Chapter 12: In Her Majesty’s Secret Service
I spent the next couple of days roaming about the corridors of the castle and familiarizing myself with its many winding corridors and hallways, entering my second month in Equestria with a feeling of freedom and ease that was a stark contrast to the air of stifling secrecy that I had spent the first month restricted by. To my surprise, my three guards no longer hovered completely over my shoulders during my trips out the suite - rather, they would just hang around in the general vicinity, at the very most two or three corridors away, ready to intervene at the slightest hint of trouble, but still not being too obtrusive or giving any kind of obvious sign that they were any sort of personal retinue.
Personally, I was just relieved to finally have the space to myself, if anything else.
Twilight and her friends had already departed the capital city of Equestria since last week, having already overstayed their visit by several days when Pinkie Pie had insisted on visiting every single pastry shop in Canterlot at least once to sample their wares. That left me with minimal distractions to deal with as I spent my waking hours wandering around the castle, going back to my suite once the sun had set to keep up with my physical training, and continue reading up on Griffonian history - with Bitworth’s help as a translator, of course.
Celestia’s suggestion for me to educate myself on general Equestrian history had actually paid off in spades - from what I had learned from the books, I'd realized that the Griffonian Hierarchy's war-torn past was a string of events that very closely mirrored various key moments in Earth's own history. More than anything, I was eerily reminded of humanity's own bloody trail that had been left behind in the annals of time as I read over the various wars and conflicts that the griffonians had fought amongst themselves and against Equestria, and when I moved on to learning about their technology, that alien sense of unnerving familiarity with the savagery of their race began to intensify.
Apparently, Equestria had been content to develop utilitarian technologies to aid in the improvement and streamlining of their civilization's infrastructure and the development of their cultural arts. But instead of devoting just as much time to advancing their defence forces however, they had left the defense of their nation to the traditional methods of wielding might and magic, as demonstrated by the Equestrian Guard, the massive army that oversaw the defense of Equestria's borders, and their elite counterparts, the Royal Guard.
As though to provide a counterpoint to that, Griffonia itself seemed to be in the midst of an Industrial Revolution, comparatively speaking. While they were nowhere close to humanity’s level of tech in the 21st Century, they had already mastered the use of gunpowder, and were just beginning to learn how factory manufacturing worked. If I had to put an estimation on it, I would say that they were roughly between 17th and 18th Century tech. Flintlock pistols and front-loading rifles were apparently already in mainstream use in their armies, and steam engines were also prevalently used to power vehicles and other rudimentary machines.
That pretty much gave me an idea of what I was up against, and though I had tried to look further into Griffon furycrafting, there was pitifully little information available on the methods they used to carry it out. Apparently, the art of furycrafting was a closely-guarded Griffonian secret, and few Equestrian scholars had been able to document the causes and methods of their abilities. All the books mentioned was what I had suspected all along - that the Griffons were indeed able to control the very building blocks of the world around them: fire, earth, water, wind, alongside wood and metal. However, there was also brief mention of one type of furycrafting that I had not recognized, something that had not been a part of the Codex: Alera series that the Griffonians had seemingly ripped their powers off from.
According to the texts that I had read, some of the older griffons, particularly those who were old enough to be the heads of Houses and hold the positions of Councillor, would eventually come to unlock a final form a furycrafting that only came with age and the maturation of their minds: mindcrafting. When I tried to look it up further however, I turned up with zilch again - the only thing that Equestrian scholars had learned about it so far was that it entailed psionic powers of some kind, powered solely by the will and intent of the elder griffons’ matured, powerful brains. But what powers those were, there was absolutely no mention of them anywhere in the books.
Briefed as I was on my potential opponents, I spent my daylight hours familiarizing myself with the layout of the castle, with its winding corridors and various different rooms and chambers. After a few days of wandering around, flashing the badge Celestia had given me to every guard that stopped me and giving them the cover story the Princess had cooked up, I had become familiar enough with the castle that I could navigate most of it confidently without needing to refer to a map, and I could safely say that I knew where most of the rooms and wings were. At the very least, I wouldn't become hopelessly lost in an emergency if I found myself needing to get somewhere particular in a hurry.
After that came the next step in the mission Celestia had given me - intelligence gathering. To be honest, I didn't really have an idea of where to intentionally start, so most of the information that I'd gathered had been accidentally so while I'd meandered around the castle, eavesdropping on what I could. But after several days of aimless wandering and barely anything new on the grapevine to show for it, I decided it was time for me to really put the executive power Celestia had given me to use.
“Halt! Who goes there?” One of the two guards that stood in front of the double doors that led to my destination barked out as he raised a hoof to stop me, and I could see his spear already beginning to lean slightly in my direction.
“Easy, fellas.” I flashed Celestia’s badge at them, barely even slowing down as I recited the cover story the princess had cooked up for me. “Agent Legacy from the Lunar Guard. I’m on royal assignment from the princess.”
The guard took one glance at the badge that I was flashing his way, and I could have sworn that I saw his eyes widen almost imperceptibly before his posture went even more ramrod straight, if that was even physically possible. “Of course sir, go right on in.”
The guards almost immediately parted before me, and I held back a grin as I strode on through. Once I had gotten accustomed to the alter identity that the princess had forged for me to use, getting around the castle had been almost laughably easy, but I supposed that was only because I had confined my roaming to the areas where even servants still had general access. Getting into restricted areas like the one I was walking into was another matter altogether, as I still wasn’t exactly sure what the badge allowed me to get away with, but so far it seemed that I almost had free reign of the castle now.
