“We’re just getting started!” said Patel excitedly. The others looked at him confused.
“What do you mean, brother?” asked Wahlburn. “The portal is gone and that’s what we came here for.”
“That’s my point,” said Patel. “Arlin’s plan is now crippled as he can’t gain anymore clones. It’s time for my army to strike.”
“Army? What are you talking about?”
Patel smiled and lifted his hoof at an angle straight into the air. “It’s time for me to restore the great Germane Empire of course!” The others gasped.
“You can’t be serious,” said Clyde.
“Oh, but I am.” Patel began to pace the stage. “You see, it all started when I was younger....” Patel sat down and looked at them, ready to tell an anecdote.
“When I was about ten I first learned about the Second World War in school. I loved history class anyways, but every time a war was brought up, I paid extra attention. Anyways, The Great War was interesting, but I was upset that Germaney lost. I liked Germaney a lot just because my ancestors lived near there. We’re not talking about this war though, so I’ll stop babbling on.”
“The Second World War was my favorite topic I ever learned in my life, and probably will always be my favorite. Even when I wasn’t in school, at home, I researched everything I could about Germaney during that time period. They were deemed global enemies but I didn’t care. Their Reich was something I always wanted to join because I agreed with every single topic they believed in. I felt that there was a ‘Master Breed’ and I wanted to be part of it.”
“As I learned more about the war and the eventual outcome, I was disheartened when I learned Germaney lost, but that didn’t get to me. Even though the Third Reich fell so many years ago, I vowed to restore it to its fullest glory. Whether nobody liked it or not.” Patel’s friends, except Cannon, looked at him and shook their heads.
“So, with your big dream you have,” started Wahlburn, “where’s your army? You can’t take over Germaney before Arlin does without an army.”
“I was hoping you guys, after all, you are my friends, would help me since you helped me damage Arlin?” Patel looked at them sadly to help persuade them.
“Not happening,” said Clyde, almost instantly after Patel stopped talking.
Patel glared at him. “Why the fuck not?”
“You said all I had to help you with is stop Arlin, not help you take over Germaney.”
Wahlburn nodded. “He’s right brother. I came here to kick some ass, not join an army for a selfish goal.”
“Yeah dawg,” said Tyrone, “I don’t want to leave this country just for your lust of power.”
Patel shook his head in disappointment at them and looked at Poncho. “Are you going to bash me now?”
Poncho nervously looked around and gulped. “No, but I’m not joining you either.”
“Then fuck all of you!” yelled Patel. Cannon walked up to him and patted him on the back.
“Don’t worry Patel,” said Cannon. “I’ll join your cause.”
Patel’s face lit up with joy. “You will?”
“Hell yeah, besides, Jeb is currently the ruler over there so it’s time to kick him out. My ancestors and the Mark on my ass didn’t tell me to not join the next Reich and oppose it!” Cannon helped Patel up and looked at the others. “I guess this is where we part ways, boys. It’s been a fun ride, but it’s time for planning.”
Wahlburn shook his head and sighed. “You guys are idiots, but I’ll miss you. If you try to attack me, I’ll kick your ass so don’t do that.”
Patel laughed. “I won’t attack you guys, I only care about Germaney. I don’t know if I’ll return to Verona so make sure my stuff is kept tidy.”
Wahlburn nodded to his former roommate. “Will do brother.”
Patel nodded in return and walked up to Clyde. “Good luck with your future endeavours.” He extended his hoof. “I know you didn’t really want to come, but I’m glad you did.”
Clyde accepted his hoof shake and stepped back. “No worries,” replied Clyde, but Patel could tell there were some worries in his voice. “At least I can return home.”
Patel nodded and walked up to Tyrone and Poncho. “See you later thug and sketchbag,” he said with a smile. Tyrone laughed and patted him on the back while Poncho showed some anger, but it was short lived. The four of them waved one last time and walked out of the hangar, back into the exterior of the base, and back out into the desert, heading for Las Pegas.
After his friends left, Patel turned to Skarlin. “What are you going to do now?”
Skarlin looked at his clone army and shrugged. “I have no idea. I know all of us want to stop Arlin though.” Patel and Cannon looked at each other, nodded, and smiled.
“You can join us?” suggested Cannon.
“Yeah, you can be my General, Skarlin,” said Patel. “And all of your cloned brethren can be our army. I know it’s rather small, but I’m sure we can figure out a way to defeat Arlin anyways.”
Skarlin stroked his chin with his hoof. “Hmm. I mean, I guess we could.” Skarlin walked to the edge of the stage and looked out across his friends. He saw the respect they gave him with their eyes and he smiled. Being respected and looked up to, was his favorite feeling in the world. He turned back towards Cannon and Patel and nodded. “What the hell? I’ll join, no, we all will join! For the sole goal of Arlin’s defeat!”
