//------------------------------// // Secrets and Deceiving Others. // Story: Of mercenaries and.... Ponies? // by Lion Tale //------------------------------// Richard ejected a disc from the computer. The disc was labeled Children of The Corn II, and it was a part of a collection of classic movies. After watching two discs of the movie series, Fluttershy’s perspective of the imagination of humans had changed greatly. In the first one, a young colt — or boy — had burned another young human. It had nearly sent her into the fear of the humans. But, that perspective had changed for the better in the second disc; an old woman’s cat, and herself had both died. The cat was explicitly killed, but the woman was crushed by her own home. It wasn’t the death of the woman that had caused Fluttershy to burst into tears, it was the cat. She was so devastated, that she had brought in an oil burner to calm herself down. After that, she didn’t burn anything, but kept it nearby. Soon, it was the death of the human doctor, and gushing of blood from another human that had forced her to start burning something inside the burner. The smell of the burned incense had a slight of sweet to it. It was different, but it had also caused Fluttershy to be more, happy in a sense. The incense had sent her into a fit of giggles, and had made her eyes bloodshot. But, at least the really ghastly death scenes were more, frightening; especially when the giggles and the bloodshot eyes of Fluttershy were included in the mix. As the movie was drawing to a close, Roxy appeared but with Jennifer along with. If she had big, thick-rimmed glasses, Jennifer would’ve looked like a hipster. As Richard placed the laptop back into Arvin’s bag, he got up from the couch he was laying on, and picked up Fluttershy to place her into the bedroom. The pegasus giggled, even tried to give Richard a deep kiss, but he had quickly dodged it for it to land on his cheek. If he hadn’t dodged it, Richard might’ve gotten a tongue to taste because Fluttershy was currently trying to French kiss his cheek, for any reason why nobody knows. Richard left the room, leaving Roxy, Arvin, and Jennifer to sort out what’s happening at the moment. A moment passed without any sound except a small rabbit constantly trying to get the pyro’s attention. Of course she had ignored the pesky rabbit, but just couldn’t help but chuckle at its futile attempts. Arvin decided to break the silence. “So Jennifer, I have a big favor for you to do,” he said while taking off his boots. “I need for you, to try and help Richard into getting better.” Jennifer was confused, and tried to figure out what was going on. “What do you mean?” She had expected something different, something enjoyable. “I mean that me and Fluttershy,” Arvin then pointed towards a window, where it had shown a dark and sinister forest. “Are going to be gone for tomorrow all day; we need someone to take care of the Boston boy while we go and take care of animals and get some supplies.” The pyromaniac gave him a thumbs-up. “So do you want me to stay here, or do you want me to go back home and rest up?” The German sighed, and then grabbed a duffel bag where he then removed a nightgown covered with blue medical crosses. “We would want you to head home, and come back tomorrow,” Arvin yawned. “That’s the plan, ought to sleep now. See you tomorrow Jenny.” Arvin had gone towards the doorway Richard went through. As soon as he had entered the doorway though, Richard appeared at the same time, with a wet spot on his pants. Jennifer giggled and pointed at his pants. Richard, finally noticing the spot, looked down and blushed. “Aw crap,” He said while grabbing a cloth to try to dry it up. “It’s not what it looks like! I just… I blame that freaking pony. It was her that did it!” “What’d she do?” Jennifer asked while trying to hold back her laughter. “She went and said that she wanted it, and pretended that I was a stallion.” The pyro couldn’t hold it, and let a wave of laughter go. “Did you at least tell her to stop?” “I tried, but she decided that sitting on my lap and hugging me was the best idea. Then after that, Fluttershy slept on me, but she was still sitting on me!” He threw his hands up in frustration and then sat down next to Jennifer. “Ugh, I forgot to ask Flutters to bring me and extra pair of clothing from Skittles.” “Skittles?” She raised an eyebrow. “Yea, I got to live with her,” Richard buried his face into his palms. “I never got around