PART 2: A Stranger I Remain / Kraber Alone / World Gone Bosbefok
“What’s it about?”
“What do you mean, Jackie?”
“I mean… all this. We’ve all got our reasons for joining the HLF - the Rev was a damn softheart, I know that! But I’m beginning to think he has a point.”
“About…”
“About the HLF being psychopaths or whatever. I went to college, dammit, I know what a psychopath is, and I’m not that. But I have to wonder, though. What the hell did Portland accomplish? What are we doing?”
Conversation overheard between Jacqueline Worthing of the pro-HLF band ‘The Lost Children’ and one of her bandmates.
“Here’s what I say. We’re not taking it anymore! We can’t let this be the new normal. We came from hell, a nightmare that watches you at every turn, a land where what empathy our goddess had dies by the day. And we find people who decide we’re targets just because we happen to look like the enemy. Their rage? Understandable. Their acts? Not! They say they’re protecting humanity? No, they think it’s already ended! They scrabble over scraps, and if this is how they act when the Barrier hasn’t reached them, why, I shudder to think what they’ll do at Barrierfall! They’ve attacked a friend of mine who just wanted to help… I say, here and now, that they’ve gone beyond anything that could be called protection, by any stretch.”
Heliotrope, speaking to PHL and pony irregulars in Canada, kicking off the Canadian Great HLF Purge.
“Ma’am, the PHL are getting more vicious. They’ve even started recruiting former members of the Front into their ranks…”
“Damn them all to Tartarus… (groan) At this point, they’re really asking for it. If it were down to me, there’d be no more talk of ‘mind healing’. I fail to see why we don’t just send in Celestia’s Sword to deal with them…”
“Are… are you sure you’d want to work with her? She’s a bucking scary nutjob, that lady… They, they say she wears a mask, you know. A mask shaped like a human face. Just how messed up is that?”
“Yes, but she understands exactly how they think. And that’s why she’s good at what she does. After all, to deal with madmen... what better than our very own madmare?”
Communication between Flight Lieutenant Prism Flash of the Reserve Pegasus Air Force and Wing Commander Lightning of the Wonderbolts.
Sergeant Duststorm: “I thought we demoted you?”
Yael Ze’ev: “You did. But Heliotrope and I have been watching the news. We’ve seen Portland, and I’m worried about Sutra Cross. I know the HLF kidnapped her… dammit, she’s my friend!”
Duststorm: “There’s only so much more I can keep you and my sister safe. You’ve fucked up, Yael. Big time. You stole military hardware to assault a town in Quebec, for God’s sake! You could have killed hundreds!”
Yael Ze’ev: “Hundreds to save millions later! And that place was full of HLF!”
Heliotrope: “Besides, was an Enclave nearby. Full of ponies that just want out of the war, and Equestria. If I hadn’t done something, they would be crucified, de-hoofed, de-winged, and burned to death.”
Duststorm: “Really?”
Heliotrope: “Yeah. Small one - a family or three. Where do you think we got all those non-reg enchantments, Dusty?”
Duststorm: “Oh God dammit.”
Yael Ze’ev: “Look, that’s not important-”
Duststorm: “Says the woman that sees protocol or chain of command as a casual annoyance-”
Yael Ze’ev: “What’s important is that… if there was any chance the HLF had of working with PHL when push comes to shove, any fucking sliver of a chance - then there isn’t one anymore. It’s a fucking impossibility, and the top human brass need to understand that.
Heliotrope: “They bombed Portland. They’re doing god-knows-what to our friend! I don’t want them to be like this during Barrierfall. If they have their way, we’ll be pushed to New Zealand before we actually stop the Barrier!”
Duststorm: “For Luna’s sake… sis, you sound too much like Yael right now for comfort.”
Yael Ze’ev: “I’m standing right here.”
Duststorm: “Look, both of you… There’s a taskforce Marcus Renee is putting together to take down HLF up in New England. If you volunteer for it… you can make it look like you regret what you did, and maybe you can avoid getting court-martialed or thrown in prison. They’re looking for Sutra Cross, but somebody’s said that they’ll be trying to find Viktor Kraber. Apparently, he’s up there-”
Heliotrope: “Wait, the guy that shot me? One of the worst HLF in the world?”
