//------------------------------// // Chapter Eighteen: We are Tomorrow // Story: PonySide // by Puzzle Piece //------------------------------// Pinkie had worked her magic again. The VS weapons had been snatched away and deposited in a back alley. All that remained was to deliver the final blow. But when Mat crept around the edge of the city hall, he found himself face to face with both of his foes. As he and the Major spied each other on opposite sides of the city hall’s door, the VS medic stepped out between them. With hardly the space of a breath in which to think, Mat picked his target and fired hard and fast. He wasn’t about to let the VS get away with duping him with their revive grenade trick. He could care less if the Major won. If he had to go down, he’d go down free and fighting. His thirst for vengeance against the Major tasted bitter in his mouth anyway. He figured it was better that he die with his pride intact. The Major saw the blue and gold of Mat’s uniform and his aim was drawn like a magnet. With the first crack of his Commissioner, Rainbow launched herself at the Light Assault with a ferocious cry. The Medic’s eyes told of a hundred calculations being made as they darted between the opponents that flanked her. She raised her Beamer and fired a series of zipping shots in rapid succession toward the TR, seemingly intent on eliminating the heavier of the two weapons arrayed against her. The Unicorn jumped up to intercept Mat’s shots before they could reach the Medic and shot a blast of energy from her horn at the speeding Pegasus. Pinkie sprang into action, throwing a cloud of confetti up between Mat and Rainbow Dash like chaff and rushing the Unicorn with reckless abandon. But none of the attacks reached their targets. With pings and zaps, the bullets and lasers were stopped by a wall of force that sprang up to separate all three groups from each other. The Unicorn’s blast bounced upward and faded away into the sky. Rainbow and Pinkie collided with the obstruction and fell back to the ground, confused. The three soldiers stopped shooting and looked from one to the other before turning to search for the source of the wall. Major Gadrik was the first to find her. Princess Twilight Sparkle was hovering above them, her horn aglow and her expression severe. Mat thought he saw the Major turn white as the Princess’ gaze swept over him. “I’ve allowed this to continue for far too long,” she said in a voice that was greatly magnified. She made a gesture of exasperation that encompassed all of them. “I had hoped that you would be able to control yourselves, that you could comply with my simple expectations of non-aggression, that you might be able to find it in yourselves to cease the pointless violence long enough to save yourselves. But apparently, I was wrong. You seem neither capable of it nor willing to put forth the effort to try!” “Worse than that, you’ve managed to polarize most of my friends. And now they are paying the price for your incognizance.” Twilight looked at her friends with a mix of pity and irritation as her voice returned to its normal volume. “I thought you would have enough sense not to become enmeshed in such a pointless and thoughtless fight. At least have the sense to stop now. Please.” Pinkie, Rainbow and Rarity looked at each other, seeing how the conflict had turned them against each other. They shuffled their hooves guiltily, having trouble making eye contact with any of the others. And yet, none of them moved. “What are you doing?” Twilight asked, dropping lower until she was hovering a few feet off the ground. “Step away from them and leave this horrible display of animosity behind.” “We can’t,” Rainbow said. The other two nodded. All three humans looked around at her questioningly, then at each other to see if there were answers to be found on each others’ faces. “Why can’t you?” Twilight asked. She cast an accusing glance at the Major. “Is he forcing you to do this? Threatening you?! If he is, I’ll…” “No Twilight! It’s not like that at all,” Rainbow said quickly. “I made this choice because…” She paused to put her thoughts in order. “Because the ideals that the Terran Republic represents sound like the kinds of things that need to be defended. I thought I could contribute to that. And I’m not about to back out on that commitment.” Rainbow looked at Rarity, who then spoke up as well. “I cannot, in good conscience, leave someone whom I consider a friend to face danger and hardship alone.” Rarity turned to smile at the Medic. “Katie is such a friend to me, despite how short a time I’ve known her. I won’t leave her side until the end.” Both mares looked to Pinkie Pie. The pink pony sat down in defeat. “I only want to see the fighting stop. Mat seemed like a nice person and I…I don’t know! I just thought if someone was trying to hurt him, they had to be a bad guy! I helped him because I thought he’d put a stop to it all. If it hasn’t stopped yet, then I’m not done trying to stop it.” Twilight regarded her friends impassively and Mat got the impression that she was weighing her options at light speed. She blinked then and gave all three humans an appraising once over. The tiniest smile tugged at the corner of her lips before being forced down