Chapter 3 (Taking a Walk Outside)
Chapter 3
Riding along under the shade of the overhanging trees, Allen could almost believe that he was back home, riding along an unused road out in the countryside. However, the occasional glimpse of the distant mountain castle would shatter that illusion like a brick through a glass window.
Sighing to himself, Allen let his shoulders slump as he stared down at Rueben’s mane, content to let his mount do some of the driving for the moment.
“What are we going to do Rueben? Even if we do find other humans, who’s to say that they will be able to understand us to begin with? I don’t know about you but I ain’t looking forward to miming my way through first contact!”
Reuben gave an ear flick in reply.
Giving a soft chuckle, Allen patted Reuben’s neck with a gloved hand and said, “Yeah, I hear ya, no use in worrying about what’s out of my hands. Still, I can’t help bu-”
The sudden snapping of a twig nearby cut Allen off as he whipped his head around, his body tensing in preparation to fight or flee as he jerked back on the reins to bring his mount to a halt.
Reuben, sensing Allen’s sudden anxiety, pawed at the ground nervously, snorting in confusion as to what could have his rider suddenly on edge, but sure that if his master thought it was dangerous, then it probably was.
Scanning the nearby woods, Allen felt a drop of sweat slowly crawl down the side of his face as the seconds ticked by with no sight of what had caused the disturbance.
After a few tense moments, a brown blob jumped out of nearby bush, nearly giving Allen a heart attack before he realized that it was just a harmless little squirrel.
Letting go a nervous, and slightly embarrassed laugh at his overreaction, Allen exclaimed, “Ha! It was just a damn squirrel! Nearly gave myself a heart attack over a damn squirrel! Haha!” Reaching down again, he gently stroked Reuben’s mane in an effort to reassure the horse that everything was alright with the world once more.
“It’s okay boy, just a harmless woodland critter.”
Reuben gave an annoyed huff and stomped a hoof in reply, obviously not entirely pleased over having been subjected to a false alarm like that.
“Well, in any case, I guess we better get moving again,” continued Allen as he gave his steed a tap with his heels to get him moving forward again. However, as he and Reuben continued onwards, he failed to spot a glint of armor sparkling in a nearby bush.
The pony that the armor belonged to, upon seeing Allen move on, let go an explosive sigh of relief at having gone undetected. Turning to his partner, he gave him a slap upside the back of his head and whispered harshly, “Watch where you’re stepping next time you clumsy oaf, you nearly got us caught!”
His partner gave a soft yelp of surprise and idly rubbing the back of his head, even though he still had his helmet on, which had protected him from his comrades slap, said, “Sorry corporal, it won’t happen again!”
Giving a nod the corporal growled back, “See that it doesn’t or I’ll have you on KP duty for the rest of your time in the guard, do I make myself clear?”
“Yes Corporal Waters!” replied the hapless guard.
Satisfied that the lesson had gotten through, the corporal turned his attention back to the now empty cart path, and motioning to the rest of his hidden squad, moved out, stealthily following in Allen’s wake.
Meanwhile, another two pairs of eyes calmly watched from within an apple tree’s branches as the local guards moved out.
“Lucky for that corporal down there that his armor’s got sound dampening enchantments on it, otherwise he’d have given his position away more effectively than his friend,” drawled a brown coated pegasus.
His grey colored partner nodded his head in silent agreement. Looking away from the less than stealthy movements of their compatriots below, he said, “Well, at least we know what this so called “monster” looks like.”
His brown companion gave a soft snort of amusement. “If that there is a monster,” he said, waving a hoof in the direction that Allen had ridden off in, “then I’m secretly Princess Celestia in disguise.
“Well luckily for everypony involved, you’re not, so I would assume that means we’re dealing with something that is less of a monster and more along the line of some kind of previously unknown creature or something.”
“Right, well enough jabbering, we should probably be off,” was his reply.
The grey pegasus gave a nod, and took to the sky, his companion following close behind, their passage silent save for the rustling of the leaves that were disturbed by their passage. Keeping close to the tree tops, the two quickly caught up to, and passed by the, in their opinion, hopelessly un-stealthy Royal Guards before then spotting their target up ahead.
Having once again reestablished contact, both rangers banked away from the road, intent on finding a place up ahead of their target to land and quietly observe its progress. They didn’t have to wait long, for mere moments after they had taken up positions, the strange creature came trotting by.