And that was exactly what I needed, because I needed to be able to get to certain places like the room I was walking into right now without too many questions being asked. As I strode into the room, the doors behind me closed with a resounding thud, and the white-coated unicorn who sat slumped on the desk in front of me groaned as he continued scribbling away at the mountains of paperwork that sat before him.
“I believe I specified that I wasn’t to be disturbed for the next several hours, sergeant?” Another lock of electric blue hair twinged out of place as the unicorn’s writing grew a little more agitated. “The castle had better be on fire or something, or I’m assigning the rest of these deployment forms to you.”
“You might wanna hold off on that, Shining Armor,” I cleared my throat, and the captain of the guard’s gaze shot up to stare up at me in shock and disbelief. “There’s something I need to ask you.”
“Joseph?” Shining Armor squinted at me as the sound of my voice caught on, almost as if he couldn’t believe that I was outside of my suite and in his office. To be fair, the guard captain hadn’t actually seen me in my pony disguise before, as the one time he’d come over to my suite had been when I wasn’t wearing the illusionary amulet. I couldn’t really blame him if he couldn’t recognize me at first sight. “That you? That's... quite the getup you're wearing. So the Princess finally decided to let you out of your suite, huh?”
“Only because I let myself get drafted into a little assignment of hers that she says she needs my help with.” I shrugged as I sat myself down on one of the chairs in front of his desk. “I'll be brief - you know about the border attacks going on, right?"
"That's right, along with the tensions that are simultaneously running high with the Griffonian government, as though there wasn't enough going on already," Shining Armor groaned as he ran a hoof through his mane. "Let me guess, Celestia told you about what's happening and she brought you in for what she probably said was your 'outsider's expertise', right?"
I raised a surprised eyebrow. "How'd you know all that?"
"Because I was one of the ponies the princess was discussing the idea with before she came to you about it." The unicorn stallion got up from his desk as his horn lit up and began rifling through his drawers telekinetically. "And incidentally, I was also one of those in favor of bringing you in to help us too. I heard that you used to be a military officer, so I thought that some more perspective would be better than none."
A few seconds of rummaging later, Shining Armor came up with a tightly bound manila folder that was stuffed full of papers, and he levitated them over towards me. "I figured you'd show up one of these days, so I compiled a report of every single out-of-the-ordinary occurrence that the Guard has picked up in the city. It's honestly a lot of chaff to filter through, but it's somewhere better to start than just wandering aimlessly through the corridors trying to eavesdrop on what you can, right?"
He shot me a knowing grin, and I let out a groan. "Oh come on, is there anything the guard captain doesn't know around here?"
"Well, when more than a few of my patrols start running into an agent of the Lunar Guard one after the other, and they all report that said agent seems to be wandering around hopelessly lost, you can't really expect me not to put two and two together.” Shining chuckled as he sat back down at his desk. “I’m surprised that the Princess made being a Lunar Guard agent a part of your cover story though, now that she’s got you running around outside. What was the alter identity she cooked up for you anyway?”
"Apparently, my name is now Remnant Legacy, an orphaned earth pony who spent his early years in an orphanage, signed up to serve in the Equestrian Guard the moment he was of age, and was chosen to be inducted into the Royal Guard a few short years after that," I told him. "Shortly after that, he was then drafted into the Lunar Guard to serve as a royal agent in a more subtle capacity, hence my current skulking around."
Shining Armor looked as if he was struggling to hold back laughter as I went on with my explanation, and by the time I was done he was practically shaking in his seat with suppressed chuckles. "Well, that's quite the cover story she created for you. I know quite a few royal guards who would hate you if you'd really managed to be chosen for induction into the Royal Guard after just a few years of service with the grunts. It's not easy to get into the Royal Guard, you know."
"So I heard." I nodded, thinking back on what I had read (or rather what Bitworth had translated for me) about the rigorous trials that a prospective recruit for the Royal Guard had to go through. If the Equestrian Guard was really equivalent in any way to the Imperial Guard, then the Royal Guard pretty much had to be the freakin' Space Marines. As far as my opinion was concerned, 'Remnant Legacy' had to have been one hell of a Gary Stu to cruise through the Royal Guard's selection process like that, and then get drafted into the Lunar Guard, which was pretty much the equivalent of getting drafted into the Inquisition’s Deathwatch, or the Officio Assassinorum.
Personally, I don't know what possessed Celestia to come up with a cover story like that for me, but what I did know was that the street cred that came with being a part of the Lunar Guard had pretty much opened almost every door in the castle there was to me… or at least, the ones that I could reach. That alone made my almost-cringeworthy cover story at least worth it, so I wasn’t about to start complaining.
“Well,” I continued, getting back on track with the conversation as I held up the folder. “The folder’s all well and good, Shining, but like you said, it’s a lot of chaff. Are there any leads in here that you think I should get started with first?”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to color your perspectives with my own judgments and experience,” Shining Armor replied first, though he frowned slightly in thought after that. “Although, if it’s all the same to you, I’d still start looking at the activities that directly involve griffons first. They are the most obvious lead after all, and you might spot something I missed.”