about what’s her problem, it’s like she was terrified about changelings, fucking xenophobe. What’d she expect; a griffon that wants to be with her? Hell no, I just want to know why she hates changelings.” Roxy nudged Richard’s leg, almost making him jump in surprise. “I could answer that for you.” “Why didn’t you say so?” “Well, because I was too lazy to actually speak,” the changeling had jumped into his lap and then lain down. “Could you pet me? Please? Thank you. Now, I know at least the biggest reason why she doesn’t like us. It’s because that we had done an invasion into Canterlot — the capitol — and we had actually defeated Celestia. But, there were some bumps in the road that needed to be flattened; like the Elements of Harmony. We had to get a force of at least five-hundred changelings to get them captured. It wasn’t very fun since I was one of the people on that first wave. Nearly died, but I digress. The point is, we defeated their princess, and claimed the capitol as ours. About a few days later — no matter how many ponies tell you that it was all in one day, was actually lying; since we had defeated Celestia, she couldn’t move the sun and therefore we had to suffer hot weather. Anyways, a few days later, a less-powerful alicorn named Cadence had escaped from her second prison, and got her fiancé, Shining Armor, to release under the Queen’s spell. So now, we have two lovers together, and apparently, the magic of their love was so powerful; we couldn’t protect ourselves from it and got launched everywhere around the country. I landed here in Ponyville, and I’m forever grateful that I was able to live peacefully,” Roxy purred against the feel of Richard’s hand running down her backside. “I’m just going to say that, she might be scared that you were probably a spy or something. I really don’t care; give me the order, and I’ll take care of her myself.” “We need her alive,” he stopped petting. “You think you can take Jennifer wherever she needs to be? I feel like I’ve gotten hit by boxing gloves in the face. Not like that happens every day by a Heavy that has an umbrella for a hat.” “Umm,” she paused. “Sure, I just need an explanation for the Heavy thingy.” “You wouldn’t get it.” “Still, an explanation would do.” “Alright, imagine Mikhail with a tiny rainbow-colored umbrella on his head, got it?” Roxy nodded. “Good, now think of him having blue boxing gloves protecting his face like he’s ready to fight. Viola! You’ve just imagined what it looks like; now imagine getting hit by hooves fifty times in the face,” She winced. “Yea, now you know my pain somewhat.” “You humans are weird.” “That’s just the tip of iceberg pipsqueak,” Richard placed the changeling on the ground and softly patted her head. Later found Richard by himself on the couch with a magazine to keep him company. Ought to read that. He picked it up and read the title; ‘Playpony’. Oh god, what have I found? I really hope it’s not what I think it is. If it is, at least it’s entertainment. On the cover, it had shown a bright yellow-orange pony with a fire-colored mane. Underneath, it had said ‘Spitfire –Has Celestia’s beauty been matched?’ Richard scoffed at the ridiculous title, and then opened the magazine. Almost instantly, he had closed it. Then opened it back to the same page, and almost drooled. Once he had finished with reading all the articles, and staring at the pictures, a bright light had flashed into his eyes. The Bostonian looked at the source, and saw that the sun was peeking over into the small house and was just rising over a small, pointy mountain. He then looked back at the magazine, and placed it back where he had found it, and decided to sleep. But Richard’s slumber was interrupted with snuggles from a small changeling. Roxy then buried herself into a space between Richard and the couch. He closed his eyes, and slept the morning away; until it was interrupted by Fluttershy prodding his back with her muzzle to wake him up for breakfast. Richard sighed, the things that he does just to be himself. (…..) Twilight picked up another book out of the pile of magic books. Most of it was old-looking and were in some form of decay; book bindings were coming apart, pages were becoming yellow, and even an occasional spider popping up here and there between pages. It disgusted Twilight that the books were in such of a bad condition; she’ll have Spike do the honors of making newer copies of these books. “Now Mr. Mundy,” she started. “Imagine