The crowd screamed in joy and began rapidly stomping on the hangar floor to make noise. Skarlin waved them to calm them down as Patel walked up to the edge of the stage. The clones all kept quiet and all focused on Patel.
Patel smiled. “Thank you all for joining my little group, but instead of me wasting time by rambling on how much we want to defeat Arlin, I would like to say, you all made the right decision on joining the Fourth Reich.”
For the next few hours, Patel, Cannon, and Skarlin issued ranks, positions, and weapons to all of their soldiers. Skarlin and Cannon were the two Generals of the Fourth Reich, and both were Patel’s seconds-in-command. Patel and Skarlin specialized in combat formations while Cannon’s role was to make sure all weapons and equipment were in usable condition. The first hours were basic assignment of squads. The hour after was practice and training with firearms that were found in the army base. The old security had a secret armory that Patel soon found and distributed among the army. To finish off the day, the soldiers, along with Skarlin, were deployed to Germaney. Patel and Cannon stayed behind an extra day to tie up loose ends.
Once his army was safety deployed to Germaney, Patel decided to call an old friend on the monitor to see if he could help them.
“Hey Yarlin,” said Patel into the monitor. “We did it.”
“Did what matey?” asked Yarlin. “I haven’t seen ye in a few days.”
“I’ll explain everything later, but Arlin is officially hiding out in Stalliongrad and I was wondering if you wanted to join my army to defeat him.” Patel heard Yarlin speak to someone else beside him. After a brief pause, Patel heard cheering.
“That’s awesome! I would love t’ join ye! That be if Clark and me Cap’n can join too!”
Patel looked at Cannon who nodded. “Of course! The more the merrier! Actually, I wanted to ask if you and your fleet could be head of our navy.”
“The Navy?” asked Yarlin. Patel could tell he moved away from the phone to talk to someone. “Me Cap’n would be privileged to be Cap’n o’ ye Navy!”
“Great!” said Patel. “We probably won’t be using a Navy that much other than locking down all sea routes from Arlin.”
“Fine by us!” replied Yarlin.
Patel and Yarlin continued their conversations until Yarlin had to hang up to go meet up with his Cap’n. Patel learned that after he was kicked out of the initial Arlin meeting, Yarlin snuck out of the base and went back to Amsterdam to see Clark and his Cap’n, which is where he currently was. Patel also told Yarlin what all had occurred with Arlin, the portal, his friends, and this new army he was building.
After the talk with Yarlin, Patel and Cannon began packing up their bags for their flight to Germaney. After packing up, they began shutting down everything in the base, as it had no use to them anymore. Once every room, every monitor, and every light, was turned off, they closed the gates and began their trek to the Las Pegas airport, leaving Area Fifty-Juan vacant and never to be used again.
Patel and Cannon decided to go ‘incognito mode’ and fly to Germaney by plane as they didn’t have to worry about transporting anything. Skarlin, who left with the clones, had some of the unicorns of the army create a magical device at Area Fifty-Juan that once Skarlin reached their base in Germaney, they were able to teleport all of their weapons, equipment, and cargo, to their base. The unicorn clones have become the lead scientists of Patel’s army and were in charge of all inventions or future projects.
After the almost twenty hour flight, mostly due to time difference, Patel and Cannon safely landed in Germaney’s capital. They quickly exited out of the airport and left the city to head to the hidden underground army base in the nearby forest. There waiting for them, were Skarlin and the rest of the army.
“Ah, Patel,” said Skarlin as Patel and Cannon walked into the new base’s small planning room. “We’ve been studying over the castle and we found the optimal ways to sneak in to confront this Prince Apollo.”
“Great,” said Patel. “What’s our best option?”
Skarlin clicked on a button on the monitor in front of him. Soon, a map of the castle grounds was shown and lit up with dots. “This is the castle and the dots are where the castle sentries will be located during the night. They only switch shifts every six hours, so if we sneak in during the middle of the night, we won’t have to worry about that.”
Patel stroked his chin while Cannon studied the map. He traced a path and looked up at Skarlin. “Is there a direct way into the room where Apollo would be?”
“Other than the easy walk through the main doors method, I don’t think so.”
Cannon laughed. “That might work. We could just tell them we wanted to visit our good friend.” He looked up as he heard a knock on the door behind them.
“Sirs!” said a soldier who was saluting. “My squad and I were doing recon in the forest and a small group of Apollo sentries made their way into the forest.”
“Alright,” said Skarlin. “What was so important about telling me this then?”
The soldier nervously looked away. “Uh, we sort of...killed them.”
