Icy Breeze and I had found another nearby cave to rest in for the night, when the morning came, I was so used to the Empire’s cold that I woke up thinking we may have been put on top of a fire then I realized I was in a Savannah environment of Zebrica.
“M-Morning, Joel” Breezy yawns
“Morning, another night we’ve survived it seems” I say to her
“Yeah, yesterday was intense, wasn’t it?” Breezy reminds me of yesterday.
“I am surprised we are alive, that said we shouldn’t go back to Equestria until the heat dies down, we’ve made too much impact and almost paid for it and took down a low-ranking officer in the process. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Necromancer has noticed our resistance” I advise my partner
“My father would say the same thing in his experience, we should lay low for now” Icy replies to my advisement
“Well we aren’t gonna be advertising that we moved to Zebrica, although I’d like to find a map and find whereabouts we are, I don’t like having to move around here without knowing where the hell we are” I decide our first move
I keep a lookout in all directions of the plain Savannah, nothing seems to be here that anybody would hide in, but I don’t know this land. I know the Zebras live here (Well duh!), and they are wise and have their own branch of unique magic and potion making. I wouldn’t want to underestimate them.
Then there’s the Necrominions, they have been invading all the countries of Equus, which means they will be around somewhere and if the fate of all our cities is the same in the once-Africa, than there will no doubt be cities where they would hide.
“Joel! Zebra soldiers 3 o’clock!” Icy says
I look to my right and I saw Zebras heading not quite our way but pretty close to us, we can’t let them spot us so soon.
“Shit, hide behind the rock, no sound, let them pass” I mutter to her.
“I know” Icy says as she rolls her eyes but does so anyway.
The Zebra soldiers were a squad of about twenty marching in formation and 3 rows wide, I guess there’s still that march in each other’s footsteps hides your numbers to followers tactic.
They passed by and headed to our 9 o’clock and they didn’t seem to spot us but I had my sword ready in case we were spotted and I saw Icy Breeze had the same thing going on with her wingblades. Thankfully they didn’t turn around.
“Phew, that was close” Icy says
“Yeah, I wonder where they were headed?” I asked
I suddenly had an idea, wherever they came from had to be battle or a city and wherever they are heading is one of those two things, so if we followed them without being detected then we’d stumble upon what the Necro-Minions are like here or find where we are. If we went the other way we can’t be sure they didn’t turn at some point this direction.
“You thinking what I am thinking?” I ask
“Uh, I don’t know, not really” Breeze says with a shrug
“We gotta follow those Zebras, wherever they are going has to be somewhere we can find where we are in Zebrica, it’s our best shot other than going around aimlessly” I explain my idea
“Well, hopefully we don’t get caught” Breeze says hesitantly
“Hey, we’ve been risky this whole time ever since I got a target over my head, and we are not getting into trouble again, we’ll just keep them at a far distance and hopefully we find where we are, okay?” I say
“Okay, right behind you then” Breeze agrees
Hopefully on the way they pass by some water, our water supply is starting to go down. We start to go at a jogging pace with no super speed and at a good distance away.
So we started following them without a change for the better part of 30 minutes, there were a few trees along the way in this warmer climate.
“Argh, where are they going?” I mutter to myself
Another 20 minutes and there wasn’t a clear sign of where they were going, either where they were was far away or it was closer the other way from where they went.
“Come on, your destination has to be near now, where is it?” I frustratingly mutter again.
Finally we say a city of black ruins, not the stone ruins too much like you’d expect but just a wooden area all ruined but there was a definite evil there and it had to be a ground base that’s been taken over, not to mention the base the middle of these ruins.
“There must be Necro-minions in there” Breeze says to me
“I guess these Zebras must have some information on this base to come here, but it’s such a small task force so I guess these guys must be good soldiers no doubt” I say
We decided to risk it and go closer, we see one Zebra who must be the leader going up to give a pep talk in Equestrian English.
“Alright soldiers, these Necro-Minions have terriorized our country of Zebrica for too long! So it’s time we started wiping them out for good and driving them out of our base, one base at a time! The information from our glorious leader shows this is a communications base of medium importance, if we take this one out then we can advance onto major communication bases and drive these beats out of our country!” The leader says
The soldiers were definitely agreeing but did not shout this due to their needing to be more hidden.
“Alright, remember, Zebrica is counting on us to do this task, when we succeed and only then, will we strike their major bases…” The leader went on
So we’ve stumbled upon an important base that they must take, good thing we followed them, I guess we could keep an eye on the operation or sneak in the back door to ensure their success and they’ll sure to have a Zebrican map in their base and we could steal one before they Zebricans reach it but we would not be detected by them and hopefully the Necro-minions themselves.
“Alright, we’re sneaking in the back” I mutter to Breeze
Breeze nodded, there wasn’t time for arguing or debating, it was clear this mission is important and if it helps Zebrica it will help Equestria and therefore Celestia in the long run.