yourself picking up that vase, and believe.” The sniper looked at the vase which was several meters away from him. He lifted his arm in the air, and held out a hand. It looked like he was trying to do the Force; but instead, his hand glowed for a fraction of a second and the vase exploded. Nick sighed, he almost had it, but it was the wrong thing he wanted to do. He wanted to pick it up, have it land on top of Twilight’s head, and stay there. Over the past few days, Nick had taken an interest about how Twilight was moving around things. In exchange for some lessons on trying to learn some tad bit of magic, Nick had decided to teach Twilight how to use his weapons. Twilight loved using the Sydney Sleeper, Machina, and the Huntsman. Any reasons why was probably that it had some kind of unnatural touch to them. Especially the Sydney Sleeper, oh how she loved that she could actually make her urine useful for once other than for science. “Mr. Mundy, how about you try again?” Twilight placed another object on the small table. This time, it was a lamp, shaped like an odd and chaotic figure. With many limbs that belonged to another creature, and two different horns on its head, might as well give it a name like Soap, Fred, Steve, or even worse; Dick. Nick visibly shuddered, making the alicorn raise a brow in confusion. “What’s the matter?” He shook his head clear of thoughts, “It’s just that I was thinking of what in the bloody hell is that thing.” She looked around, and then gave an expression of realization. “His name is Discord, and yes, this lamp is very similar to what he looks like.” Twilight chuckled, and then looked back at the lamp, suddenly changed to a different pose. “How in the…” Nick trailed off. A voice spoke to him from behind, “It’s magic Mr. Mundy. You should know that in a land of ponies, unicorns, and mythical creatures.” He jumped, and pulled out his Bushwacka, but instead of pulling out the blade, he pulled out a long gummy worm. “You bugger! What’d you do to my kukri?” the sniper shouted. “Oh you humans, thinking that violence is the answer,” a claw lightly trailed from his cheek, to his neck, and finally to his back. “All in reality, it just another form of chaos my friend.” Nick took a bite from the worm, it tasted like green apple. On the second bite however, it tasted like cherries, and on the third, strawberries. “What is this?” he said. “It’s my specialty, Gummy Discord,” The creature of similar looks appeared in front of the Australian and gave him a slip of paper. “Here’s a recipe, have fun trying to get the last ingredient,” he lowered his voice to a whisper. “It’s alicorn tears. “ A yell from behind the draconequus got his attention. “So Discord, what do you want from us ponies this time?” Both males in the room — Spike and Jane Doe went out to patch up some problems with their rocket-jumping, with the Rocket Jumper of course — turned their head towards the lavender alicorn. Then back at each other, and laughed. “Let the men in this room talk it out with each other,” the both said in unison. Twilight sat down and crossed her hooves, and pouted. “Well, I need answers.” Discord rolled his eyes, and whispered into Nick’s ear, and he giggled once the draconequus stopped. “That’s so true mate!” Nick said. “Maybe…” he whispered back towards Discord. They both giggled at the same time and then looked back at Twilight. Meanwhile, she was busy looking for a spell for her to be able to snoop into the conversation without being noticed. After a minute of looking in the old archive books, she found it and casted it. Fortunately, she found out what they were talking about, but unfortunately, it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, and tried to turn off the spell. But there was no counter to it, so now she has to hear the many things stallions like to talk about. Most of the topic was about the princesses, her, and even some of the locals. Not only was Twilight being annoyed, she felt that she had been found out, and it seemed that the boys were just making it worse bit by bit. But it had stopped when Spike had fallen in through the top floor window, with Jane appearing directly behind him. Both of them landed with such force, it would’ve possibly broken a few foot bones, and possibly fractured multiple ribs and both femurs. But, as would the pony world would have it; it had only caused light damage, as if they had fallen seven meters. Discord snapped his fingers and he suddenly dressed