The guard captain took a look at the ticking clock that hung on the wall at the side of his office, and he began to get off his chair as he started to speak. “Well, I hate to leave you like this, but I’ve got a meeting with the rest of my officers that I’ve got to get to. Good luck with the rest of that, Joseph - honestly speaking, I think you’re going to need it. I’ve had my analysts go over these dozens of times and we haven’t found any discernible patterns that we could make use of. It could be that we’re looking for the wrong things, really, so I hope that somewhere in that head of yours is the perspective we need to put all of this together.”
“Don’t worry about it, Captain. I’ll do my best.” I gave Shining Armor a mock salute as I took the cue that the meeting was over and began to get off the chair myself. “I’ll let you know if I find anything unusual or worth noti-”
Without warning, the door suddenly burst open, and the two of us whirled around to see a panting stallion, clad in minimal armor and carrying what looked like a courier bag, gallop into the room, stopping just a few paces past the door.
“Captain Armor!” The courier gasped as his eyes flickered past me for just a second before they locked onto Shining Armor. “Urgent news from dispatch - Ponyville has just been attacked!”
---
“So what do you think happened?” I asked as I sprinted alongside the galloping stallion, following a now-armored Shining Armor as he took off down the corridors, his expression a grim mask. The moment the guard captain had received the news, his expression darkened to the point that it could have easily been likened to a mounting hurricane, and he’d stood up without a word before his horn sparked. The armor on his stand to the side of his office had immediately leapt off its resting place and assemble itself around him, the entire suit locking into place within seconds, and he had gestured at me to follow him before galloping straight out.
“I don’t know - frankly, I think the princesses would have received word before we did. Princess Celestia, especially. She would probably know what’s going on.” Shining Armor dodged around a servant with amazing dexterity, considering the fact that he was wearing half-plate, and he continued on without even breaking stride. “But there’s no time to waste - we have to get to the courtyard, that’s where the mobilizing forces will be!”
“Wait, don’t you have to coordinate those or something?” I asked as I weaved around another servant who was balancing a tray of what looked like hors d'oeuvres, and started catching up to the armored stallion. “I mean, you are their commanding officer after all!”
“My sergeants and lieutenants all know what they have to do in times like these - they’re trained to have initiative like that. I only step in when things are in dire need of direct intervention,” The guard captain answered as his voice slowly descended into a furious growl. “And I would say that the town my little sister lives in getting attacked is dire enough for me to step in - when I find out who’s responsible for this, somepony is going to pay.”
I winced at the thought, familiar with the concept of the protective furies older brothers could get into whenever their little sisters were in danger. Whoever was going to be on the receiving end of Shining Armor’s fury was gonna have a bad time.
Once we reached the courtyard a few minutes later, Shining Armor and I emerged to a cacophony of shouting voices and clanking armor, and what I saw nearly blew my mind. Ranks upon ranks of Royal Guards, all clad in resplendent golden armor, stood in the courtyard in almost perfect formation. If I had to guess a number, I would say that there was at least an entire company’s worth of soldiers amassed in front of me, and they were all in organized motion.
There was a line of large armored chariots, at least six in total, that lay waiting at one end of the courtyard, each big enough to contain at least a dozen ponies inside, and they were all manned by at least four pegasi guards each. Already, the ranks of guards were breaking up into smaller squads as they filed into the chariots, and once a chariot was fully loaded, its doors would slam closed and the pegasi pulling it would take off without a second wasted, the chariot moving with a swiftness that could have easily contended with a dropship taking off.
On the other side of the courtyard was another line, but this time of what looked like teleportation circles, each manned by three unicorn guards each. The royal guards who were formed up in front of the circles were clad in much heavier armor and were carrying much larger weapons than the ones that had boarded the chariots, and they were each stepping into the glowing circles, where the unicorns would then focus their horns in synchronization for a few moments before the teleportee would vanish in a flash of azure light, leaving the space free for the next guard in line to be teleported away.
“Captain!” A familiar voice called out, and I turned around to see Starfall, similarly armored as well, marching up to us. The unicorn mare shot me a brief, surprised look, and then turned to her captain. “Third Company is already halfway through its deployment. Reports from the field indicate that we managed to catch the raid in its early stages - the damage to the town isn’t too extensive, and none of the raiders managed to make it off with any hostages.”
“Great work, Lieutenant.” Shining Armor nodded, only the slightest signs of relief passing over his face as the stony expression of a seasoned commander took over. “Have there been any complications?”
“We’re still working on locating and securing the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, but we have at least three of them safely secured in the town hall now,” Starfall replied briskly. “Ladies Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash are still at large, though.”
Shining Armor mulled over it for a second, and he glanced at his lieutenant, his expression tightening. “And that’s the only thing?”
In front of me, the unicorn mare looked distinctly uncomfortable and aware of the fact that there was an outsider present at the discussion, but she pressed on anyway after a moment. “Lady Twilight is becoming quite insistent on leaving the safety of the town hall to go and look for her friends. We’re starting to have trouble convincing her to stay put.”
Surprisingly, Shining Armor’s expression relaxed, and he grinned slightly. “Well, now that sounds more like my little sister. Get a teleportation circle for me running, Lieutenant - I want to be on the ground five minutes ago.”
“Understood, Captain.” Starfall nodded, and she turned around and started barking orders to the unicorn guards on duty at the teleportation circles. Meanwhile, Shining Armor turned to me, his expression grim.
“Legacy,” He began, using my cover identity’s name now that we were out in public. “I need you to go back in the castle, get whatever gear you need, and then come find me in Ponyville as soon as you can. This is the latest attack we’ve seen so far so this is as fresh a scene as we’re going to get. I need you on the ground to see what information you can dig up.”