Watching it trot into view, the two rangers noticed that it was not one, as had been assumed previously, but two creatures, one riding atop the other. The first creature appeared to be equine, seeing as it had the definitive, mane, tail, ears, hooves and general build of a pony. However, other than that, one would be hard pressed to call it an actual pony.
The first, and most obvious difference would be the size of the creature, easily three times that of the average adult pony, in addition, its legs appeared spindly and weak looking, in comparison to that of a normal Equestrian’s. The other and by far most glaring difference would be that of the equines head. It was longer, and appeared more rigid in nature, as if it were incapable of creating expressions. Moreover, its eyes were both small and dull, lacking that spark of sapience that could be found in all Equestrians.
While it was somewhat disconcerting to see a fellow equine as little more than a simple non-sapient creature, the being that rode upon its back was another matter entirely.
The closest analogue that the two rangers could come up with was a hairless gorilla that had had its face and body slightly rearranged. Even though it was currently sitting, its body dimensions and posture indicated that it would walk in a more upright fashion than a gorilla would. In addition, its face was also different in that it didn’t look like somepony had smashed its nose in with a brick. Though that still meant its face was flatter than that of a pony’s.
Moreover, the strange creature appeared to be nearly devoid of fur save for a small patch atop its head, of which most of that was obscured by its hat, and what looked like some stubble growing on its face. Then there were its eyes, deep blue and alert, they, and by extension, its head were constantly moving around in random sweeps of the countryside, as if searching for threats.
Both rangers already knew the strange creature was intelligent, as they had been close enough to hear it speak, though they were not confident that the Canterlot Guard had heard it speak. As a general rule Equestrian Rangers never assumed anything and always prepared for a worst case scenario, especially when it came to joint operations with the guard.
It was a well-known thing amongst those in the military that the rangers held a sort of contempt towards their brethren in the guard, viewing them as little more than glorified police ponies that couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper sack. Of course this sort of opinion was somewhat unfair towards those in the guard.
While it was true that the guards fieldcraft was sorely lacking, in the cities they had a much easier time of it. Moreover, the guard was never meant to be an offensive tool to begin with, as such it tended to focus more on those areas that played to its strengths, such as fighting in urban environments, close quarters combat, as well as from prepared defensive positions.
However, that really only applied to those guard units who were from major cities, such as Manehatten or Canterlot. For smaller towns, the quality of those serving tended to be lower, and unfortunately, tended to stay low, as money was rather scarce in regards to training and equipping them. Thus many small town guards were little better than militia and could only be relied upon for minor matters such as repelling small scale attacks, whether it be from monsters or brigands.
In the case of Ponyville however, due to its relative closeness to Canterlot and its tendency to be relatively peaceful, at least up until recent months anyways, it was used by the Canterlot Guard as a sort of “soft duty” post for those guard members recovering from either wounds received in the line of duty or those suffering from exhaustion. This way, they could still remain on duty, but have a chance to recuperate in peace.
Unfortunately, the town was also used by the nobility on occasion as a way to punish those who had crossed them; this often meant a career ending assignment for the unfortunate guardspony that was sent here.
However, that policy was rapidly being revisited as thanks in large part to the increased activity of such little things as monster, and villain attacks in recent months. Many of the nobility in Canterlot were now searching for another nearby small town to dispose of unwanted guardsponies on.
Then there were the rangers. Considered the offensive arm of the Equestrian military, such as it was, even though their numbers were small, being only around a few hundred currently, they were both highly trained, well equipped and disciplined, and had possessed excellent leadership.
Often times they found themselves being used to take on those things that even the bigger city guards were unable to deal with, and many a guard commander thanked the heavens above when the rangers showed up to take matters off their hooves.
Of course sometimes the rangers found themselves called in for situations that didn’t require their talents to deal with. Such was the case that the two rangers now found themselves in at the present moment.
Glancing at his partner out of the corner of his eye, the brown colored ranger asked, “Well, you see anything that might be a weapon on it?”
His companion gave a shake of his head, “Nope, and it doesn’t look like it has any natural weapons either.”
“Don’t be so sure on that, I wouldn’t be surprised if it has something tucked away under all of that clothing.”
Grey nodded. “True, there is that.”
Brown glanced over at his partner and asked, “What about magic?”
Grey shook his head. “My thaum crystal isn’t picking up any magical radiation from it either.”
His partner cocked an eyebrow. “None?” he asked curiously.
