After Twilight left I went over to Shining and patted his shoulder, “Congrats man, you’re a captain of the Royal Guard, do your best,” He looked at me then started to smile, “remember, you can do many things, even things you would think impossible.”
I turned and went back to my room where I started to put on my armor when a voice spoke to me, one very much like my own, ‘Do you truly believe that you can run from your own past, Sir?’
I sigh, ‘Cobalt. I’m not running from it, I’m simply hiding among those whom I wish to protect if I were to be in my old body and if I still was in the form of Cobalion I’d be seen as a person who is to be feared or even revered. I have chosen a path that allows me to help people, plus, this way if I am truly needed I can simply return as Cobalion.’
Cobalt mentally sighed, ‘I see your point; we do share the same memories, well except I only know the memories that you made in this universe. Sir, I just simply don’t understand, what is the value of this path you have taken, I only see pain and betrayal.’
I begin to shake my head, ‘I don’t expect you to, your simply a MI, a Magical Intelligence made using my DNA, we are the same in many ways, but you lack one thing, the mentality of a living being. Due to lacking that you don’t see why when I quote on quote died, what the underlying meaning was.’
I finished putting on my armor and then the appearance of Cobalt appeared in the left corner of my vision, Cobalt’s appearance is fashioned after myself when I was known as Cobalion, except he is wearing armor very similar to the armor that I am wearing right now, from appearance it is obvious he is male, then I heard his voice in my helmet, “Then tell me, Sir, enlighten me so I can understand.”
I begin to pick up what is left of the things I brought then after I picked it all up and my weapons were on my back I decided to answer, “Simple, to other nations it showed that the Legendary Hero, the Warrior who was near impossible to defeat, would fight to the end for Equestria, even when facing impossible odds. Then for the Equestrians, it simply means, ‘No matter the odds, we must defend Equestria with all our might, just like Cobalion.’ That is what sparked the creation of ETA.”
Cobalt tilted his head then slumped his shoulders in defeat, “Very well Sir, you win, I see your point, even with memories of hundred of lives I still am an MI, I don’t hold the capacity to feel what you living beings feel.”
I smirk as I leave my room and begin the long trek back to the headquarters of my army, ETA, Equestrian Tactical Army, or EIA, TCED, and ASF. EIA, the Equestrian Intelligence Agents, the stealth division of ETA, those who are talented it stealth are recruited in if they are the kind who wouldn’t betray Equestria.
ASF, the Aerial Strike Force, from the name you’d think they’d drop bombs or something, no, they are Shock Troopers, they drop into or behind enemy lines and attack the enemy, or they are dropped right into an enemy fortress or city, their armor is made out of a light but endurant metal so as to make them have maximum efficiency when in battle, it also it designed to give them maximum flexibility as well as movability, they are equipped with light weapons. ASF is designed to be half humans with the ability of wings, and then those with other abilities, this way ASF is easily balanced so they can attack and survive. In almost all senses they are the true part that makes Equestria so feared and ETA the most elite army of Equestria.
The ASF comes in three different platoons, Solar Osprey, Lunar Hawk, and Deep Shark. The Solar Osprey Platoon is named after their armor ‘Solar Osprey’, they are trained for fighting during daytime and their armor colorization is based on the sky during the daytime. The same is said about the other two, those of the Lunar Hawk Platoon are trained to fight during the nighttime, and their armor colorization is based on the night sky. While those in the Deep Shark Platoon are trained for underwater warfare, they are taught to have very little to no fear, their armor colorization is based on the sea.
Solar Osprey and Lunar Hawk platoons wear virtually the same armor, the functions of the armor is to be able to be dropped into enemy territory from heights from about one thousand feet, the main portion of the weight goes into the feet of the armor, pistons, enchantments, etc… are in the feet so as to allow the soldier to be able to land on their feet and be able to fight instantly, how it works is that the armor has crystals in it that are filled with mana, when the soldier is falling and the speed and force downwards get stronger more of this mana will go to the feet so when they land the mana disperses the impact, but this actually creates a mini shockwave which will knock the nearest person over, to avoid knocking our own soldiers over right after the landing spikes will go out of their feet and into the ground, these spikes will go back into the armor once they start to move their feet, this allows them to move freely and to not knock each other over. The main difference in the two armors is that Lunar Hawk has a night vision visor so they can see.
The Deep Shark armor is designed differently, the weight of the armor is more spread out, and they do not have the ‘Shock Trooper Feet’ as we’ve come to call them, we redesigned the armor to have less water resistance, that way they’d reach the sea floor more quickly.