like the soldier, and even had a Direct Hit with him. He swung towards Jane, who instinctively pulled out his shotgun, ready to pull the trigger. For a moment, both of them stood still, and finally, they both started laughing at each other. “Private,” Jane said while patting Discord’s shoulder. “I like you; you have that spunk that reminded me of my old civilian self,” He sighed, having a small flashback of the days that he went to watch the Yanks, ate hotdogs at said games, and even got a cherry coke whenever he felt like it. Those were the days… The soldier’s flashback was so vivid; he could actually smell a hotdog and the sound of someone opening a bottle of coke. He looked towards Discord, who was offering, and eating, both of the items. The draconequus even gave one to Spike and Nick; they both wolfed it down with glee. Today was a great day to become friends with draconequus, especially on that is the god of chaos. (….) A hoof slammed unto a table in the middle of a dark room. It nearly fractured, but it held its position. A pair of cat-like eyes glowed in the darkness with anger and was fixated at a certain changeling queen. “We thought we were told there wouldn’t be any problems on this mission,” a dark voice rumbled in the darkness, just barely out of the reach of dim, overhead light. “But please, spare me the details and get on with it.” Chrysalis neared the table, her green eyes emitting a faint light. “We had been compromised,” she gulped. “We were nearly finished with preparing the ambush, until a certain new changeling told Princess Celestia our plans,” “Tell us, why didn’t you exterminate this changeling?” A bead of sweat rolled down the changeling’s face. “It wasn’t one of ours, it was,” her ears flattened against her head. “The changeling was one of Celestia’s team members.” “What?” the voice roared. “How can you be sure?” “I hate to tell you this, but…” Chrysalis trailed off. “But what?” “I think this person has found one of the artifacts, it used to be a human. His name by his friends was Richard. This artifact turns any species into a changeling with prolonged use.” “…” “Princess? Are you okay?” “Leave us be, we think we have a fantastic plan for this ‘Richard’. Tell us; is he the team’s scout?” “Yes.” “Leave us be, you go and do this project we’ve assigned you. The technology you’ll possibly need would be with the team. From there, we believe that the task shall be easier, and more efficient, when you learn more. Talk to the engineer, he shall teach you how that magic works. And on a side note, you should look into artificial body parts; we believe that it shall help you whenever you fight on the front lines. But first, build us new armor, ours are dented and it needs replacement. I’ll get Spy here to take measurements,” The alicorn walked into the light. “Be back here in forty, I’ve got plans for our next assault.” With that, Chrysalis walked out of the room, and into the white world of Cloudsdale. She looked around; the changelings were busy having body armor strapped onto them, with designs similar to what the Scout knows as The Covenant. Purple, blue, and even red was surrounding the creatures. The helmets were menacing, with a small slope on the top, and a mouth opening at the front. It also had a hole on the top of the helmet, as to let the horn easily slip through. The neck was protected with a black, skin tight covering. The neck piece also had small pieces of armor, as to protect the jugular. The body frame contoured with the natural grooves and it also came with shoulder pads. The underbelly was also protected, in case anypony wanted to attack there; but it was weaker for the reason that it was less attacked since most stayed on the ground. This armor was very strong, possibly stronger than the magical, solar gold of the royal guard. The armor of the guard was stronger that titanium, lighter than aluminum, and it was also easily malleable. It was very ideal for basic combat of a raid, but it was virtually useless against large hordes of enemies; since it was so easily malleable, it couldn’t take more than a hundred hits before it started falling apart. But, since it was strong, it was able to be used as a shield if it wasn’t joined together by weak links. The armor of the changelings however, it was only used for the highest ranks in the army — which happened to be fifty — and therefore they were the strongest. The Scout made a joke about them being Elites, and so that was their