Skarlin stared at him without any sense of emotion. “You killed them? How many were there?”
“J-Just two. We thought we could help by taking their armor so you could walk right in.” The soldier gave a laugh and sighed.
“Good job soldier,” said Cannon. “Patel and I were wear this disguises to make our life so much easier.”
The soldier looked at him confused. “You mean we didn’t actually do anything wrong?”
“You did, but it was only two, so we can manage those small casualties.” Cannon walked up to him and patted him on the back. The soldier sighed in relief. “Tell us, where is this armor at?”
“My squadmate is watching over it in the barracks. Would you like me to go fetch them?”
“Yes, bring the armor to us. I want to go talk to our old friend tonight.” Patel grinned and looked back at the monitor with Skarlin. The soldier saluted and quickly ran out of the room. He returned in a few minutes with a matching pair of silver armor. It had an emblem on the chest piece, depicting a shield and sun.
Patel and Cannon quickly equipped the armor and looked at each other. They began laughing and made gibes towards each other. After they were done, they looked back over the map Skarlin pulled up on the monitor.
“Alright,” said Skarlin pointing at the monitor. “My strategy is to leave here-”
“Wait,” said Cannon.
Skarlin glared at him. “What?”
“We have a disguise on remember? This shouldn’t be hard at all.” Cannon tapped the silver helmet of his armor.
“But, I have a really nice plan,” said Skarlin sadly.
“I bet it’s awesome, but I have to agree with Cannon on this one for once,” said Patel. “What’s the worse that can happen?”
Skarlin shook his head and waved them off to begin their infiltration mission. They left the base and headed straight towards the castle in the middle of the capital. Due to the darkness of the night, there weren’t any ponies walking the streets other than the normal drunkards. They passed many homes and shops along the way, lit up by lights, but they didn’t stop for a second as they had only one goal in mind.
Once they reached the castle gates, they were stopped by two guards. They were both white coated and wore their silver armor with pride. Their eyes were a bright blue that was surprisingly bright,even though it was dark out.
“Halt!” said one of the guards. “Who are you two?”
Patel lifted his head and spoke with confidence. “We are two of the new recruits back from our patrol in the forest a few hours ago.”
The guards looked at each other and smiled. “Oh, is that right?”
“You better believe it.”
“Before we let you back in, do us a favor?” asked the guard on the left.
Cannon stood up straight. “Sure! What do you need?”
“Can you remove your helmets for a second? I need to check your helmet’s identification number, you know, for security purposes.”
Cannon and Patel shrugged. They took off their helmets and handed them to the guards. As the guards took the helmets the guards laughed.
“What’s so funny?” asked Cannon.
“It’s nothing, you imposter!” The guards lunged at them and tackled them to the ground. Patel and Cannon tried to break free but wasn’t able to move. The guards whistled and soon, more guards came running out of the gates and began wailing on them. Before Patel and Cannon could fight back or push them off of them, they were lifted up in a small magical sphere. They began floating towards the castle doors as guards watched them with their abnormal bright eyes. The two guards at the main doors opened the doors, and the sphere floated into the castle.
As they floated into a big room, the magical sphere ‘popped’ and they fell to the floor. Patel and Cannon looked around to see dozens of guards watching them.
“How the hell did you guys know we weren’t part of this guard?” asked Cannon. All of the sentries laughed in unison, which rang out in the giant room to make it sound creepy. They all pulled off their helmets and instead of the normal mane falling down, a bright blue flame erupted from the top of their head down the back of their necks. The light from the guards’ manes lit up the dark room and surrounded the two imposters on the floor.
Cannon’s mouth dropped and he turned to Patel. “Flaming manes! You never told me about this!”
“I didn’t know they could fucking do that!” yelled Patel. Patel looked at them again and saw them sporadically drop into a bow. Patel, at first, thought they were bowing to him, as he was about to take over this country, but he turned around and saw two ponies in the back of the room.
One of them was another looking guard type, but instead of being a pony, he looked like he was a bat. His armor, instead of silver, was gold, and he too shared the bright blue eyes as the other guards. Patel thought he was a total badass, because he never saw a bat pony before.
The pony beside the bat pony was a white unicorn, about the same size as Patel and Cannon. His mane was also a blue flame, but his was much larger than the guards. His Mark was the guards’ armor’s emblem, a blue sun with a white and blue shield in front of it. He looked down at the two on his floor and stared at them. “Greetings Patel and Cannon, it’s been far too long.”
“Cut the shit Jeb, we know it’s you,” said Cannon rolling his eyes.
The unicorn smiled. “‘Jeb’ never existed. He was my disguise. You should know that by now Cannon. My true name is Apollo and I’m the Prince of this here country.” Apollo looked around and raised his hoof to the guards who were still bowing. They got up, nodded, and walked out of the room. “Why are you two here?”