into a frown of concentration. “I see,” she said curtly. “You all have compelling reasons to stand by these humans. But do these humans have compelling reasons to continue fighting?” She fixed Mat with a glare that felt as if it were boring all the way to the back of his skull. “I, uh,” he stumbled, not expecting to be put on the spot. “Well it’s, um…it’s…” He stopped and took a steadying breath. “Look, I’m not about to be pushed around and told how to live my life. And with what they did to Trevor, I wouldn’t mind doing a little pushing of my own.” “You’re willing to do this at the cost of those around you?” Twilight pressed. “Are your grievances worth so much more than the lives of the ponies in this town that you will manipulate them into helping you exact revenge?” “It’s not just about me,” he responded indignantly. “It’s about not backing down to the likes of them! If I roll over and play the good slave, it would be a betrayal of everything I believe in! I’m not going to compromise my freedom to suit their view of a perfect society. Those of us with the New Conglomerate don’t believe the Terran Republic deserves to lead us anymore. Not with the way they’ve been running things. And we’re not on board with the trans-human experiments of the Vanu either. I’d rather die fighting than give in to the likes of them! I will never give in to tyranny and, if that’s what it takes, I’ll never stop fighting to remain free!” He finished, breathing heavily from the intensity of his declaration. Twilight continued to consider him for a long time but whatever she thought of his speech, she kept it well hidden. ~*~*~ Katie watched Mathew’s response to the Princess with surreal detachment. She knew she would soon fall under the scrutiny of the Princess and she knew she wasn’t ready. The last day was a blur in her mind and it swam before her eyes now. Nathan’s voice, both the remembered softness in her fondest memories of him and the darker side he’d revealed here, overlapped until she couldn’t be sure if any of her memories were the truth anymore. The words exchanged with the other soldiers beside her played back against the rhetoric of Vanu’s teachings and they conflicted horribly, each finding holes in the other; questions without answers. She shut her eyes against it but only succeeded in locking herself inside the darkness of her mind with the thoughts that haunted her. “And you?” Twilight asked. Katie’s eyes shot open and her mind went blank. She wasn’t ready to offer a defense of her actions yet. She scrambled to put her thoughts in order and she was about to stammer that she needed a moment when Katie realized Twilight hadn’t been addressing her. Instead, the Princess’ eyes were narrowed at the Major. “I suppose there’s no two ways about it,” the TR Engineer began. “I’ve disobeyed your direct orders and endangered your citizens with my actions. And I suppose an apology would fall short of fixing the problem.” Katie was shocked to hear him admit so openly to any wrongdoing. She had expected him to weasel out of it or cast the blame on either herself or the NC soldier. She didn’t have to wait long, however, for him to shift his tone away from self-incrimination. “But you have to understand the position I was in,” he continued. “On the one hand, I may have been outside my jurisdiction. But on the other, I still have obligations to the Republic. I am not willing to cast off my duty because I find myself in unfamiliar territory.” “Territory under my authority,” Twilight interjected. “You said it yourself. You are outside your jurisdiction. What right did you have to demand I bend to your wishes? On what authority do you override my decisions? How can you excuse actions that endanger others who have done nothing to provoke you?!” The Major flinched visibly as her words stung him. When the Princess paused for a breath, he held his hands up in a placating gesture. “Believe me Princess,” he spoke quickly, hoping to keep her from cutting him off. “I regret that my actions have brought harm to your subjects.” Katie could see his mind working rapidly, she imagined, on ways to further downplay his involvement and cast himself in a better light. What he actually said amazed her. “And I take full responsibility for my part in this. I was wrong. In almost every action and decision I’ve made since getting here, in fact.” He shook his head with a mild grimace. “I only ask that you see the reasons behind my actions.” “Which are?” Twilight asked with strained patience. Katie found herself wondering the same thing. She caught herself leaning forward to hear and quickly fixed her expression to reveal nothing of her thoughts once more. “When we first arrived here, our goal was to regain contact with Command and return to our stations. Of course, that proved beyond our capabilities, which is when we sought out aid in town. You offered to assist us.” The Major paused and then added, “And I am grateful for that.” Twilight did not seem moved by his acknowledgement and the Major went on quickly. “But, you see, there would have been no problem after that if it hadn’t been for the presence of our enemies in this town as well as your agreeing to aid them. Up to that point, I’d been given no reason to believe they