“You got it, Cap’.” I snapped a serious salute this time, and Shining Armor nodded gravely.
“Starfall!” The unicorn mare’s head snapped around, and she trotted over. “Go with Agent Legacy to get his equipment. Once he’s geared up, teleport him immediately to my location - we don’t have any time to waste.”
If Starfall had any protests or complaints whatsoever, she quickly stifled them as she snapped a salute to her commanding officer and then turned to me. “Yes, captain! Come on agent, let’s move!”
Without wasting a moment, Starfall took off at a gallop back into the castle, and I followed suit a heartbeat later. The moment the two of us were away from any potential eavesdroppers however, Starfall’s neutral mask fell away, and the unicorn mare turned to glare at me hotly.
“What in Tartarus are you doing out here, Joseph?” The question came before I could prepare for it. “I thought the Princess had you looking into the patterns of the griffons’ activities? What were you doing following the captain out here?”
“I was in his office with him when the word that Ponyville had been attacked came in,” I explained as we bolted down the now empty corridors. “I was asking him if he had any leads that could help me out, and he was about to pass me a file on what he had so far when the courier burst in. I would’ve stayed to look at it, but I think the fact that Ponyville is currently under attack is a more urgent matter than a manila folder sitting in an office that isn’t going anywhere, isn’t it?”
“Right,” The unicorn lieutenant grunted in concession, but she kept her gaze directed ahead and refused to look directly at me. “So where the hay is Flash? Wasn’t he supposed to be your assigned guard for today?”
“I’m right here,” I heard the pegasus reply from somewhere above us, right before I felt a slight draft slide down the back of my exposed neck. Probably a result of his beating wings - apparently, he had decided to break cover from shadowing me and join us in our mad dash down the hallways. “No need to brief me, ma’am - I’m already up to speed. Following ‘Agent Legacy’ around here and not being noticed was a pain in the flank, but I managed to pull it off reasonably well, I guess. Where’s Brick?”
“Already on the scene at Ponyville - he was one of the first our mages sent over to secure the town.” Starfall replied as we turned around the final corner leading to my suite. “Nopony’s been seriously injured or successfully abducted, but we’ve only begun to secure a perimeter around the town and run the raiders out.”
“Then we’d better move fast then - wouldn’t want the scene to get stale before we get there,” I muttered as we reached the door, and I wrenched it open, sprinting over to the cupboard where I stored all of the gear that Celestia had given me in case things ever got dangerous, now that I was running around carrying out missions for her.
A short-bladed sword went strapped to a belt that went around my waist, followed by a leather vest lined with mail that had, according to Celestia, been enchanted to be more resistant to physical blows. Similarly lined and enchanted gloves, forearm guards and shin guards went on shortly after, but I stopped when I reached the two items that I hadn’t touched since arriving in Canterlot - the shotgun and the revolver.
Honestly speaking, if I wanted to maintain my cover, those were the two things that I absolutely could not bring along. But the only alternative that I had to a ranged weapon was a manually cocked hand crossbow and a handful of spare bolts, and I wasn’t confident enough in my use of it for it to prove as reliable an emergency weapon as one of the guns would be.
“We don’t have time to waste, Joseph,” Starfall snapped as she saw me staring at the guns. “Get your tail in gear and get moving!”
There wasn’t any more time to waste on pondering over it - I strapped on a holster, shoved the hand crossbow into it, and slotted a handful of spare bolts into a small quiver that I clipped to my belt before I turned to Starfall and nodded. “All right, I’m ready.”
The unicorn didn’t waste a second. Immediately angling her horn towards me, azure sparks began to flare from the tip of it as a similarly glowing circle materialized around my feet. Soon after that, the boundaries of the circle began to intensify in brightness that within moments, I was standing within a blazing column of light.
“Okay, if this is your first time teleporting via ritual circle, Joseph, I should warn you,” Starfall began as the circle began to crackle with what sounded like electricity. “The initial trip can be pretty rough if you’re not prepared for it. Just brace yourself for one hay of a ride, and you should come out of the other side okay without too severe a bout of nausea.”
“Wait, what do you mean by ‘one hay of a ride’?” I raised any eyebrow as I started eyeing the circle nervously. “What exactly should I be expecting in there?”
“It’s like being wrung through a meat grinder while doing bucking tight loops on an open-topped flying chariot that’s going sixty,” Flash Sentry answered. “But don’t worry about it - it only lasts for like, what, a couple of seconds at the most?”
“Well, gee, that’s real reassuring, Flash." I stared at him flatly. “Why don’t you step in the circle here with me and see how you like the trip as well?”
“No thanks, mate, I think I’d much rather fly over there,” Flash snorted as he grinned at me. “I’ll ask you how the trip went when I see you in Ponyville.”
“Put a horseshoe in it, Corporal, I’m teleporting you there too after him,” Starfall grunted as sweat began to bead on her forehead. “All right, the spell’s almost complete. Brace yourself, Joseph, because you’re about to experience a new kind of mileage in three, two…”
And before Starfall could even get to one, there was an unexpected jerk from behind my navel, and my entire existence and perception of the universe shrank into that single point. Sucked into a black hole, my entire body coiled and contorted into impossible geometries and angles that bent my mind as I tried to reconcile the sensations with an image in my mind’s eye, and all the while, an incredible sense of velocity kept me disoriented as my perception continued tumbling in every conceivable direction.