TCED, the Tactical Center and Equestrian Defense. These two different sections have different roles, those in TC (Tactical Center) are the ones who decide where ASF strikes and when from information given to them by EIA, they also decide where ED is to defend or siege. They have basic combat training and have lighter armor and weaponry. ED (Equestrian Defense) are those who don’t fit anywhere else in ETA but are very talented, they wear more heavy to light armor and carry heavy to light equipment, they are taught how to use siege equipment and how to use any type of weapon they can get their hands on.
Then there are the two other regiments, CS and TRAS, the Command Squad and Tactical Research and Science. CS is the best equipped, their armor is a combination of ASF, EIA, and ED’s armors, not only that only those who are extremely talented, pretty much the best of the best of the best. Our armors are personally customized for each one of us, but our armor is much heavier than the other’s, it requires a unicorn with a very high discipline in controlling magic, but to make it easier we added pistons and other things which would be controlled by an MI who’s personality is made to work with the wearer’s personality, this way they work at maximum efficiency. Not only that our armor is designed for each of us personally but our weapons are as well, the weapons are also given the highest and newest tech made by TRAS.
TRAS, or otherwise known as Tactical Research and Science, is the main supplier of technology for Equestria; they take the harmless technology and give it to people who can create a lot of that certain tech. Then with the more dangerous tech they test it to see if it can be put on the battlefield, then if it can be used on the battlefield they start to produce it in our base then put it to use, if it can’t be put on the battlefield then they simply make sure that it would never see the light of day again.
I grin and shake my head, I started the course with this army’s creation without knowing it, oh the irony, in my place as the defender of Equestria they make an army that can defend and strike out at Equestria’s enemies. I open my eyes as begin to trek through a forest known as the Shadow Tail woods, one of the most deadly forests to exist in Equestria and in fact, in all of Middangeard.
--A few days later--
I look at the new recruits, four dragons, two griffins, two unicorns, three zebras, four earth ponies, five pegasi, three diamond dogs and one changeling. Twenty-four recruits, impressive they have shown talent to be chosen, now to find out where they would be best placed.
I walk up with my ranking on my right shoulder plate, the dragons, griffins, and the changeling see my ranking and salute to me in very militaristic manner, by doing this the others looked startled and scramble into positions, while the dragons, griffins, and the changeling where already there.
Seven disciplined soldiers this time? Amazing reactions, they will fit in here quickly. I look over each of them, “Congratulations, you have shown talent that makes you stand out from the crowd,” I look at the changeling with a confused look, “I know of the changelings, but I heard that there are no changelings who live in Equestria, am I wrong?”
The changeling replies instantly, “You are correct sir. I am an outcast from my hive; I originally came to live in Equestria because I heard it was a peaceful place where anyone can live. After living here for six years I wish to protect it from those who wish to hurt Equestria and its’ citizens.”
I couldn’t help but grin, “A shape-shifting creature who relies of deceit and masks would put away his mask for a nation and its’ people,” the changeling looks startled and a tad bit scared that I know so much about the changelings, “you will do fine here, this shows exactly what we are fighting to protect, the peace and friendship that allows our nation to be unique in Middangeard.”
The changeling begins to smile, I look at the others, “Now, what are your names and where do each of you hail from?”
A griffon with honey gold eyes and black highlights in his hair steps forwards, “I am Blakin’ior Shadowstream, though you can call me Blakin, I hail from Aristol.” So he is from the Mediterranean? On one of those smaller islands, that part of Equestria that is commonly attacked by pirates, the Naval Army is protecting that area. Due to that, he is more than likely to know basic hand-to-hand combat and have basic weapon training.
The other griffon comes forwards, she has magenta eyes and a hazel brown highlight in her hair, “I am Hestil Silverback, I hail from Kuruma.” She hails from Japony! Damn, she is going to know lots of different types of martial arts, she also will have quite a bit of knowledge in all kinds of melee and bow weapons. Those from Japony are more militaristic in nature.
One of the dragons speaks, “I am Quartz,” he motions to the dragoness to his right, “This is my twin sister Diamond,” then he motions towards the dragons to his left “these are our little brothers, Granite and Dunite,” Quarts has a rosy-pink color to his eyes and hair, much like rose quartz, then his skin is a lightly tanned, Diamond shares Quartz’s skin but her hair and eyes have a pinky-red, that is akin to a rose diamond’s color… oh, I see where they got their names from, I bet their names start with ‘Rose’, he then sighs, “and before you ask, yes my and Diamond’s names start with Rose.”
A diamond dog snorts but I throw him a glare that made him break into a cold sweat, I then decide to state, “It was not my business, remember, here we ask only for your best, it is your choice whether or not you tell us certain things.” His eyes widen but then a sincere smile spreads across his face.
I look at Granite and Basalt, Granite’s skin is paler than his older sister and brother, but his hair mostly white with black highlights randomly in it, his eyes are black with blue highlights in them, from his appearance I’d guess he is in his 20s whereas his older sister and brother appear to be in their 30s.