would refrain from attacking us, and thus, I had every reason to disregard your instructions in the interest of both myself and my subordinate’s security.” “Every reason?” Twilight repeated incredulously. “Your own safety is not as…” The Princess checked herself and attempted to return to a calmer tone. Katie could see how difficult it was for her to have this discussion at all. Still, she was making a very concerted effort to steer the situation toward an end that Katie was still trying to discern. She’d seen a flash of it first in that barely perceptible smile before she’d addressed Mathew and she was seeing signs of it again now. The Princess had some sort of plan; one that obviously was not best served by losing her patience. “I gave those instructions specifically to prevent any of you from encountering each other,” Twilight said. “If you had gone back to Fluttershy’s and stayed there, none of you would even be aware of the others.” “And instead of informing us of the entire situation,” the Major replied evenly. “You allowed us to walk into those encounters blindly. Your methods forced us to deal as best we could with what we had, as opposed to you giving us what we needed to know to prevent us from fighting in the first place.” “Do you have what you need to prevent you from continuing to fight now?” she shot back scornfully. The Major shut his mouth and frowned. He looked to Mathew. The two soldiers measured each other silently for a tense moment. He turned to Katie and she stiffened under his scrutiny. His eyes searched her face for a long time while he chewed on his lip in thought. Then he looked around at the other ponies gathered there, lastly finding Rainbow. She matched his gaze, waiting for him to speak again. The Major let out a long, slow breath. “Yes. I believe I do have what I need.” He holstered his Commissioner and snapped it in place with finality. He then folded his arms and fixed the ground in front of him with a severe stare. Rainbow blinked twice, surprised at his decision, and then sat down beside him in a show of continued solidarity. As Katie contemplated what she had heard, she realized it was her turn. Twilight was giving the Major one last judgmental glance as she shifted toward the Medic. Katie gathered her thoughts together and, to her surprise, she had an answer. It was couched in the words spoken by the ponies around her, hidden in the conviction they’d showed for each of these disparate ideals. All at once, Katie felt she could finally divine the Princess’s intentions and it very nearly took her breath away. And even as she was shaken by the implications of it all, she felt she’d found solid ground on which to stand for the first time since she’d begun to lose her faith. As Twilight finally gave Katie her full attention, the Vanu soldier took a deep breath and began. ~*~*~ Gadrik didn’t have much time to brood over what equated to his surrender before the VS Medic spoke up. And what she said made him do a double take. “All of us are wrong.” They waited for her to continue, all wearing expressions of varying levels of surprise. All except for Twilight, who was smiling ever so slightly. Katie looked around at them all and mustered the courage to continue. “Don’t you see,” she said, addressing the other two humans. “We each have something we believe in, so strongly that we’ll fight for it. And we all have good reasons to believe that ours is the ‘right side’. But no matter what we believe in, and no matter how right any of us might be, we’re all making the same mistakes and so we are all equally guilty of being the cause of the problem.” Katie looked at the ground and her voice dropped to near a whisper. “I just wish it hadn’t taken losing Nathan for me to see it.” She wiped her eyes and a sniffle escaped her. Twilight winged over to the Medic’s side and put a comforting hoof on her shoulder. “It seems we’ve all lost someone to get here now,” the Princess observed as the Medic gave herself over to the other’s embrace. Mat shuffled his feet and cleared his throat gruffly, refusing to meet anyone’s eye. Gadrik turned his gaze back toward Fluttershy’s cottage. A few miles away, Anthony was still tightly cocooned inside the MAX suit, all but forgotten in the struggle. The Major sighed and shook his head. He was doing a lousy job of making the Corporal’s sacrifice count for something. He was doing an even worse job of paying these ponies back for all of the kindness they’d shown, especially Fluttershy. He glanced over at the NC soldier curiously. Mat was frowning at the ground as if it had personally wronged him. As the Major watched, Mat reached up under his visor and rubbed at his eyes. Gadrik let out a thoughtful rumble from deep in his throat. He’d killed the Heavy Assault, Trevor, if he was remembering correctly. Mat’s anger at him for that was entirely understandable. It was also something Gadrik would likely find himself apologizing for eventually. He added it to a growing mental list. The Princess was giving the VS Medic an inordinate amount of sympathy for the loss of her friend. Come to think of it, this was the first Gadrik had heard of the Infiltrator’s demise. He wondered how such a thing had happened. She certainly didn’t seem to be