Randel half-glowered, half-smiled at the yellow creature. He was angry, because once more, the Lantern hadn’t let him go. At the same time, she had saved him. He couldn’t fault her for that. His tongue pressed against the hole in his cheek, where two thick bandages padded it. The hole was already shrinking, a side effect of the experiments. The yellow pony led him towards a large tree, and he tried not to be too imposing. That wasn’t easy, since he towered over every single one of them. Hell, he towered over every single person he knew, with the exception of his brothers. Even the other members of the Invisible Nine were shorter.
Stop!
He braked his feet hard, coming to an abrupt halt with his boot mere inches behind the yellow creature’s tail. She was looking at a door carved into a giant tree. The door went up to maybe the middle of his ribcage. He waited patiently as she knocked her hoof gently against the door twice, then a third time. A few seconds passed, and he looked at his wrist. He wore a watch back during the war, if only to know how long he was gone for. Now, though, he didn’t have the thick contraption strapped to his wrist.
Pocket. You took it off so it wouldn’t get bloody again.
His hand was just entering the pocket on his right hip when the door opened and the purple one from earlier stuck her head out. Her hair was frazzled and stuck up like it had been hit by lightning. He didn’t laugh. Fortunately, she didn’t scream either. She instead ducked back into the tree and said something.
“Come in, quickly.”
He slipped in, ducking down as low as he could. His back still grazed the top of the opening. He muttered an apology to the purple one as he slid down to his knees and sat on his heels. The door shut behind him, and he found himself looking into purple eyes.
“I have,” she pointed to piles of books, scrolls, pens, and ink splotches all around the main room of what he realized was a library, “been studying.” Her voice changed to German, with a slight English accent, “I understand only some of what you have gone through. I hope I never really understand. Not after what I have been told. I sent a letter to the Princess to come make sure you were safe. We will house you here, until we know for certain what we will do with you.”
He picked up the nearest book. It was written mostly in German, with little bits that seemed to be in a different dialect he didn’t really know. Still, he got the gist of the words. It was a report on the Nine Oh One. But something was wrong. The illustrations, the words didn’t quite match up with what he remembered from the same book back home. He stared at the pictures of horses, drawn like the ones in his own documentation. Photographs. He flipped the page and stared at one that looked very familiar to him. He placed his finger-tips against the image of a strange horse, yet very familiar. It wore the uniform he remembered wearing, the same watch on its fore-hoof. The name, Durandel Orenn. He squinted at the brown mane on the stallion’s head, cut short. One ear was scarred it had been hit by something. His fingers brushed his identical scar. His eyes panned across those, so similar to his own, filled with pain and sorrow. He set the book back down, then drew his watch out and set it on the page, followed by the lantern. As clearly as he could state in English, he spoke, “No. Never again. I cannot allow it.”
The yellow one looked at him, “What do you mean?” She looked at the book, then at the items he had placed on it, “Is that you?”
“No, it can’t be him. Major Durandel went to Tartarus three hundred years ago. There are no more of them left, Fluttershy. I promise, he is the…”
A massive leather-clad hand wrapped around the purple muzzle, stopping it from finishing, “Nein. I…You are all going to die.”
Randel, I feel we cannot stop what has begun, but we can save them. Stone has told me many things. They are not a combatant species. If they fight, they will die. If you fight, they might survive.
His hand pressed against the flooring, and he looked at the yellow one, Fluttershy, he thought it was. He looked into her deep eyes, and stopped, very abruptly. His hands shot back to the book, knocking his lantern and watch to the floor as he flipped pages quickly. He recognized those eyes. He stopped and pointed at the page, then at Fluttershy. Both mares stared at the picture for a long time before they looked at each-other.
“Twilight, I’m sorry. I should have…”
“Flutters, it’s ok. You had no way of knowing that it would be important. That you are a twelfth generation descendent of a genetically engineered warrior.”
Fluttershy shrank back, and Randel pressed his finger to the words above Fluttershy’s ancestor’s picture. Nine hundred and Third. Chemical Tactics. Chemical Warfare. Known mutations… He read through them quickly. Most were things he had seen himself. Some were new though. Feather rot. Horn rot. Impaired flight characteristics. He turned to Fluttershy and pulled on her wing, stretching it out. He had seen enough birds afflicted by the weapons of the 903rd to know what rotting feathers looked like. There, there, and there. Three yellow feathers, primaries, rotted at the core. He had met the children of one, Wolf, back before all this had happened, and they suffered from very few of the things their father had. Only one was Asthmatic, the other had a bad liver. But none had multiple, and from the sound of this mare, she was suffering from at least three. Her breathing was labored, her wings were rotting, and she was clearly frail-boned. He released the wing, letting it fold up quickly, and pinned her to the floor before she could make a move.