly sure his life was about to end, but he wanted to get one thing clear.

"You were ... a Buzzy ... always ... Tootsie?" he asked.

Tootsie nodded. "Changeling," she whispered, correcting him. "Princess Ceymi." In that voice was both sweetness and an ancient, ruthless lethality. "I wanted you to know, before the end. You were brave ... you deserved it." Then, regretfully. "You should have stayed away."

And Thermal knew for certain he would never reach Canterlot.