• Published 21st Dec 2013
  • 10,856 Views, 580 Comments

Dawn of the Vanguard - Mystic Song



For thousands of years ponies have prospered in Equestria living in peace. For thousands of years humans have prospered in secret living in fear. To ponies the humans are less than a myth. To humans, ponys are death. Once again they shall meet.

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Smoke Signals made with Forest Fires

Author's Note:

Edited with the help of HopeForTheFew

Kim leaned against the metal rung ladder that connected the hold of the ship to the upper levels. Irritated she tapped her boots against the metal ground as she attempted to light up in the only place that the smoke wouldn’t get to anyone. It was almost embarrassing to break her streak. Almost a year since she last inhaled the near poisonous gas, and now miles off the Equestrian coast she was trying to light a smoke in the worst conditions.

The hold of the sub was damp, dark, and more than a little bit dank. It came with the direct connection to the ocean; a hatch cut into the sub that allowed the Pelagians, water cursed humans, to make their silent rounds along the coast.

They were doing their part and doing it well even though the submariners rejected the idea of actually standing on Equestrian soil. She on the other hand was stuck on the sub because for whatever reason Alec’s completely reasonable observation wasn’t enough to light the right kind of fire under the others.

‘Ponies fighting amongst themselves is not our problem‘We have no reason to suspect them of being naturally mentally unsound or that this unsoundness is being used to cover other intentions.’ Her ass. Those ponies were being suspicious, clearly trying to hide their actions, and were barely concealing their weapons. It should be enough to go after them. There was enough evidence to prove that they weren’t just operating on gut feelings. Other physical things had happened, things which had nothing to do with the creeping presence that Klein had felt.

The process was gradual, but after a few days their main radios no longer worked in Equestria. Not that they gained a habit of sputtering and dying; the things wouldn’t even turn on. They had to fall back to the older clunky garbage ones that squealed in pain when activated. A wonderful change. Instead of the radios not connecting to the sub because they wouldn’t turn on, they couldn’t connect because the sub was out of range.

With a few more rough flicks she gave up trying to light her cigarette and pushed away from the metal wall. Now what the hell was she going to do for the next couple of hours? She sure as hell couldn’t join Alec. He was too busy trying to convince the others to make another deep journey into Equestria. She knew herself. If she was there she would start snarling, and that wouldn’t end well.

So she made herself scarce just far enough to not be tempted to listen in on the conversation. A conversation that had went on for a few hours now and would probably go on for a few hours more.

No matter how different they could be let it never be said that humans weren’t equal in their ability for stubborn tenacity.

Humans came in all shapes, sizes, and abilities that Kim knew well. Some were better at flying, some at swimming, others at running. Sure some of them looked very different almost alien from the majority, one would only have to look at the solid black of a Pelagian's eyes to see that. That being said no matter how strange their individual differences were they all had the basic human shape and mind set. They were all human.

Although she did question this base fact when, after her pacing brought her beside the open hatch a Pelagian marine launched himself out of the port shrieking.

Responding to the fish straight out of hell with her own yell she jumped away from the ocean spray. “What the hell man!” She snapped angry that her heart had been jumped started in the worse way. On the ground her pack of smokes, which she had to trade at least five things for, swam in its own little puddle. “Do you have any idea what I had to trade to get that pack?”

Her anger as righteous as it was went ignored by the swimmer as he struggled to breathe air and talk at the same time.

“P-paper!” He wheezed letting out a high pitch whistle that made her flinch. Tones like that were meant to have liters of water damping them. There was a reason Common Tongue was the standard language. He held up his carrying bag and thrusted it towards her, “Pictures! Signals! Not dead!”

The swimmer’s constantly twitching face made her consider calling one of the many medics on board. He stumbled forward on the deck and her hand made for her radio. “Who's not dead?” She said hoping to distract him long enough to get help.

“Zachery!” The swimmer said black eyes wide as he shook the bag at her, “He’s not dead!”

She was holding the bag. The time between her standing beside the rung ladder and holding the bag were lost to her. It was forgotten in some puff of unnecessary as she nearly tore the contents in her attempt to reach them.

Papers. Stacks of them tightly bound with bands and thrown into the bag with a stark kind of desperation. They were newspapers written in a language that seemed to have no rhyme or reason to the assorted shapes spat across the page. Thankfully what the swimmer wanted to show her was not hidden in that incomprehensible mess. No, it was a picture that took up half of the front page.

Zachery looked remarkably well for a person that was in essence given as a state sacrifice to monsters whose names, in certain companies, were considered vulgar. He sat behind a table smiling so very fakely at the camera the pony princess Twilight Sparkle sitting nervously beside him. Small things she picked up first. That he somehow still had and was wearing a shirt picked out for his mission, and that he looked cleaner than some of the people on the sub. Then it was the bigger things. Bandages poking from underneath his shirt that snaked up his neck and down his arms distracting from the sleep stressed bags under his eyes. Finally she saw the largest detail as her eyes traveled down to his hands.