I then look at Dunite, his skin is a shade darker than Granite’s but is a few shades lighter than Quartz' and Diamond's, his hair is a light grey with black and white highlights, then his eyes are green with a darker green highlight, from his appearance I can guess he is either 19 or 18.
Then Diamond took the head of the conversation, “We hail from Landon.” I can't help but to deadpan, they are from Britony. They are from the place in Equestria that the people from Britony are very organized and prefer to do things by the book, but if they were in the army at some point they almost always become extremely disciplined. These four will be very useful depending on which regiment they are best suited to.
The changeling walks forward, “I am Echo, I originally hail from Queen Chrysalis’ Hive, but now I hail from Ponyville.” I couldn’t help but to raise an eyebrow, from what I’ve heard from our scouts, Queen Chrysalis is a highly warlike and a tyrant. Her hive is commonly attacked, making them hard to surprise and very difficult to scare. Ponyville… oh, the irony! That definitely makes sure that disasters and almost everything will not startle and will not shake him, so he’s going to be a calm one, he also will be very hard to scare.
--Later that day--
I begin to sigh, their introductions melded into one another after Echo’s, we checked what they were best at, ends up Echo, Diamond, Quartz, a unicorn, and Hestil is best suited for the ASF. Blakin, Basalt, two of the diamond dogs, a zebra, and a pegasus are best suited for the EID. Granite, a diamond dog, a unicorn, two earth ponies, and three of the pegasi are best suited to ED. one of the pegasi and an earth pony are best suited for TC. The two unicorns and the last earth pony (of the newest recruits) are best suited for TRAS.
A yawn escapes my lips as I lay back into my chair, then I felt something nagging the back of my mind, ‘has there been any changelings within ETA before now?’ That question burned in my mind so I grabbed a book and started to read though it, the species is the only thing I am reading and an hour or so later I flip to the last page which was updated today, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Only one changeling has ever been in ETA even though it is over 900 years old!” My grin widens then shrinks as I remembered one fact about changelings; there are only a few ways to get banished from one of their hives, they’d have to either endanger the lives of their squad or they refused to do what the Queen wanted them to do, anything worse than that is resolved with death and anything lighter than that resolves in that changeling receiving a few stabs to the feet or have to walk on a path of embers.
I stare at the book, ‘I hope Echo did the later and got banished, I’d rather not have to kill him.’
Suddenly someone knocks on the door which makes me jump, but I quickly recover, “Come in,” I watched as the door opened and through the now open doorway comes an EIA soldier, not only that it was Master Scout Acrid Winds, our best flier in deserts, and our best eyes in the arid environments, also the scout I hand picked for surveying Queen Chrysalis’ hive.
My expression got rather grim, he usually relays the information to his partner who would bring it back and report, but if he came back to report then that means it is either information he had deemed is too important and classified for the ears of anyone but me or his partner was either killed, captured, or ended up being a turncoat.
I hope the first one is the case, “Report Master Scout Acrid Winds.”
He shuffles his feet then looks at me with an unusually grim face, “Queen Chrysalis’ hive has… advanced in technology, mainly our own tech… they even started to forge weapons and armors of ETA, we have a spy among us, and this has been going on since the beginning of this month.”
I stared at him, “and you haven’t seen the one who gives them the tech?” I know the changelings wouldn’t have been able to do such a thing, so it’s one of our own.
He then cringes and has a look of betrayal on his face, “the traitor has been eliminated, and the person… was my partner Solar Wisp…”
My jaw practically fell to the floor, Solar Wisp betrayed us! Then Acrid spoke, “well, I thought it was Solar… until when I killed him he turned into a changeling, and then on my way back I found his body… he… had been dead for two months and a half when I found him…”
“But that’s not just it, at the two months ago a changeling warned me not to trust my partner, he didn’t say why, but he was animated about it… now I know why.” I saw a few tears come out of his eyes, it makes sense him and Solar were very great friends.
My head began to shake and my hands tremble in anger, they found a way past our defenses, we need to change locations of our base, we’ll move to our mountain stronghold. I look at Acrid, “tell everyone that code nine is now in effect.”
His eyes begin to widen as he realized the true gravity of the situation, “Yes sir!”
He turned to leave when I stopped him, “We recruited a changeling named Echo into our army, but he has been living in Equestria for six years, he is an ally, not a foe.”
He nods towards me then begins quickly walk down the hallway, I shake my head and pull open a drawer with sunglasses in them, I put it on and then many different magic signatures appeared inside these glasses and I look around the base to see if there is more than one green magic signature.
After slowly looking around every direction I sigh in relief, we only have to move bases and we’re in the green.
I get off my desk and start to pack everything then I left my office to go into the grand hall to announce what we are about to do.