I don’t know if it was an eternity or a mere split second later, but just as suddenly as the sensations had began, they stopped, and the world reassembled itself around me. I tumbled out onto my knees as the sensation of gravity rapidly reasserted itself, and I lasted only a second before motion sickness won out and the contents of my stomach promptly vacated the premises.
“Oh, Jesus Christ, what the fuck was that?” I groaned right before I dry heaved another time, coughing and sputtering out the aftertaste of vomit. “It wasn’t even nearly this bad last time with Celestia…”
Next to me, there was another flash of azure light, and Flash Sentry tumbled out onto the ground, barely staying on his hooves as his face contorted in the familiar expression of someone on the verge of projectile vomiting.
“Oh, geez, Starfall really needs to work on her teleportation spells…” The royal guard groaned. To his credit, he managed to keep himself from throwing up. “You know, it’s amazing how she’s easily one of our best mages, and yet she can’t perform a decently comfortable teleportation spell for nuts.”
As though on cue, there was a third flash of light in front of us, and Starfall emerged into sight, amazingly looking no worse for the wear. “C’mon you two, enough bellyaching. On your hooves! We’ve got a job to do.”
“Yes ma’am,” I hauled myself to my feet as I tried not to reply sardonically, failing that for the most part, but Starfall didn’t do anything more than shoot me a dirty look out of the corner of her eye before she moved on ahead without waiting for either of us.
The three of us hustled onward, and as I took in my surroundings I realized that Starfall had had the prudence to teleport us right where we needed to be. I remembered Shining Armor saying that I had to go find him the moment we were in Ponyville, and here we were, just a street away from the town hall. The roads around the town hall were packed with the townsponies that had been evacuated here while the royal guards set about securing a perimeter against the griffonian raiders, and nearly all of them had looks of fear or nervousness on their faces. Every here and there a royal guard would be standing in the midst of the crowd, making sure that order was kept and that the townsponies didn’t panic and turn into a mob, but the tension in the air was only concealed by a paper thin veil. Anyone could easily see that the the crowd was only a hair away from being triggered into a riot.
Starfall, Flash and I wove our way through the crowd towards the town hall, which had obviously been converted into a communications hub of some sort, judging by all the royal guards that were still streaming in and out of it. When we strode through the door, I noticed Pinkie and Rarity standing off to the side amongst the crowd of ponies inside, but both of them had their eyes fixed on the altercation that was currently taking place in the middle of the room.
Every pony in the room was giving the argument a wide berth, and in the centre of it all were what were probably the two most powerful unicorns in Equestria, currently deadlocked in heated debate.
“I’m telling you, Twily, you need to stay put. My guards are already out there in force securing the town, and we’re not going to risk losing track of any more of the Bearers. You and your friends have to stay here.” Shining Armor was practically staring down Twilight at this point; the two siblings were almost nose to nose, and I could sense a strange static charge in the air that I couldn’t put my finger on, but it was unnerving enough that the hackles on the back of my neck were already beginning to rise. The elder stallion's hard gaze was tempered with concern for his sister’s safety, but Twilight was stubbornly refusing to back down.
“I am not leaving my friends out there with those raiders on the loose, Shining!” Twilight wasn’t stomping a hoof to punctuate her sentence, but she delivered her message with such a finality that she may as well have. “Every second that goes by where they’re not found is another second where they could be discovered and kidnapped! I have to get out there and make sure they’re safe!”
“And risk getting captured yourself as well?” Shining Armor shot back, and the static charge I felt building up in the air intensified even further as the hairs on the back of my neck bristled. “I already have my guards out there looking for them Twily - I’m not going to let you go out there and endanger yourself unnecessarily!”
“You can’t just expect me to sit here on my tail twiddling my forehooves while my friends are out there, Shining,” Twilight said determinedly before she turned away from her brother and began marching towards the door. “Your guards can keep looking if they want, but I’m not going to be staying here while my friends are in danger - I’m heading out there.”
“No you’re not.” I quickly stepped in the unicorn’s way, blocking her off despite the rising hackles on the back of my neck, and feeling as though I had just placed myself square in the crosshairs of a 120mm cannon. Twilight stared up me, and blinked in surprise at the sudden intrusion. “Shining Armor’s right, Twilight - you shouldn’t be going anywhere.”
“Joseph?” Twilight stared up at me for a second in surprised recognition before her eyes flashed, and then narrowed. “And why exactly is that?”
“Because I’m the one who’s gonna be out there looking for ‘em, not you.” I grabbed the unicorn by the shoulders and turned her back around to her brother, lightly pushing her back towards him. “Captain, any word where are the other Bearers located?”
“Now hold on just a second!” Twilight butted herself back into the conversation before her brother could reply, turning around to face me. “Joseph, those are my friends out there, I can’t let you just put yourself at risk without me out there as-”
“Last I checked, they’d become my friends too, Twilight,” I replied without even looking at her, keeping my eyes locked on Shining Armor, who nodded grimly. “But the fact is that it’s more important for us to keep you safe here, and if you’re that worried for your friends’ safety, then don’t sweat it. Between the guards out there and Starfall’s team with me, we’ve got it covered. Either way, you’re not setting foot outside of this building.”
Twilight’s lips worked in visible effort, the unicorn visibly trying to come up with a better reason for her to be the one heading out into the fray instead of me. But after a moment, common sense finally won out, and she backed down. “All right, Joseph. You win. I’ll stay here with the mayor and try to keep everypony calm.”