blaming Mathew for it and yet there weren’t exactly a whole lot of other options. As the Princess pulled away from the Medic, Gadrik came to an even more troubling realization. “If I may, your Highness?” he began cautiously. She turned to him with a measuring glance before nodding for him to continue. “You said that we’ve all lost someone. Forgive me, but it seemed as if you were including yourself?” Her intake of breath and the tightening of her jaw told him he was on thin ice. Gadrik held his breath while he waited for her response. “Yes,” she said, her voice taut with what might have been repressed anger. “Each of you have lost one of your companions and, over the course of that rampage, I seem to be paying a collateral price.” The ponies edged forward worriedly. “Darling!” Rarity exclaimed. “You don’t mean that Applejack…” “She went into shock and lost consciousness,” Twilight reported, cutting off the Unicorn briskly. “I did everything I could before I left and Nurse Red Heart is looking after her now, but she’s still not in good condition. I…I don’t know if she’ll make it.” She glanced at Mat and shifted to address Gadrik. “And Fluttershy is resting now as well. She made it to the library in time to inform me of the situation but she started coughing up blood. It seems the strain of rushing to me aggravated her injuries. She wasn’t able to tell me much more after that, but she was able to give me the basics. It seems my friends are most apt to be injured around you. I can’t say you’ve heard the last of this.” Gadrik went cold from the hardness in the Princess’ eyes but managed to nod stiffly. Twilight seemed to be satisfied with that response and turned back to the Medic who had regained her composer. “I used to know what I believed,” Katie said softly. “I thought that there was no higher calling than the advancement of knowledge. But when my companion threatened Twilight over the knowledge in her books, I saw exactly how wrong I had been about my priorities. We can’t afford to lose sight of the other things that matter around us. And undervaluing others might not be the worst we’ve done.” She fell silent again, looking to Twilight in wordless apology. Twilight smiled as she responded. “Knowledge was once the most important aspect of my life. I was always studying new sciences and magic. But one day, I realized that I had been blind to something more important. Friendship. I was missing someone to care about, and who cared about me. All the books and spells in the world aren’t worth as much to me as my friends.” The Medic leaned back against the door frame, lowering her head to her chest while a silent sob sent a shudder though her. Twilight turned to Major Gadrik. He regarded her as stoically as he could, afraid that showing a reaction could hurt her already tenuous opinion of him. “Loyalty until death, right?” She waited for his nod before continuing. “Loyalty is an indispensable trait. It’s what holds everyone together. But why would anyone want to be loyal to someone who just barks orders and is mean all the time? Who would want to follow a tyrant?” The Major’s mouth became a fine crease as he absorbed her words. Twilight turned lastly to Mathew. The NC soldier took a steadying breath as he braced for what she might say to him. “Freedom.” Twilight let the word hang in the air. She looked at the ground and gave a short, dry laugh. “It sounds like such a wondrous idea, but do we really know what it means? We can lose our freedom even though we aren’t bound and shackled. But we can also be free without casting off anything that ties us down. Freedom isn’t about doing whatever we want, all the time, especially not when that means hurting others. Sometimes, freedom can mean having the choice to give up something important to you for the sake of others’ needs. Kindness is doing so.” Mat opened his mouth to reply but bit his tongue as if he wasn’t sure if he knew what to believe anymore. Twilight looked around at all of them again, measuring what she found in their eyes. “Each one of you stands for a powerful and important ideal,” she said, addressing all of them. “Each one of you knows that yours is worth fighting for. But you don’t seem to see that fighting each other isn’t the answer. Instead, you should find ways to defend each other so that you can be strong together.” “I agree,” the Medic said, her voice firm now. “We’ve wasted far too much time and effort trying to repress each other. If I’ve learned anything here, it’s that no one has all the answers. We of the Vanu Sovereignty quest for knowledge. The way I see it, there’s still a lot we can learn from each other. Maybe, with a bit of patience, we’ll be able to move past our differences and build a better future for all of us.” She stepped up to the shield that separated her from Mat and the Major. She glanced back at Twilight, who nodded and allowed the shield to drop. “Peace?” she asked, extending her hand to the Light Assault. “Peace,” he replied, taking her hand and shaking it firmly. She approached Gadrik as well. He took her hand and shook once. “Peace,” he acknowledged flatly. “Is that it?” Mat asked, looking around. “Is it just over?” “Oh, no,” Twilight said, shaking her head. “There’s a lot for us to do yet.”