“The question I should be asking is what are you doing here,” said Patel. “When the hell did you get some henchmen and become a thing we hate like Twilight?”
Apollo laughed. His bodyguard snarled at them, but he calmed him down. “Easy, Helios.” The bat pony looked at him and looked away. “I’ve always been an unicorn. I just used magic to conceal my horn for the longest of times and painted my coat everyday.”
“So, you wore a wig too to hide that flowing flame of a mane?” asked Patel.
“Yeah, I thought I left that at Amsterdam,” said Apollo looking confused.
“You did. Why the hell did you leave anyways?” asked Cannon. “You could have at least told us why you left early. Hell, you could have told Patel and the others who you really were from the beginning.”
Apollo looked at the ground. “It’s not a simple as you think it is, Cannon.”
“Bullshit! I knew you from when we were young colts. I don’t give a shit if you royalty or not, there’s no need to hide something from your friends.”
“I wasn’t trying to hide anything from you guys,” replied Apollo. “I just wanted to leave from this place so I didn’t have any royal responsibilities. I wanted to be normal like you, Cannon, and the rest of the young colts from school.”
Cannon laughed. “You think I’m normal?”
“Uh, okay, maybe not ‘normal’ as in Cannon, but I still wanted to be like the others.”
Patel walked up closer to Apollo. He could feel the guards watching him closely as he approached their Prince. He ignored them and looked straight at Apollo. “Why would you come back here then after so long in Verona if you didn’t want to be part of the royal atmosphere?”
“I’m the rightful heir of Germaney now. It was my responsibility to stop all of the rising terrorism and revolts.”
Patel smiled. “So you were forced to come back here and take control of this country, even though you didn't want to?”
“It’s in my duty as the heir-,” began Apollo.
“No, listen, it may be your duty, but we both know you don’t want to do rule a country. You couldn’t handle the pressure and choices.” Patel looked at Apollo’s guards around him, high above, looking down. “That’s why you should step down and let me take over.”
Apollo shook his head. “No, I can’t do that. It’s not your lineage.”
Patel sighed. “Too bad, I already made up my mind before I came here.”
“What do you mean?”
Before Patel could reply, the sound of crashing glass erupted from above. As they all looked up at the ceiling, they could see ponies rappelling down from the roof’s skylight with rifles and pistols. As the guards pulled out their magical bows, ponies dropped in behind them and held a pistol to their head. As the guards surrendered and more and more armed ponies came into the room, Skarlin walked in with his lit pipe in his mouth. He walked up to Patel and handed him a small pistol. Patel took it and pointed it straight at Apollo. “This is a usurp.”
Apollo’s horn glowed dark blue and his flaming mane blazed more ferocious as a bright flash of light emitted in the room. As the bright light faded, Apollo, his bat pony bodyguard, and all of his guard sentries, were gone.
“Bastard must have teleported his guards and himself out,” said Skarlin, who gave a chuckle. “I don’t blame him.”
“It’s fine,” said Patel. He slowly walked up to the small throne that faced the window overlooking the whole city. As he walked up to it, Cannon, Skarlin, and all of the clones in the room, did a small bow. Patel smiled and looked out at the lit up city.
“Did you bring it?” asked Patel to Skarlin.
Skarlin nodded and stomped his front hoof into the ground. Within a few seconds, an armed clone ran up to Patel with a small package in his mouth. He dropped it at Patel’s feet and quickly ran out of the room. Patel waved to Cannon and Skarlin as he picked the package up into his mouth. “Let’s go boys.”
The three of them, with a small escort in front and behind of them, walked through their newly acquired castle, up towards the roof. As they reached the roof of the castle, it began to rain, however, they ignored the weather and kept walking towards the highest point of the castle, the spot right above the throne room.
Once they reached the site, they looked up the flag pole and saw Apollo’s family flag, flying high in the rainy wind. Patel nodded to Skarlin who walked up to the pole and began to tug at the rope, lowering the flag. Soon, Apollo’s flag was on eye level, so they cut it off. Cannon picked up the old flag and wrapped it up into a small ball while Patel dropped the package from his mouth and began to open it. He quickly tore away the package and picked up some sort of cloth and handed it to Skarlin. Skarlin tied the cloth to the pole and began raising it into the air.
Patel, Cannon, and the small escort groups, stood back and watched the red, black, and gold, flag soar high into the rainy night sky. Skarlin joined them after finishing his task and they all admired it for a few moments.
“Gentlemen,” said Patel as he looked up into the sky to see the new flag of the country, his country. “It looks like the Fourth Reich is in business.”
* * * * *