“Long as I’m a pony to your eyes, the name’s Legacy, Twilight.” I grinned at her. “Probably a little joke of the Princess’ when she gave me this cover identity. Don’t worry about it - we’re going to bring your friends back home safe.”
“I’ll stay behind here to co-ordinate the town’s defense, and make sure Twilight doesn’t go anywhere,” Shining Armor said, ignoring the pointed look that his sister shot in his direction. “You three find Brick Wall and take him along with you while searching for the Bearers - against these raiders, you might need the muscle. And Legacy - don’t forget what you’re here for.”
“Investigate the scene and search for any information there might be on who’s instigating these attacks.” I nodded. “Got it, Captain.”
I turned to leave with Starfall and Flash, and we exited the building together. As we stepped outside, Flash breathed a sigh of relief, and he immediately started talking.
“Man, am I glad to be out of there!” The pegasus guard said as we wormed our way through the crowds and took a shortcut through the first alley we saw to get out of the mass of packed bodies. “ The tension in the air in there was packing even more charge than a runaway thundercloud!”
“I'd say. I saw how big the bloody berth in there was,” I remarked. “Still, I didn’t think they would actually come to blows, though. Those two are brother and sister, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have actually come down to a fight - not sure why everyone in there was circled around them like a bomb was gonna go off.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Legacy,” Starfall said suddenly. “You’re not trained to recognize magical auras like we are - Lady Twilight was more than ready to blast her brother aside and blow a hole in the building if it meant being able to go after her friends. It was good that you stepped in when you did, I suppose - the surprise of seeing you in your pony disguise threw her off enough to redirect her attention off of her brother and onto yourself. Though why you would risk the ire of an angry Bearer of Magic is another issue altogether…”
As Starfall’s voice trailed off into muttering, I thought about the unnerving static charge I’d felt in that room, and nervously laughed as I directed all thoughts away from just how close I had unwittingly come to being on the receiving end of a barrage of magic missiles from an angry purple unicorn - that was certainly not a side of Twilight I had ever wanted to be on. It was a hell of a magic bullet I’d just dodged, but it certainly had me looking at her in a completely new light.
“So, how do we find Brick?” I decided to change the subject. “The guard’s got a perimeter all around the town. How do we know which side of town he’s on?”
“The same way we always do, agent.” Starfall paused as we exited the alley, and she grinned as her ears twitched. “Follow the screaming.”
---
At first I’d thought Starfall had been embellishing, but as we approached the perimeter that the guard had set up, I realized that the unicorn hadn’t been exaggerating at all. Before we had even come close to reaching the perimeter, I could literally hear screaming coming from the direction Starfall was leading us in, and amazingly, laughter as well.
For a second I started to wonder what kind of demented soul would be laughing in the midst of a battle of life and death, but when I turned around the corner with the others and saw Brick standing in the middle of the street right beneath an almost literal pile of griffonian raiders, I kinda saw why.
“Come on, I said give me a real fight!” The massive bruiser cackled as he hurled aside the griffon that he was holding up by the throat with a casual fling of his foreleg, seemingly unburdened by the four or so other griffons hanging off of his body in various places that were trying to drag him down. “Are the rest of you raiders all a bunch of pansies? What are you waiting for?”
Laughing maniacally as he did so, Brick swung himself around in a massive sweep, sending screaming griffons in all directions. Those that landed on the ground instead of being flung against the walls and through nearby fences quickly scrambled to their feet, and immediately ran for the hills with their tails between their legs.
“Forget this, I’m outta here!” I overheard one of them scream as he took off at a dead run, not even caring to pick up the longsword that had fallen loose from his belt. “I didn’t sign up to get myself killed by some flippin’ insane earth pony!”
“Let’s get the fuck out; he’s flippin’ nuts!” His comrades’ sentiments seemed to agree heartily, and they hastily fled the scene. Before I knew it, the entire street was deserted, save for Brick, us, and a couple of groaning, unconscious raiders.
“Heh, losers,” Bricks chuckled as he turned towards us, crushing a griffon helm underhoof as he walked. Now that I had a clearer view of him, I could see that his armor was vastly different from the suits that Flash and Starfall were wearing. Starfall was wearing the same half-plate that Shining Armor had been clad in, while Flash’s armor was more minimalistic and only had a few thin plates protecting his vital areas, but Brick was practically encased in metal that made it look like he was a walking Terminator. “Heya there, Flash! Took you guys long enough to get here. These raiders have been nothing but a bunch of pushovers, I haven’t had a decent fight since I got here!”
“Well, if you actually had one while you were up against these jokers, then something would really be wrong here,” Flash laughed as more guards came up behind us, taking into custody the injured griffons that were still lying on the ground. “Agent Legacy is here to investigate who’s instigating this attack, but he somehow managed to get himself roped into looking for the remaining Bearers of the Elements while out here.”
“Which was our original mission anyway, in addition to securing the town.” Starfall quickly reset the conversation back onto a no-nonsense track. “Judging from your lack of injuries, Brick, I suppose these raiders aren’t even close to being up to par?”
“They really should’ve sent more well-trained troops here, if you ask me.” Brick nodded. “They might’ve been able to give an Equestrian Guard garrison a run for its money, but they couldn’t have possibly hoped to match themselves against Royal Guard soldiers. Not sure why they even bothered attacking Ponyville to begin with.”
