Sauer was on her hooves in an instant. She took a moment to observe the falling creature in order to judge where it would crash. Then she started galloping.
Her muscles ached from the sudden exertion after they had already been pushed to their limits from her chores. But Sauer ignored it; if nothing broke that creature’s fall, it would be horribly injured, if not worse!
The mare’s mind was racing. The creature would come down in the middle of the field. Sauer knew that there was barely anything around that could soften its impact, much less anything she could get into place in time. Well, there was one thing. Sauer made the decision in an instant: she was an earth pony; she should be able to take the blow. And every bit of force she could take away from the impact, however small, would increase the creature’s chance of survival.
Sauer looked up as she ran—she was nearly in position with only seconds left before it would hit the ground. She noticed that the unconscious creature was definitely not a pony; it was covered in some kind of dark material, and there were large holes in its legs. Instead of feathered wings, it had limbs that reminded her of a dragonfly.
Yet, all that didn’t matter—what mattered was that she save it! But Sauer could tell she wouldn’t make it in time; the creature was falling too fast.
Out of options, Sauer screamed at the falling figure. “Wake up!”
Suddenly, its eyes flickered open. Two otherworldly blue glowing spheres instantly widened in panic. The creature produced an un-equine shriek and started buzzing its wings rapidly, slowing its descent just a tiny bit.
It wasn’t much, but it had to be enough! She thrust her hind legs out with all her strength and leapt into the air just in time to—
“Oof! Ow…” The impact hurt like hell! Sauer’s vision went blurry for a moment while she dragged herself back to her hooves and got her bearings. She gave herself a quick check over and thanked her earth pony ancestors for the incredible resilience she inherited from them. As far as she could tell, she hadn’t broken anything.
The newcomer lying next to her was another story entirely. It had been knocked out again by the collision. Sauer examined the strange creature with curiosity. Its skin was dark-grey and covered in what appeared to be scaly chitin plates like an insect’s exoskeleton. Along its back was a hard carapace. It had cracked in places, oozing out bluish-green fluid of some kind. Blood? There was even more of it dried around a lot of older wounds all over its body.
What kind of creature was this? It was clearly not a pony at all. It seemed more like a cross between a pony and a giant bug—familiar in some ways, yet completely alien in others. Sauer couldn’t even tell its gender. Well, going by the lack of certain… obvious features, it was surely female.
For a few moments, Sauer just stared at her in astonished fascination. Then, she managed to snap out of it. This… mare—whatever she was—was in desperate need of help!
Sauer was pondering how to lift the unconscious creature onto her back without risking any further injuries when she heard the sound of a group of approaching ponies. She looked up as a patrol of five soldiers closed in on her in a quick canter. Sauer recognized their leather combat barding as that of the Southern Equestrian Legion. The patrol was lead by a maroon earth pony mare with a sword strapped to her back. At her side glided a pegasus stallion with a readied crossbow. They were followed by two more earth ponies carrying spears, flanking a unicorn stallion.
The leader shouted in a strict voice. “Stand clear, citizen! This creature might pose a threat!”
Sauer quickly assessed the situation. She saw the direction the legionnaires came from. She knew that the magic blast could only have come from the unicorn which accompanied them. A burning fury rose up within her. She positioned herself between the approaching soldiers and the fallen creature and took an aggressive stance, her voice a guttural rage. “You!”
The maroon mare came to a halt right in front of Sauer and gave her an irritated look. “Pardon?”
“It was you! Verfickte Scheisse! You shot her down!”
The legionnaire's look turned from irritation to annoyance. “Watch your language, citizen! This is not your concern.”
Sauer got right in the pony’s face and screamed. “Fick dich! Don’t you criticize my verschissene language! It is my concern, verdammte scheisse! You just tried to kill her!”
"Calm yourself down, citizen; it was just a weak stun spell. Nopony's trying to kill anyone."
"N’scheissdreck! What do you think happens to somepony who is flying when they can't move their wings?"
“When an unidentified flyer is spotted in Southern Equestrian airspace, it is standard procedure to hit it with a minor stun spell that will force it to land. It was never supposed to—”
“Get off this land! You and your verfickte cohorts are not welcome here!”
The now furious looking soldier shouted back at her. “I’ll have you know, the Legion is the official protector of this realm, and—”
Sauer wasn’t having any of this high and mighty Legion talk. “My family has been protecting this land from the troglodytes long before you arschlöcher started doing your job! My dad lost his verfickte foreleg fending off a scheiss raiding party by himself!”
After that, there was a moment of silence as the two mares glared at each other, panting heavily. The pegasus stallion had landed next to the patrol leader and kept a cool, calculating look towards Sauer. The remaining three legionnaires stayed two pony lengths behind and shifted nervously in place.
The the maroon mare visibly relaxed and took a deep breath. “Enough of this tomfoolery. You have already wasted enough of our time, little filly. We—”
That’s it! Sauer whirled around and sent the mare flying with a buck to the head. The pegasus stallion instantly turned to face the unicorn within their group and shouted, “Paralyze her!”
Looks like we have another volunteer!
Sauer’s hind hooves connected with a pony for the second time within moments. Before she could turn her attention towards the remaining three legionnaires, there was a flash of light, and she lost all feeling in her body from the neck down. She then collapsed, hitting her head hard on the ground.
“Scheiss die wand an!” Okay, apparently she could still speak. She tried moving her body, but simply nothing happened. She focused her glare on the unicorn, who involuntarily took a step back. “Take this verschissene spell of me! Right! Verfickt nochmal! Now!”
For a moment, Sauer thought the young unicorn stallion was actually about to obey, but then he looked to his fellow legionnaire next to him, a green earth pony mare.