“Not even a scrap, mules have more magic in them than that thing does, though I can’t be one hundred percent positive, the amount of residual magical energy from the Elements might be affecting my crystal. That or that thing has some very good magical shielding on it.”
Brown nodded again. “Right, how do you want to approach this then?”
Grey chewed his bottom lip for a moment before replying, “Probably should report back to the lieutenant and see what he has to say...or we could draw lots and the loser walks up to it and see what it does.”
His companion gave a soft chuckle. “Haha, funny guy.”
Grey gave a smirk. “I try,” however, his smirk faded as quickly as it arrived and he continued, “Though in all seriousness, that thing, whatever it is, looks about as dangerous as a bush.*”
“Agreed. So do you want to go back and report, or should I?”
“I did it the last time, it’s your turn to talk to the guard,” replied Grey.
Brown gave a sigh. “Fine, at least this lieutenant doesn’t have his head up his plot like the last one did.”
“True, but he’s still a guard.”
“Point.”
And with that, Brown crept away from his roadside hiding spot while Grey continued to watch the progress of their target as it made its way sedately up the path. Settling back into a watchful position, he glanced back towards where the guards would be, and mentally facehoofed at their antics as they failed miserably in attempting to stealthily follow the creature.
Sweet Maker preserve me, one of them just ran across the road behind it.
~oOo~
Meanwhile, the guard had set up a temporary command post at the local school, at which half of the platoons strength, roughly twenty ponies of various types, were stationed. The other half of the platoon had been sent out to locate, and then shadow the unknown entity as it made its way towards town. It was planned that if the entity turned out to be hostile, that the two sections would be able to swarm it from all angles in a classic encircling maneuver.
If however, the entity decided to flee then it would be surrounded on all sides by Lieutenant Palisade’s ponies, thus making it much more difficult to flee.
Currently most of the first half of Palisade’s platoon was hidden amongst the trees and bushes that surrounded the road leading to the school. However, the lieutenant, one of his sergeants and Twilight were currently standing near the school’s front door, inspecting a map that had been pinned to the ground with small stones at each corner.
“And you’re sure that the creature won’t be able to see the road heading for Sweet Apple Acres?” asked a slightly nervous Twilight.
The sergeant nodded. “Positive, we’ve got the road screened with an illusion enchantment so it looks just like the rest of the roadside. Plus I’ve left four unicorns behind to make sure the enchantment doesn’t fail as well.”
“Good work sergeant,” said Palisade, “did you leave instructions for them in case something goes wrong?”
The sergeant nodded again. “Yes sir, should the creature notice something amiss and attempt to pass through the enchantment field they are to fire a white flare into the air. If, for some reason the creature notices the enchantment, and them as well and attacks they are to fire a red one into the air.”
“What if it just notices them and doesn’t attack?”
“If that should happen ma’am then they’ll fire a green flare in the sky, either way, it won’t be good.”
“Quite, should something like that happen, we’ll have no choice but to move to their aid at once, regardless of the initial outcome. Unknown creatures are as one can expect, unpredictable,” remarked the lieutenant.
Twilight nodded in understanding and opened her mouth to reply when the light sound, and soft breeze of a pegasus landing next to her caused her to give a startled yelp, and jump to the side.
“Apologies miss, I did not mean to startle you like that,” said a brown coated pegasus sporting a pair of brown saddle bags and cloth coat, which covered his cutie mark, preventing Twilight from seeing what it was.
“Ah, Ranger Soft Wind, do you have something to report?”
Ranger Wind nodded, giving a quick salute. “I do sir, both myself and Ranger Ash Fall were able to get close to the being without it detecting us and were able to observe it for a time.”
Lieutenant Palisade smiled. “Excellent! Tell me, what did you learn?”
“We cannot say for certain at this time, but both Ranger Ash and myself do not think the creature is armed, either with magic or conventional weapons, nor did we see any sort of natural weapons upon its person. However, I should caution you sir, that this does not mean that the creature is necessarily harmless, just that we couldn’t see any obvious weapons,” replied Soft Wind.
Palisade nodded. “Agreed, we cannot be too careful when it comes to the unknown after al-”
“Sir! White flare off to the south!” yelled a nearby pegasus from his cloudy perch.
Whirling around in the indicated direction, just in time to see a green flare join its sister in the sky, burning brightly for all to see, Palisade cursed under his breath before turning to the sergeant, yelling, “Get the rest of the platoon on the move sergeant! I want you to take half on the east side of the road, and I’ll take the other half down the west side. Keep them in the trees as best you can, we don’t want this thing to see us coming if we can help it!”
