“Again?” Ricky raised an eyebrow at the scene before him.
The whitewashed hallway of his high school, Kenneth High, stared back at him lifelessly in between gaps of students, chattering excitedly in groups as they walked into classroom doors. Soon, the crowd had drastically thinned, stragglers stepping up their pace.
Ricky, uninterested, instead focused on the clock. "9:25. So, third hour. History class," he muttered, before walking off to his old history class.
Eventually, he did find it. He attempted to quietly open the door, but the hinge screeched. 'How'd I forget this was that door! Nearly drove me insane in class.' Thankfully, nobody seemed to even notice. All of them were quietly writing, pencils scratching paper.
"There is no reason to be stealthy, Richard. They do not realize we even exist." At the back of the room was Luna, the princess having occupied one of the empty desks near the back of the classroom.
Ricky slowly walked over to join her, giving Luna an eye. Luna noticed. "Oh Richard, I thought we were past this already."
"We might be. Doesn't mean I can't keep my guard up." Ricky replied evenly. Luna nodded just as evenly.
"Now for a question of my own, if I may," Ricky started, then continued, not even waiting for Luna to consent, "why my high school? If you really did look through my memories, you would've known I hated high school."
"We did get that impression, yes. However, we had merely skimmed over this portion of your life, and therefore, we decided to take a closer look. Not to mention your school has been a wealth of knowledge for me." Ricky raised an eyebrow but did not speak, prompting Luna to continue.
After a moment to gather her thoughts, Luna did. "Your 'Earth' has a very interesting history, Mister Welfork. Especially your species. A Hundred Years' War, over a claim to some land? Definitely very interesting, to say the least."
"So this is the medieval unit, huh? What're they talking about now, eh?" Ricky took a seat next to Luna, gesturing to the classroom.
"We believe the teacher called it the 'Renaissance'." Luna said it slowly, as if trying the word itself out.
"Yes, the end of the Middle Ages. The start of modern history, in many ways." Ricky thought about what he wanted to say next. "Shows that even though we may fight a lot, we're still capable of working together to produce great things." He looked at Luna sideways.
“Indeed. But that’s to be expected of any intelligent species.” Luna did not look away, fixing Ricky with an intense look.
Ricky spoke deliberately. “Indeed. But there’s something I’d like to know.”
Luna rose an eyebrow. “Well, we would not want there to be an unfair exchange of information. Go ahead.”
“What exactly do you do?” That one surprised Luna. “I mean,” Ricky continued, “I know you’re a princess, but what do you actually oversee?”
Luna licked her lips and looked down at the ground. “Our sister… hasn’t entrusted us with much besides night court and protecting the Dreamscape. We haven’t been… fairly acquainted with the politics in Equestria for a very long time.”
‘Interesting,’ Ricky thought. “And why’s that?” was what he voiced to Luna.
“We were… away for a long time,” Luna conceded , finality permeating her voice. ‘Better not push her any further,’ Ricky decided.
“Well, it’s certainly been fun, but I’d love to get my rest. It’s been good, Princess.” Ricky stood up from the desk, sticking out his hand for a handshake.
Luna stared at his hand with no small degree of confusion. “What?”
“It’s a handshake. Here, take my hand.” Ricky gestured to his outstretched palm with his other hand.
Hesitantly, Luna put her hoof into Ricky’s palm. Ricky grasped it lightly and slowly shook up and down. “It’s a gesture of agreement or goodwill on Earth,” he explained.
Luna smiled. “It seems that there is always more to learn, even for a very old being like me. Good night, Richard,” she finished softly, before Kenneth High fell away into a sea of black.
“Hello, gentlecolts, mares.” Celestia nodded to the occupants of the table seated around her. A few nodded back, but they were sparse. The vast majority maintained their air of deadly seriousness. Seeing this, Celestia continued. “You know why I’ve called you all here today, sadly. Although Equestria has not seen a serious combat in over fifty years, you are still the most experienced we have in matters of large-scale warfare.” She looked around the room. Most of the ponies present were quite old, grizzled, senior soldiers that hadn’t seen a battlefield in many moons. None of them said anything.
“Now, to what we know. An army of humans has appeared in the south of Equestria. General Spear Wall attempted to fight them at Arbor Hollow, just south of Ponyville. According to a debrief I just personally conducted on one Captain Firefall, the army was absolutely crushed."