The sudden attention snapped her out of her stupor. “What? No! The Lieutenant gave the clear command to paralyze her before she knocked him out.” She blinked a few times as if realizing something and continued with more conviction, “Also, she knocked him out! And Commander Eiserne Regel! This is like a war crime or something! Don’t you dare listen to her!”
After that, the three soldiers did their best to ignore Sauer no matter how loud and wild she became as she screamed at them. The unicorn and the mare who seemed to have taken over command walked over to the alien creature—giving Sauer a wide berth—while the remaining earth pony looked after the still-unconscious commanding officers.
“What is going on here?”
Sauer recognized her sister’s voice. She instantly stopped screaming and tried to look behind her, but her body still ignored any command she gave it.
“Blauy! Please, you gotta help me! They’re going to hurt her! Please, don’t let them do more harm than they already have!”
Blau Kraut appeared in her sister’s vision from the side, looking expectantly at the soldiers while ignoring her sister. What was she doing? Sauer tried and failed once more to get up. She watched helplessly as the mare in command walked toward her sister.
“Stay clear, citizen!” the green mare said with attempted determination. Her nervously shifting eyes betrayed her lack of confidence. “I am Corporal Grün Schnabel. This is official Legion business, and we cannot allow you to interfere!”
Without missing a beat, Blau replied, “I am Blau Kraut, and you are at Kraut Land Hof, my family’s property. Also, this screaming lunatic on the ground here is my sister. I daresay, I have the right to be here and to know what is happening.”
Taken aback by Blau’s confidence, and maybe a bit frightened by the notion that this was the sister of the mare that had just knocked out the senior members of her patrol, the corporal seemed a bit intimidated when she continued. “Well, yes… Okay. You may stay. But don’t do anything which would interfere with our operation!”
Blau gave a short nod in acknowledgement, and Grün Schabel returned to her unicorn comrade, keeping a nervous eye on Blau.
“Please, Blauy”, Sauer pleaded in a hushed voice. Her sister kept a close eye on the legionnaires and the bug creature, but her ears flicked in Sauer’s direction. “They’ve already shot her down for no reason. She nearly died! Those hay-brains have no clue what they’re doing. If they take her away, she’s not going to make it. Please, we can’t let this happen.”
Blau didn’t show any reaction; she just kept watching. Her eyes were slightly closed—a sign that she was thinking something through.
“Blauy?”
Without even looking back at her paralyzed sibling, Blau took a few slow steps in the direction of the creature and the two soldiers inspecting her. She stopped far enough away that the already worried-looking young legionnaires would not feel threatened. “So, you shot her down? Since when does the Legion take such extreme measures unprovoked?”
The unicorn stallion was visibly disturbed by this accusation. “We don’t!”
Grün Schnabel gave him a disapproving look before turning back to Blau. “It was not our intention to shoot her down. The spell was supposed to make her stiffen up, so she would have to land.” She tensed up a bit before continuing. “But when the spell hit, she dropped like a stone. Check out these wounds. My guess is she's been in a fight recently. She was pretty banged up, so she was barely holding it together. Then the stun spell pushed her over the edge. It was an accident.”
Oh no. Sauer’s gut twisted up. This couldn’t be right, could it? If it really had been an accident, that would mean that she… Sauer shoved the self-doubt into the back corner of her mind by focusing on Blau’s next question.
“And what are you gals going to do with her now?”
“She’s a member of an unknown species. We need to take her to the outpost to make sure that she…” The corporal glanced at the broken body next to her. “or her species in general isn’t a threat.”
N’scheiss! Sauer could tell that her sister had a plan and already knew exactly what she wanted to say.
Blau tapped her chin in thought “I see. You have special medical facilities for alien creatures in your outpost then?”
“Um… no, actually, we don’t.”
Sauer watched with satisfaction as the realization hit Grün Schnabel, who gave the creature a worried look. “We’d have to take her to Cloppenburg…”
“You wanna take her all the way to Cloppenburg?” Blau asked disapprovingly. ”In her state? You honestly think she’s gonna make it?”
The corporal’s discomfort grew visibly. She looked over to her comrade who was trying to revive the patrol’s still-unconscious commander and lieutenant. The stallion shook his head. Sauer couldn’t deny that she felt a bit pleased with herself; when she knocked somepony out, she knocked them out good.
“Look.” Blau took another step towards Grün Schnabel. “The biggest threat to Southern Equestria is currently the troglodytes, correct?”
The soldier gave her a confused look before nodding. “So what?”
Blau gestured towards the fallen creature. “She is some kind of insectoid—much like the Great Mantis in the west. And troglodytes eat mantis!”
Sauer had never heard of this before. “How do you—”
Blau gave her a rather annoyed look. “I read books! You should try it sometime.” She turned back to the green mare. “But I’m right, aren’t I?”
Grün Schnabel gave Blau a short nod.
“So, I can’t see those bug ponies working with the troglodytes. If anything they might actually be potential allies for Equestria.” Blau gave the soldier a moment to think that over. “I’ll make you a deal: Our farmhouse is a lot closer than even your outpost. We can take her in. This way, the risk that she dies before somepony can treat her is minimized, and you know exactly where she is. How about that?”
The corporal exchanged a look with her comrades, but neither seemed to have any better ideas. “Okay, we will leave the creature in your care as long as you promise to take care of her to your full capacity and allow the Legion access to her when asked for. Agreed?”
“Agreed!” Blau stretched out her hoof, and with visible relief, the green mare bumped it.
“So, what about my sister?” Blau asked.
The legionnaire regarded Sauer with angry glare. “She attacked us and knocked out both our officers. She is under arrest!”
“I see. Yes, that seems reasonable.”
Sauer felt her blood run cold at her sister’s words. “Blauy… what are you doing?” she whispered through clenched teeth.