Giving a quick salute, the sergeant tore off, barking out orders to the ponies around him. Watching him go for a moment, Palisade turned first to the ranger. “Return to your partner and assist if needed, I’ll leave it up to you when, and where to engage as this is something you’re far better at than I.”
“Understood sir,” replied Wind, giving a half salute before taking off as silently as he landed.
Barely waiting for the ranger to depart, Palisade was already addressing Twilight. “Miss Twilight, things might become dangerous,” seeing her opening her mouth to angrily object, he quickly cut her off, “I’m not going to send you back, I said I would allow you to help us and I meant it. Now, please do not try to interrupt me again like that,” he said, a stern look on his face.
Seeing that she wasn’t going to interrupt him again, he quickly continued, “What I was going to say was that I wanted you to stay close to me at all times. I know you can handle yourself in a fight, but you are undisciplined, and I need you to be able to follow any command that I may give you, no matter how strange or unpleasant it may sound. If you cannot do that, then I will have to ask you to remain behind, do you understand?”
Giving a shallow and somewhat shameful nod, Twilight replied quietly, “I do.”
Returning her nod, the lieutenant said, “Alright then, let’s be about it,” and with that he too took off for the nearby tree line, shouting out orders to his ponies.
Twilight, following close behind, felt a cold ball of uncertainty settling in her chest as she ran towards what could potentially turn into a fight, and praying that that wouldn’t be the case.
*About as dangerous as a bush is an old ranger saying which means, “It might look harmless on the outside, but it could be hiding a nasty surprise inside.”
Well would you look at that? I finally managed to get another chapter done. ~Yay~!
Apologies for how long this one took, between college sucking me of all my creative juices thanks to the mountain of papers that I had to write, (seriously, I wrote a small books worth of papers this past semester,) getting a temp job at a die cutters, and doing hay, I've been tired, sore, and in no mood to write lately.
I would also like to apologize in advance for the mediocrity of this chapter, my writing style isn't exactly the best. 
Anyways, enjoy the chapter as best you can, and I'll see you in the next one.
Cheers.
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The only real problem I see in this chapter is a run-on sentence when you describe what a Ranger is.
Contextually, the military's unwillingness to so much as consider an olive branch unnerves me.
Welcome back!
Finally
6189827 Would you be so kind as to point it out for me please?
6189953 Certainly.
Yessss, new chapter!
6189962
There, how is that?
6190035 Purdy good!
You could also try this:
6190041 Right, now the question is, which one is better?
media.2oceansvibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/its-alive.jpg
Good to see more of this.^^
THAT A HORSE! A HORSE!
FEAR THE HORSE! ALSO FEAR THE ANTI-MAGIC HUMAN!
P.S: Jollity!
edit:
I think the readers will miss out understand that meaning of this sentence or maybe silly, so maybe you should reword it to make it simpler.
6190296 Le sigh* A good horse pun wasted. There, changed it.
Pretty good chapter, interested to see how this encounter pans out.
Back in it.
6190149 Both do nicely, just pick the one that sounds better to you.
6193710 Alright sounds good, thanks for the catch.
I literally just read that you've had a hell of a time with things so i won't demand more any time soon I will however get and my knees and beg, bawl and throw a hissy-fit until a new chapter comes out.
6197437 Not sure if that is a better option or not.
6193921 Anytime, buddy, happy to help
6189827
All they know is that Discord brought him to town, and that he is a horrible looking two headed monster (Royal Guard, not Rangers)
It wouldn't be MLP if Equestria's military and civil police were 100% competent. I sort of like the trope of the bumbling military that hasn't had to face a serious threat in half a millennium trying to deal with the new or unusual (and failing, which is why Twilight and her friends end up saving the day so often) so long as it's done in a semi-plausible and yet humorous way.
twas a gutt chapter
Interesting story thus far...... earned a track for now.
One minor error...
Should be "then"
2013 was a time
well how about that, someone with the sense not to jump to conclusions! Will wonders never cease!
Why would I not be even remotely surprised if it turns out he’s immune to magic, or at least stuff like illusions, the memory stone, love magic, mind control, and/or the Elements of harmony.
Channeling the great HSH, I see. :)
11417372
It's one of my favorite book series, I couldn't resist.