names thereon. They were also used in special ops missions, but that was very rarely since they had no political enemies. Ever since this battle started, the number of missions that were based off ‘sudden attack and then retreat’ strategies grew somewhat. The humans called this guerilla warfare, but they were against this kind of attack. They were more open to the battle, and will not stop until they stop — or until the objective ended. Chrysalis sighed, she really didn’t want to do anything today since this was a Monday, but as life would have it, it wasn’t fair. She walked towards Engineer, and started to talk to him about artificial limb replacement. “Huh,” the engineer scratched his head. “Never thought ponies were interested in this. But ah’ll have you know, it’ll be a while, and I’ll need to do some measurements. I’ll also have to do some surgery for you to become a cyborg,” He removed his glove, to reveal a robotic hand, called the Gunslinger. “Ah had gotten into an accident, so I didn’t have to have a limb cut off. But, it was replaced with this. I’ll do it, but you’ll miss the feeling of having an actual body part.” Chrysalis’ eyes widened, she knew that it had to be a sacrifice of some sort, but not her actual body parts. “Do the jobs anyways, but instead, have the artificial parts on standby,” she leaned closer to his ear. “And if you can me teach how to make artificial parts; I’ll give you something nice later. But don’t tell Nightmare Moon.” Engineer gave her a thumbs-up. “Also, I need new armor for her as well. Spy would be coming around with the measurements. I’ll be here later for you to take my measurements, ok?” said Chrysalis. Engineer nodded and went to walk towards his temporary home, The Rainbow Factory. The place had grown in productivity; removed many problems with the machines, and also removed the original construction of the rainbow itself. Many dark rumors that surrounded the factory had virtually disappeared; all but one specific rumor and it will forever haunt the escapees. One was a specific pony that’s currently living in the city, and also is the father of an egotistical, rainbow pegasus. Nopony knows that he was an escapee, but he would rather keep it that way. Other than his daughter, that was close to joining the factory, until he told her the haunting story. Although Rainbow Dash failed to grasp the idea of ‘don’t tell anypony about the ‘story’, she went towards Fluttershy’s home to have a comforting talk with Richard. Once she walked to the door, Dash knocks three times. When she was about to knock the fourth time, Richard appeared with an extremely large gummy bear in his mouth. “Yesh?” He asked, grabbing the gummy bear. “Is it okay if I could talk to you?” “I don’t know, you were being a complete jerk the other day.” The scout folded his arms, occasionally taking a bite out of the gummy bear. “I’m so—,“ Dash started. “No need, it’s all cool. Come on in, I’m watching a funny movie called Step Brothers,” he moved out of the doorway, letting the pony into the house. “So,” she began. “When do you think you’ll be able to come on back home? I miss you.. erm, your coffee I mean.” The Bostonian didn’t notice the hesitation. He chuckled. “I’ll be able to come home right now if I wanted to, but unfortunately Jennifer is watching me since I’m ‘not well enough’ to walk out on my own. I’ll show that butter pony, I’m fine ever since day two.” Dash busted out laughing. “What’s so funny?” he asked. “It’s… it’s just that… it’s just that this is your second day!” she giggled. “I knew that,” he sat down on the couch, next to the pyromaniac, and Rainbow Dash glided and sat next to him. “Hey Richard,” Jennifer started. “Do you think you can restart the movie? I’ve been here and there making popcorn for us, and there’s also a guest here with us now.” He shrugged as a reply, and went to the main menu on the laptop. “I’m pretty sure we need subtitles, and more gummy bears. I’m here to watch movies and eat bears! But guess what? I’ve ran out of gummy bears!” “Luckily Arvin left us his pocket dimension backpack.” Jennifer pulled out a back with Fluttershy’s cutie mark and pulled out a colored assortment of gummy bears. She looked at Dash, “Do you want some too?” Dash nodded, and was handed four five-pound bears. Richard leaned back, and hit the play button. They watched as A-Punk by Vampire Weekend played throughout the beginning scenes. The pegasus had forgotten to talk to Richard about that story.