As Brick spoke however, something suddenly clicked in my head. “Wait, hold on to that thought. Brick is onto something.” The three guards looked at me as I spoke up. “Why send cannon fodder to a town that's so close to the capital it can be reinforced with the Royal Guard almost as soon as an attack starts? These guys are supposedly terrorists working outside of the law who aren’t that well-supplied, right? Then they’ve obviously got to pick targets where they know their chances of success are at least decent. They should have known that attacking a target as secure as Ponyville was going to fail, unless it was exactly what they... wanted us to... think..."
Momentary silence followed.
“Son of a buzzard, I can’t believe I missed it.” Starfall facehoofed violently, mirroring my sentiments exactly. “This was all just a diversion for another target altogether!”
The unicorn mare took off in the direction of the outskirts of town without another word, and all three of us looked at each other for just a second, nonplussed, before we sprinted after her.
“Wait, Starfall, just hold on one second!” Flash called out to her as we tried to catch up to her. “What did we miss? What could they be after that’s valuable enough to warrant a distraction as costly to them in manpower as this?”
“What else is there in Ponyville that’s worth risking a reprisal from the Royal Guard for?” I replied for Starfall, the pieces starting to fall into place in my head as well. “This is the home of the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony! In all likelihood, the raid was probably a smokescreen for an abduction attempt!”
“And we already have three element Bearers unaccounted for,” Starfall continued for me as we exited the streets, and began running down a dirt road that led across a familiar bridge. “We can’t afford to let them make off with any of them! The Elements are one of Equestria’s major trump cards, and one of the only things that are keeping many of the more unpleasant forces of nature at bay! If their cohesion is broken…”
There’s no telling what would happen if one of the Elements loses its connection with its Bearer. Starfall’s sentence finished itself mentally in my head, and my lips tightened in grim agreement. It was safe to assume that the Elements of Harmony was a capricious force of magic that was beyond the comprehension of most mortal ken, and its power was the only thing keeping things like Discord and God-knows-what-else sealed away from the world. With the stakes that high, it wasn’t worth the off-chance of letting even one of the Elements of Harmony come to harm, and risking the seal upon Discord’s prison unravelling the moment they lost their connection to their Element.
We had to prevent any of the three Bearers from being abducted, no matter the cost.
Abruptly, a sudden chiming came from Flash’s direction, and I noticed a small stone that had a glowing rune inscribed on it pulsing with light attached to his cuirass. The pegasus guard quickly grabbed it with a wing and placed it inside his ear, and after a second he looked at his commanding officer.
“Ma’am, I’m getting reports from Third Company’s Assault squads,” Flash said, his expression tight. “They’ve checked out the cloud mansion of the Bearer of Loyalty - she’s nowhere to be found.”
“The Devastator teams we sent to sweep the grounds of Sweet Apple Acres managed to find Lady Applejack in her home, though. They had to fight off a few raiders who were trying to make off with some of her other family members, but the rest of the Apple family has been secured.” Brick followed up soon after his own runestone began chiming, and that maddening sense of deja vu crept up the back of my head again, but I couldn’t spare it any thought with the urgency of the situation.
“And what about the squads that were sent to check Lady Fluttershy’s residence?” Starfall asked, and I saw Flash Sentry blanch out of the corner of my eye.
“There hasn’t been any response from them over the spell channels,” The pegasus guard answered. “I’ve been trying to raise them over the past minute, but they’re not answering.”
“Then that probably means that they’re in trouble.” Starfall’s voice hardened, and she started galloping even faster. “Let’s get moving!”
As we ran, the feeling of foreboding that I felt creeping up the back of my neck began to intensify. The Royal Guards were pretty much the freakin’ Space Marines of Equestria’s military - if the guards that had been sent to check out Fluttershy’s cottage weren’t responding, then the likeliest scenario was that they had been taken out somehow. The thought of exactly what kind of force would be needed to take out entire squads, plural, of the medieval equivalent of Astartes super soldiers wasn’t something that I really wanted to think about, because it was more than likely that the four of us would soon be going up against that exact kind of foe.
If anything, I was definitely going to be coming out of this with more than just a few bruises.
After several minutes of going at an all-out run over the dirt roads leading to the town’s outskirts, the bridge that I knew led to Fluttershy’s cottage finally came into sight, and I realized to my amazement that I barely even felt winded. Compared to how rapidly exhausted I used to get when going at an all out sprint, I was doing amazingly well keeping up with the royal guards next to me. The four of us tore our way across the bridge, and when the front of Fluttershy’s cottage came into sight, my bottom of my stomach dropped faster than a pair of concrete shoes in the river.
The front door had been completely shattered, blown inwards on its hinges as what few ragged splinters that were left hung off weakly from the door frame. That alone would’ve been enough of a bad sign already, but the sight of several unmoving royal guards scattered across the front yard, including one that was hanging halfway out of a broken window, simply exacerbated the sight. There was the sudden sound of breaking glass and shattering wood inside, and without even saying a word, the four of us began running even faster.
“I’m telling you creeps, you’d better back off!” I heard a familiar hot-headed voice come from the inside of the cottage, laced with the desperation of a cornered animal. “You punks don’t know who you’re dealing with!”
“Oh, the little pegasus fancies herself a badass!” The distinct flanging of a griffon’s voice followed soon after. I could practically hear the scorn and derision dripping off of it - whoever the owner of that voice was obviously had a too-high opinion of himself. “What say you guys we put that to the test? Not that what we’ve been doing so far has been too strenuous for her, has it?”