Yael Ze’ev: “That might not be such a bad idea after all…”
Conversation overheard between Yael Ze’ev, Heliotrope, and Sergeant Duststorm. This occurred immediately after Ze’ev’s demotion for bombarding an HLF-held town with military hardware. Curiously, nobody that she convinced to go with her would bring charges against her.
“Carol? Please, you have to let me in! Emmie and I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“I thought you never wanted to talk to me again? Something about not liking Cinnamon Swirl-”
“I know! But… It’s not safe in the camp anymore. I don’t care about the pony that lives with you, I don’t care what it thinks of me, but I’m not safe with my husband anymore up there! It’s like it’s turned into a dictatorship… and…. and…
“And what?”
“I don’t know if they know about you, but I’ve heard the HLF talking about shooting up this whole town. Not just you and Cinnamon Swirl-”
“Why in Luna’s name would they do that?!”
“I don’t know! It’s like they’re going crazy!”
Conversation overheard between an HLF escapee and a pro-PHL woman in Colorado. PHL member Cinnamon Swirl was there as well.
To Upper Crust, Newfoal Catalog Bureau
Your proposal to research the Anomalous Newfoal ‘Reaper’, allegedly deployed in the ‘Battle of Portland’, Anno Harmonia 5, has been rejected. There simply isn’t enough data or concrete evidence of her existence for me to deem it as worthy of the resources of the Solar Empire. We are looking for empirical results, not myths and salt-lick projects.
Sincerely,
Archmage Twilight Sparkle
Personal Addendum: Seriously, Upper Crust, stop chasing these fantasy stories of super-newfoals. I know the composition of the potion and its spell matrix back-to-front, and trust me, a newfoal with the capabilities described of this ‘Reaper’ simply CANNOT happen...
Private Addendum: This marks the third unconfirmed case where something weird apparently happened when a newfoal was converted under exceptional circumstances. I’ve tried replicating this under lab conditions, but have had no luck so far. And, while I may have attempted to create improved potion strains and breed-models, anything with half the level of prowess this ‘Reaper’ was suggested to possess has proven counterproductive. There are too many undocumented anomalies and phenomena recorded on Earth to dismiss these rumors out-of-hoof, but until a ‘super newfoal’ comes into our hooves for a proper debrief, I’m inclined to believe that ‘Reaper’ is an exaggeration of the truth. That kind of power would imply a degree of mental flexibility that could prove dangerous in the long-run, and I specifically structured the Conversion Protocols to cut off such independence of thought. We need good willing slaves and competent soldiers, not free-thinking agents with access to all the untapped magic of the human soul… Furthermore, the reports from surviving PER in Portland claim her to have been slewn by one human and one traitor unicorn. I fail to see potential in something taken down so easily.
Twilight Sparkle, in a response to a memo submitted by the Newfoal Catalog Bureau. NOTE: ‘Salt-lick’ project is confirmed by PHL ponies to be analogous to the term ‘pork-barrel’ project.
“WHO is Ivan Bliss?!
This man saved PHL workers, pony and human alike, from the HLF attack on the Sorghum, stealing the very boat the HLF used to infiltrate it and making his way to Mackworth Island. On his way through the city, he killed countless PER, risked his life to save the unicorn Rime Ice, and cleared out Maine Medical almost singlehandedly. Rumors persist of some kind of super-newfoal on the roof that he killed, but the PHL have proven tight-lipped about the body they recovered from the hospital rooftop.
However - we do not know who Ivan Bliss is. I have talked to PHL, told them about him. There’s a lot of people that’d vouch for him - bit racist, abrasive, mentally unstable, but damn if he wasn’t effective. Everyone who talked to him agrees that he sounded Scottish, but it sounded to them like something else, australian, british, german, was pushing through. And nobody knows a man who fits his description. My good friend Nebula - a Nightguard mare of Mackworth Island - recalls him very fondly… though she has one thing to say: He seemed… broken.
Perhaps he was, in fact, running from something.
