Discord's Home for Cosmic Misfits

by Knowledge

Chapter 3: The General and Three Soldiers

The tent flap opened. Behind it stood a middle-aged mare a few hooves taller than Fluttershy. The mare had a gray coat, which made sense given the honorific title on the key. She had a brown eye-patch over her right eye. Her left eye was golden and intense. A bronze helmet covered most of the Gray Mare's blond mane. The helmet also allowed for a horn come out. On the mare's back lay a red cloak. A bronze-tipped lance rested in the pony's left hoof, probably because of the blindness on the right. Fluttershy could also tell this pony had charisma just in her presence.

The mare's left eye blinked and her ferocious expression turned to confusion. “Fluttershy, is that you?”

Fluttershy fell to the hardwood floor. “Huh, who?” she replied.

“Fluttershy? How could she be here?” came another mare's voice behind the Gray Mare.

“I reckon because this is just another dimension,” spoke yet another mare behind powerful pony. This voice had some farm pony in it.

“Ugh, I just don't get this light multiverse crap,” responded the first voice.

“It's Literal Multiverse, yah dumbass,” said the second.

“Shut up! Your both dumbasses!” shout a third voice from some unseen mare. This one sounded like a little filly.

Every time the ponies swore, Fluttershy winced and the Gray Mare furrowed her brow further.

“Silence!” the Gray Mare commanded. The bickering behind the commanding officer suddenly stopped. The mare walked forward revealing four ponies behind her. Three of them were young mares, about sixteen years of age. One was a filly about twelve-years-old. A orange pegasus with a horrific scare on both cheeks in a black cloak, a white unicorn with a drum and a red cloak, and a yellow earth pony in a full set of bronze armor, heavy saddlebags, and a stetson composed the group of young mares. The filly was a lavender unicorn without a cutie mare and a small red cape.

Fluttershy could now see the red cloak on the Gray Mare. On the back of the cloak were the Sun and Crescent, the symbol for Equestria after Fluttershy and her friends purified Princess Luna with the Elements of Harmony. Seven bubbles geometrically organized surrounded the symbol. In the corner, somepony had stitched three blue gems, Rarity's Cutie Mark.

“Do you know who I am, Fluttershy?” the older mare asked. Fluttershy shook her head in. The mare sighed. She put her right hoof to her eye-patch and lifted it up. While doing that, the mare revealed that not only had she a horn but also wings through an old pegasus reflex when raising their hooves up. Underneath it, she reveal another golden eye. This eye was lazy. Fluttershy gasped. The mare lowered and adjusted it her eye-patch. “Oh, how I hate doing that. Now, do you know who I am?”

“Derpy Hooves,” whispered the yellow pegasus.

“That's General...” said the little unicorn filly, but a glare from Derpy silenced her immediately. General was an old term that Fluttershy had only heard about when learning about ancient pegasi. Now the whole name on the key made perfect sense to Fluttershy.

Fluttershy then turned to look at the lavender unicorn, Derpy's daughter. “Dinky.” The stern child nodded with a little sign that she forgave Fluttershy for not using Derpy's title.

The orange pegasus with the scares on both sides of her cheeks trotted up eagerly to Fluttershy. “Do you remember me?”

The yellow mare flinched in the sudden loss of personal space.

“You're scarin' her Scootaloo,” said the young earth pony mare in armor. Scootaloo frowned, turned her head, and covered her facing cheek with a hoof self-consciously. The mentioning of Scootaloo shocked Fluttershy who now looked at the three mares in new light, the same awed expression when she realized it was an alicorn Derpy Hooves before her.

“Scootaloo.” The pegasus turned back to Fluttershy and smiled, glad to be remembered. The smile, however, only disturbed all those who saw it because of how it emphasized her scars.

“Apple Bloom.” The earth pony nodded and also smiled. Unlike Scootaloo, Apple Bloom seemed to have more of a spring in her giat.

“Sweetie Belle.” The white unicorn mare who had remained completely quiet until now shifted a bit at the mentioning of her name as if waking from a dream. She looked at Fluttershy but did not smile or nod.

“Introductions out of the way, explain the situation. We have just arrived from our world and would like to know how soon my army and I can deploy to protect Equestria from the Griffons,” Derpy commanded.

Fluttershy explained the situation the best she could. She told Derpy and the girls how Discord had invited her and the Elements of Harmony to a surprise which happened to be Discord's old home. Then Discord's dad turned him into a parasprite and the gargoyles wont let them out. Now they need to collect as many friends as possible so they can beat Starswirl and his many tricks.

“Dinky take out your notepad. I want you to detail the skills of anypony we convince to join us so that we can know if we can pass any of these challenges. We also have to know if we can handle Starswirl's tricks,” Derpy explained her strategy.

“What are your skills by the way?” Discord asked vaguely curious.

“Dinky, answer the little chaos lord, I am going to see what is in the next room.”

“Yes, ma'am.” The filly saluted with uncommon absoluteness.

Fluttershy stayed while the other mares followed their general into the hallway that had opened up earlier.

“General Alicorn Derpy Hooves, the Gray Mare of the Northern Equestrian Army, can strategize, lead, and wield a lance. Also when her army is behind her, she can summon the power of camaraderie and reinforce the attack of her lance, making it capable of piercing any foe.” It was obvious by the devotion in Dinky's voice that she worshiped her mother. The references to an 'Equestrian Army' confused Fluttershy greatly because her Equestria was completely pacificistic.

“Specialist Scootaloo is a trained infiltrator and has unparalleled speed on the ground. She is our only non-unicorn soldier adept in wielding swords due to the fact that she can use her small wings to make up for the fact that she is running on her hindlegs only. Scootaloo cannot fly, however, due to a medical condition. She is also my sparring partner when practicing my sword technique.”

“Major Apple Bloom is the highest ranking officer of her age in the Northern Army. She has the legendary strength of the Apple family and is said to be one of the strongest earth ponies in all of Equestria-- well, at least our Equestria. The Major's talent is maintaining food supplies, designing and overseeing the construction of geography-specific fortifications.” Dinky started scribbling down what she had just said in bullet form.

“Private Sweetie Belle is a drummermare renown in our army for creating songs that inspired our soldiers. One of her songs was instrumental in our armies inclusion of freed lions in our army.” Fluttershy looked completely perplexed by the term 'freed lions.” Despite Dinky's usual dismissiveness, Dinky actually paid enough attention to see that the pony listening had gotten lost on her term.

“What do you mean freed lions?”

“Lions who were previous enslaved by Gryffonia, the country that attacked Equestria, until we freed them from the armies we defeated. We want to get to the battlefield here so that we can prevent what happened in our war does not repeat here.” Dinky felt that should be sufficient explanation despite the fact this only confused Fluttershy more. For one, Gryffonia did not exist in Fluttershy's world. More importantly, the all-loving pegasus could not imagine anypony enslaving another, and the filly talking about it so candidly did not help.

“Sweetie Belle's talent is of course--” a scream of anguish from the other room interrupted Dinky.