“…Everyzebra clear on their goal?” the leader asks
“Yes Sir!” The soldiers said quietly with a salute
The soldiers went down the front but I directed Icy Breeze to flank the left side until we were out of earshot but on the lookout for the Necro-minions
“Joel! What are you thinking? We’ve just escaped a capture and we’re doing this now?” Breeze brings up her protests
“And as you heard if they take this base then they can move on to freeing their country from this threat and they can help Equestria, there isn’t a choice in this matter” I say to her
“But we need to lay low” Breeze argues
“I was hoping for that too but fate has other plans it seems. Once we help these guys then we will stay under the radar a bit unless it’s absolutely necessary to go out in the open” I say with a nod
I was rather hoping to stay somewhere but as of right now the priority is the Zebra’s mission and then we find where we are and then lay low. But once any fix on our location is sure to be gone we start striking the Ncromancer’s bases in Zebrica and then we might move on somewhere else once the heat is too high on our location.
The base itself had a fair amount of Necro-Soldiers, the usual mix but with more Zebras, perhaps some of these soldiers were recently deceased and thrown under the control of the Necromancer, I hope that is not the case.
Our Zebra “friends” were advancing on the right and sneakily taking care as many of the minions as possible without detection. We were doing the same on the left with only any that weren’t needed alive to maintain our stealth.
Within about 10 minutes we were at the next house to the command center, which was no more than two stories tall.
“Hey, Breeze. Reckon you could scout from that balcony and see if anything is in there and numbers of the enemy?” I ask
“Yeah, sure” She nods
“Just be careful, okay?” I say to her
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine” Breeze says as she flies up
I checked around to see nothing looking our way as Breeze went up the back to peer through the balcony and immediately pulled her head back and flew back down.
“What’s up?” I ask her
“There’s a General here, he’s talking with whoever’s in charge of this place, couldn’t hear words” Breeze says in a wide-eyed look
Shit…if that Cadence imposter was no more than a Lieutenant, than a General has to be pretty damned powerful…it makes sense. I don’t think we’re ready to take on a General yet.
One: We’re not experienced enough
Two: My magic hasn’t fully developed yet
Three: The Zebras are doomed if they are found out
Four: The Chances of winning are outweighed by the chances of defeat
In other words, we can’t be spotted or we are fucked!
“Okay, that’s a big problem, we’ll have to sit here for a bit because if we try moving back or anywhere near the Zebras we’ll be busted” I say
“What about the General? Shouldn’t we at least try to take him?” Breeze asks
“No, we’re not experienced enough and you know it, if we fight him, the Zebras will rush in and get themselves killed, let’s just wait a good bit before thinking up a plan” I say
We didn’t have to wait long we heard the balcony doors open and a sudden vibration of a powerful takeoff was felt as we saw a Zebra with Wings fly off, not just any Zebra, a Necro-Zebra that looked like it’d knock you out in a single blow, he even moved at a pace that left a black trail behind.
This dude is powerful, I can already tell, I must make a note to warn Celestia about this guy as who knows where he’s heading back to. Perhaps Celestia could somehow warn the Zebra leader of this General?
But thank the whatever the Zebras here believe in because his departure saved our lives and theirs, I felt his power in the flight, it’s way above mine. But a Zebra with wings? Is that even possible? I thought Zebras were literally a one-kind species, no Pegasi or Unicorn like types.
Well, I guess we better strike now before the General realizes he forgot his car keys or something…I mean he probably didn’t but you never know.
“Joel, we’re gonna have to barge in there you know that, right?” Breeze asks me.
“Yes, unfortunately, how many did you see along with the general?” I ask
“At least five of them but the right of the room was blocked so I’d say at least 10 estimating” Breeze reports
“Okay, well…here goes nothing” I say
I use my magic out of my hands to propel me up to the balcony while Breeze just flew up and we kicked the glass door down giving us the element of surprise as we killed at least four of them in ten seconds, there were another three, one was escaping to the door but I threw my sword at him and hit the door next to him. Breeze charged the other two while I dodged a claw strike from the escaping griffon and hit her in the throat before grabbing my sword and put the blade through her heart.
All of the top floor were dead, surprisingly nobody heard the battle here.
“Hey Joel, found us a map!” Breeze says as she rips us of a map.
ICY BREEZE FOUND A MAP! Now you can find your way around Zebrica through the mini-map the reader can't see, don't worry, the plot will guide you!
I had a look and it showed and X for where we were. We are somewhere in the south of Zebrica, which looked like the south part of Africa has broken off the right and joined the left part of Africa.
In fact, we were about 100km from the south shore of Zebrica which means we shout head north.
“This is great, we should head north” I say with glee
“There’s a town 40km north-east called Zecron” Breeze says
“Well I guess we’ve overstayed our welcome here, let’s get out of here” I say to Brreeze
BANG!
“Zeca Marde no pueots, Zebra carde!” I heard a dark sounding voice from behind the door
(To the readers, this translates to Come out Zebra Scum! Of course more was said but the full translation of Zebraican to Equestrian/American English is still patchy at best. The Necro-Minion thinks Joel and Icy Breeze as Zebra soldiers and orders them to come out, that's all you need to know.)
“Damn, so much for stealthy exit” I say
More footstep came up on the other side of the door and the alarm came…well…shit…