Whoever you are, Ivan - wherever you are, wherever you’re going to, we thank you. I very much wish I could see you in person… A great many friends of mine owe you their lives. I do wish I could find you...”
’Beachcomber’, the blog of a PHL-affiliated man in the Coast Guard. Dated July 25, 2022.
“Tonight, we attack Defiance. The largest HLF stronghold on the East Coast. The one where Sutra Cross - a mare that just wanted to help - was tortured and killed. May Luna, or what God the humans worship forgive us for the violence we’re about to commit - but Ze’ev’s right. She’s finally convinced the PHL that we have to do this… and much as I might have wanted to talk this out, the HLF wouldn’t listen to me. God, I don’t like listening to someone as frantic to shoot the HLF up as Ze’ev is, but they’re getting worse. This… this is the only way.
If… If Aegis and I see Kraber, I’ll try to get him nonlethally. Just so Aegis can ask those questions he’s been wanting to.”
Icebox, PHL medical unicorn attached to the Battle of Defiance.
“I’m telling you, I saw Kagan Burakgazi! He was in the docks, over in the Ferry Building Marketplace… I trailed him, but I lost him over when he tried to get to the BART.”
“Ms… Bloom, what did he… what’d he look like? Burakgazi’s a damn master of disguise.”
“He had the same build. He’d shaved his beard, but I was in the same train as that man in Hong Kong. I recognize him, dammit.”
“We’ve gotten plenty of calls about sightings of him. We think he’s heading east.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. I have my suspicions, but… we’ll be contacting the Chinese government about his bounty. Raise attention to it - there should be more posters with his ugly mug on it printed very soon.”
Conversation between Blue Bloom (PHL pony stationed in San Francisco) and police.
“I don’t know how it does. But that newfoal... It knows us. It knows things it has no right to know.”
Mariesa Thomas, HLF woman stationed in Defiance.
“Perhaps it’s presumptuous to call it an ‘age’. But that period from late July to late August contained the last days of the first age of the HLF. Public support had been dropping, as the American public and all the various refugees allocated over the continent were wowed by PHL philanthropic work, such as explorations into alternative energy, forays into public transport, and their genuine desire to help.
Towns that had sworn never to accommodate a single pony had found themselves welcoming engineers and farmers from Equestria. One farmer from near Whitefield, New Hampshire, Robert Gray, was quoted as saying “I don’t like the gluesticks, but they’re damn fine workers that can bring in a hell of a yield.” The PHL had become peacekeepers, guardians… in short, all the things the HLF claimed to be.
And yet, at this point, the HLF were just sitting in their compounds, waiting for the end to come, or performing town-wide patrols that left the townsfolk feeling more paranoid than secure, demanding taxes or remuneration. Riots broke out in front of Camp Morrow in South Carolina, with angry citizens protesting at its gates, denouncing them for doing nothing. The anti-HLF sentiment that day had been so strong it even managed to get HLF and PHL supporters to agree - the town’s HLF supporters had called them cowards unable to face the presence of a single pony in town, while the PHL had denounced them for racism… and, surprisingly, found themselves joining in the pro-HLF chants calling them cowards afraid to do anything.
Aye, the HLF did something. Made jittery and paranoid, they lashed out where they could, gesuip on the propaganda they told themselves to make themselves feel like heroes, had resorted to taking over PHL rigs and bombarding the coast, and the execrable act of kidnapping Sutra Cross. Their act would have made a modicum of sense had they given the medicine, but no - they took it to preserve the revolution, to medicate their various fighters, who wouldn’t have been sick had they not sequestered themselves in HLF camps.
And with those events, the Raid of the Sorghum, the Kidnapping of Sutra Cross, the Week of Dust, lynchings down in the south, the HLF lost more and more momentum.
The first American anti-HLF riot of 2022 began in Philadelphia, after a PHL woman named Helen Zandt shot an HLF man who’d glassed a pony she was eating with…
A War In the Pocket: The Decline of the HLF. Written by Dayoung Tengku, Viktor M. Kraber, Claw Hammer (Aegis), and Yael Ze'ev.