More flanged laughter came from the inside of the cottage, and the heat that had been simmering in the pit of my gut roared into a full-blown fire as my fists tightened. The bastards had obviously been toying with their prey, and that thought alone was enough to incense me to the point that even a bare-handed beatdown at the hooves of Brick would probably have been too lenient for these assholes.
The four of us immediately barrelled right through the open doorway, Brick going in first as he smashed the remnants of the door aside, with Starfall and Flash bringing up the rear as the pegasus guard drew two hand crossbows from his holsters, holding them in some convoluted manner with his wings’ feather-fingers that I didn’t really want to examine too closely. Inside the cottage, four griffons that were dressed in the same leather armor as the raiders we had encountered earlier had corralled their two victims to one side of the living room, cutting off their retreats to both upstairs and the door. Before them, Rainbow Dash was standing protectively in front of a cowering Fluttershy, the cyan pegasus’ teeth bared in a defiant snarl as her wings flared out.
Upon our entrance, one of the raiders immediately turned his head in our direction, and his eyes narrowed sharply. “Royal Guards again? Really? We haven’t come this far to get busted now - take ‘em down, boys!”
“What, there’s only four of you?” Brick chortled as he lumbered towards the griffons who were turning towards us, grinning the entire way. “This won’t take long!”
“Oh, that’s what you think.” The smirk on the massive raider’s face as he stepped forward to meet Brick’s advance stopped me in my tracks. My instincts immediately started screaming at me that something was wrong here - confidence like that sure as hell didn’t come from posturing or foolhardiness.
Obviously, Starfall had picked up on the same cues I did, because she immediately raised a foreleg to stop her teammate. “Brick, wait, something’s not-”
“Can’t hear you, clobbering time!” Brick’s chortle turned into a cackle as he reared up, and swung a meaty foreleg at the griffon in front of him in a massive haymaker. Against any other griffon, I would have expected the fight to end right there and then, but to my utter shock, Brick’s opponent simply braced a foot as he raised up a clawed forelimb, and he tanked the hit, barely even flinching.
Brick’s eyes widened for a second, and he had just enough time to mutter “What the-” before the griffon made a swing of his own in a vicious counterattack. A balled claw-fist slammed into Brick’s gut, sending him flying through the wall and outside the cottage in a shower of splinters, and the griffon followed him outside in a powerful leap not a second later.
“Damnit, Brick!” Flash cried out as he dashed forward in a blur of speed, but when I blinked I suddenly saw that he had been intercepted by another one of the smaller raiders, moving with a frightening swiftness that easily matched Flash’s. There was a flash of steel, and the pegasus abruptly jerked backwards, but not before a thin streak of blood was sent flying through the air. Flash landed back on his hooves in front of me, panting wildly, and my blood froze as a cursory glance at the shallow slash mark across the barrel of his chest told me that he had come within inches of having his throat sliced open.
The griffon who had struck him raised the saber that he had drawn and attacked with in a single motion, its tip still dripping with the royal guard’s blood, and he grinned savagely. “If anything goes flying next, it’ll be your head.”
“Interesting,” Flash responded breathlessly with a surprising amount of insouciance as he holstered his hand crossbows, and he drew a curved shortblade from its sheath across his back, smiling humorlessly. “You know, I’ve always wanted to duel a windcrafter and see who’s actually faster. What say you and I take this outside?”
“With pleasure.” The second the griffon’s sentence ended, he disappeared in a blur of motion, rushing straight at Flash. The pegasus was more than ready to meet his charge, and he leapt backwards into the air as his wings took flight. Flash’s blade whirled defensively, meeting his opponent’s steel in a flurry of sparks, and the two of them crashed out of one of the few windows that were still intact, leaving Starfall and I with the last two raiders inside the room.
Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were both staring at Starfall and I with wide eyes, frozen with shock and indecision. I took one cursory glance at them, but I couldn’t pay them much mind. There was a much more immediate threat at hand - the two massive leonine birds in front of us.
Well, granted, they were massive compared to the ponies - even the shorter, more slender of the two may have been larger than both Starfall and I, but the obviously female griffon was still smaller than Brick. If it came to a physical contest, I would probably be able to beat her if I played it smart, but only if-
“Oh no, don’t even think about it.” A brick was nearly shat when the female griffon’s claws came alight with fire as Starfall stepped in Flash Sentry’s direction, and a beat of her wings had her cutting off the lieutenant’s path out of the cottage. “Eyes on me, bitch - I’m your opponent.”
“If you are, then the Jägers must be letting anypony into their ranks these days.” A feral grin spread across Starfall’s features, and the temperature in the room abruptly spiked upwards by several degrees as some of her tattoos began to take on an eldritch glow. “Legacy, you take the last one. This harpy is mine.”
Before I could protest, the both of them leapt forward snarling, and two superheated balls of roiling fire clashed in mid-air with such force that they were both sent flying out the cottage through the wall opposite the hole that Brick had left behind, leaving me alone with the last raider. The sound of the raider moving tore my eyes away from the hole Starfall and her opponent had left in the wall, and I turned around to see the griffon looming over me, several hundred pounds of leather armor, steel and corded muscle standing between me and the Bearers I had come to rescue.
I believe it bears mentioning that he had to be at least twice my size, and he was cracking his knuckles with an expression on his face that could have been likened to a sadistic child finding a new toy to play with, on a Christmas that had come several months early.
“Oh, son of a taint.”
This was gonna suck so hard.