One of the ponies spoke up, a pegasus with a blue coat. "How bad?"
Celestia sighed. "Firefall was - is - the only pony we know to have survived. He had several wounds." The pegasus nodded without a word.
"The last report we got was that the humans were heading west. As the best soldiers in Equestria, it falls to you to dictate our policy."
"Thank you for the briefing, Princess," a brown unicorn with a shaggy black mane said, "we'll pick it up from there." Celestia nodded with a gracious smile.
"Well, gentlecolts, mares, it falls to this: offense or defense?" The blue pegasus leaned forwards in his chair as he posed this critical question.
"Obviously, General Swiftwind, the answer must be offense. They're in our lands. They cannot be allowed to lay waste to it," a gray earth pony spoke up from across the table.
"But look at what happened to Spear Wall, Lieutenant Colonel Thanatos,” the brown unicorn pointed out.
“Colonel Thanatos, Brigadier General Solid Rock,” the gray earth pony, Thanatos, shot back.
“Congratulations, then,” Solid Rock commended, “but the point stands. Why would our attack, if we decided to go that course, be any different?”
“We do have the advantage of knowing the terrain,” Captain Bucephalus of the Royal Guard noted from across the table.
“Also, according to Firefall,” Celestia spoke back up, “the humans have no discernable magic and cannot fly.”
Swiftwind nodded, a thankful smile on his muzzle. “Thank you again, Princess Celestia.”
Solid Rock raised an eyebrow, confused. “Princess, a question if I may?” Celestia nodded, so Solid Rock continued. "Where is Princess Luna?"
"She has been in the Dreamscape for most of today, trying to get into touch with the convict human Richard Welfork, as she has told me."
"Do you think he's connected with this?" Thanatos leaned forward in his chair, voice low and suddenly intense.
"I entertained that possibility, yes. But nothing has come forward yet about him, so for now we cannot know." Thanatos, along with the others, nodded.
"We're getting off topic here. The question is still offense or defense, and since we've gotten nowhere so far, I say we take a vote," Solid Rock stated. "All those in favor of an offensive strategy, raise your hoof."
Several ponies raised their hoof, including Thanatos and Swiftwind.
"All those in favor of a defensive strategy?"
Some ponies raised their hoof, but clearly it wasn't more or even equal. Solid Rock raised his own hoof, but he was the only major general to do so.
"Alright," Solid Rock sighed under his breath, "who has propositions?"
"If I may, gentlecolts and mares, I have a plan." All eyes turned to a unicorn stallion near the far end of the table. His white coat happily shined, but his expression was dead serious.
Seeing he had everyone's attention, he took it as a sign of consent and continued. "If the humans are indeed heading west," he pointed at the location of Arbor Hollow on a map lying on the table, "the only major target that direction is Las Pegasus. The Foal Mountain range would make travel north much harder, especially without any supply line. South is nothing but desert, east is back towards where they started, which for all they know could be crawling with our ponies by now."
"If the humans don't have a navy, which is unlikely, then what we can do is hem them inside Las Pegasus and block the port. All we'd have to do is take Applewood Hill and Thicket Hill, fortify it and then settle down. Avoiding a direct conflict would both save lives and spare our inexperienced and relatively untrained ponies."
Several of the ponies around the table nodded: Swiftwind, Thanatos, Bucephalus, other lower ranked colonels and lieutenants.
"That definitely sounds quite plausible," Swiftwind noted. The unicorn nodded a silent thanks.
"Any better ideas?" Thanatos asked, but nobody else spoke up. "Alright then. Your plan," he jerked his head in the unicorn's direction, "is our overarching strategy. The Central Army of Equestria and a contingent of the Royal Guard should be dispatched immediately, more reinforcements from the Northern Army of Equestria detachable. Hopefully the Western Army can hold the humans long enough that when we get there, they'll still be there."
"I have one request," the stallion pressed. "I would like to be granted command, so that any failure would be squarely on my withers."
"Granted," Celestia nodded.
"Stallion," Solid Rock questioned, "what's your name?"
The white unicorn stared him dead in the eye. "First Lieutenant Shining Armor of the Royal Guard."