It might have looked like a random twitch of his hand, an uncontrolled spasm at most. His two hands held in front of him like a person that didn’t know where to place them while under the scrutiny of others.

‘DANGER’ ‘KING’ ‘ALIVE’

It was a while before she realized the reason that she was having a hard time looking at the picture was because her hands were shaking too much. Beside her the swimmer sat on the ground and panted pleased with himself at being the first to bring something of value to them.

He didn’t know. The cities used different hand signals in the case of a mass breach. None of the teams from Aria were on the beach if this slipped by as just important.

Forget it. Forget that this was the damn reason that you demanded to stay on that Three Forsaken beach. Act.

“Swimmer, what is your name?” Her mouth didn’t quite work right. Her words had been a little too rushed or maybe they were a little too soft. Whatever it was that gave her away his grin dropped just the same.

“Eric, Underwater Communications and Sonar Disruptions.” The named Eric said, a thin third eyelid flashed over his solid black eyes and he shifted, “What does the signal mean?”

She weighed her options. Either she tells him now, or leaves him in the dark to avoid the risk of him panicking. “Eric, how many teams are in mainland Equestria?” She asked numb hands gripping the satchel.

“None.” Eric answered switching rapidly between his feet. He was Pelagian after all. Even their own subs didn’t bring them the feeling of safety that four dimensions of open water could. “The last team just came back with this information and the next teams will be leaving in an hour to scour a little further mainland for more papers, yeah.”

“Eric, I need you to listen to me.” She said feeling her own impulse to get into open air calling her. She squashed it. Her wings were bright red she would be seen in an instant, “I need you to swim back to shore camp as fast as you can. I need you to evacuate everyone there. I don’t give a fuck whatever the hell they are in the middle of doing, you bring them back.”

Eric paled almost turning the same shade of his short wet pearlescent hair and said, “You can’t call an evacuation without the backing of at least-”

“Seven other members of the selected counsel. I’m bending the rules.” She answered holding up the paper for him to see Zachery’s awkwardly smiling face a juxtaposition of the tension in her furrowed brow, “These three words give me the right to do so, 'danger, king, alive'. I don’t need to tell you which king Zachery is trying to warn us about, do I?”

Eric for his part didn’t scream or panic. Though from the words she could decipher from the string of Pelagian that leaked out of his mouth; she knew he understood how fucked up of a situation they were in.

Conquering Wind was supposed to be dead, dead and lost to whatever hellscape a demon gets banished to once they die.

How the hell was he still alive? Did it really matter how he was alive? Hell at this point the total legitimacy of this warning didn't matter. If there was a possibility that this was true they needed to retreat into open water and rethink their plans. They needed to change how the rest of this mission will operate. They needed to send word back to Standing Refuge. Hopefully their long communications still worked even if their short radios didn't.

They couldn’t radio the shore teams since the radios stopped working, mysteriously, without any explanation.

The sign for ‘Danger’ never did specify what type of danger. The sign language was meant for simplicity so the meaning behind ‘King Alive’ would discredit the need for that sign. Unless it was for a separate equally important danger.

A simple glance in the pack and the other front page pictures told her he made many different poses. One such was a strange looping of his fingers that meant ‘BAIT’, but there wasn’t anything that suggested they were being baited.

Unless you counted the ponies that would only seem strange to those on the outside looking in. What with their purposeful walks and intentional flashes of blades under obvious coats.

She had wanted to follow after them.

“Eric, get your ass in gear!” That was enough to jousel him out of his increasingly panicky rambling. In a second Eric had returned to the waters and in the next she had climbed up the rung ladder and sprinted down the hallway. Toward the meeting room she had promised Alec that she would not step foot in.

It looked like no one was getting what they wanted today.

Sprawled out on a series of bolted down tables sat hundreds of newspapers laid faced up. Even with all the tables pushed together there wasn’t enough room for the bulk of it all. Heavy paper weights were strategically placed above the overlapping edges of information; these weights were given the daunting task of holding together semi-coherent warnings splashed together with ink. From this ink multiple pictures of Zachary’s face smiled up at them, and Alec continued to feel himself stuck between gratitude and irritation.

Alec was grateful. Zachary was somehow still alive so a rescue mission was possible. When he and Kim agreed to their current arrangements they went with the knowledge that bringing back any sort of identifier for his next of kin would be infeasible. Yet there he was looking almost no worse for wear.

Ink stained fingers traced images of bandages. Cloth wraps that pulled tightly around Zachary's neck and covered his arms down to his wrists. Fingers tapped at tired bags and the dull lying spark in his eyes.

Someone would pay for that.

Across the room Kim sat on the ground with her back to him as she translated hand signals into Common Tongue and rewrote hastily made notes onto fresh paper. The next round of sorting would start soon and it wouldn't do to waste time trying to read each others panicked scrawl. Though, their writing wasn’t as bad as it was following the aftermath of Kim crashing down the door and shouting about King Conquering wind. Not even the people who initially wrote those notes could read them. Designating a person to clean up the chicken scratch was the first level headed action they came up with.

It was a good thing that Kim’s writing was so clear, and that she worked so fast.

With a grunt Kim straightened. Pops and cracks came from her body as it was eased from the uncomfortable hunch she mangled herself into. If he focused he would hear her speaking in the flowy language of Ariana high court. Though considering who was speaking it and the circumstance they were in it would have less breezy pose and have more wind cracking swears.

“Common Tongue, Kim. We don’t need to add to the miscommunication.” He said picking up a stray paper in the pile titled useless. He looked up in time to see both of her vulgarest fingers pointed up at him. Her body, he noted, was still facing away from him. “Now, Kim. How will I ever become an uncle if you continue to carry on in this way?” He said dryly, “No one will ever marry such a rude woman.”

Annoyance tinged her voice, “Who the hell would I even be impressing? Dating within base is sort of frowned upon.”

Stripped of your rank or be voluntarily relocated. Yes, frowned upon is the right word for such a thing. “There are many fish in the sea.” He said.

Kim bended back. Bright red hair hanging loosely as unobscured storm grey eyes blinked owlishly at him, “A Pelagian? That’s a little bit of a long distance relationship, don’t you think?”

“It could be interesting.” He answered back, “I’m interested in seeing how you would yell at someone who is underwater.”

Kim snorted, “I might as well learn. Pelagia is going to sink the whole city when this gets back to them.” She said waving vaguely over hours of work.

Like that the calm air around them fizzled out and died.

“You’re right.” He said, eyes drawn to the printer ink staining his fingers, “Perhaps someone from another city?”

“Don’t think intercity travel will be popular in the next couple of years.” Kim muttered.

“True, but who knows? In a hundred years you might hobble out and find someone as old and decrepit as you to live the rest of your brief life with.” He replied, rubbing his hand against the hair of one of the people who was supposed to be charting with them. The guy did nothing but snore.

Maybe they should reduce the dosage of the sleep aids. People were having a hard time sleeping, but this widespread narcolepsy was getting ridiculous.

Kim laughed, a rough blistering thing that resembled a tired bark more than a expression of mirth, “Wouldn’t that be a sight.” She sobered allowing the creaking of the sub to fill the gap her voice left. When she spoke again he knew she was deliberately not looking at him, “The mission is in three days.”

“If all goes well, yes.” He said, picking up his clipboard. “In a days time we send this information home. It'll take a day for them to send their confirmation. After confirmation we’ll give them a day to secure Standing, then we’ll returned to Equestria.”

Looking up at the buzzing white light above them Kim spoke, “Have they decided what they plan to do once we get into Equestria? Are we just base smashing until one of us dies, or…” she left the question open.

He took to poking the sleeping man with the eraser of his pencil, “That seems to be the general consensus. Destroy enough to hinder their growth, or wipe them out, or get killed by them. Needless to say we should avoid the last option.”

She sighed and he could hear the stick in her throat, “Fuck, that’s grim.”

He pulled the pencil away from the sleeping man briefly noting the red spot on his forehead, “I agree, it’s incredibly un-bodacious. The odds do seem to be stacked against us since we need clearance to use the subs weapons. Clearance that they most likely won't give us.” He mused, “Though if they don't reply to us within the next few days we can only assume that we’re on our own. If it does come to that I suppose we can give ourselves a few days to get drunk and make regretful decisions, before we dust off the forbidden weapons. Weapons that they chose to stock us with. It makes you wonder…” He waited. Kim would snap about the deceitful higher brass and then he could move forward. It’s how their conversations usually went.

He waited, and after two minutes he looked up.

Kim was staring at him, her face scrunched up in displeasure and her pupils contracted into slits.

Taking a moment to scan for danger and finding nothing he asked, “What?”

“Alec, bodacious.” She said her words just a sliver from a hiss, “Where the hell did you even pull that from?”

Huntenmister’s Book of Recognizable Slang Volume Two.” He recited, and studying her face he asked, “Did it not get my meaning across?”

Kim shook her head, “No it got it across. Just try to keep the slang recent. The last two hundred years recent.” She laid on her back, “Your coach should really monitor your process more.”

He moved on striking the word off his mental list, “As there are a number of oceans between us it stands to reason that my coach is having some difficulty monitoring my progress.”

Kim’s response to this was a cross between a snort and the word 'snarky’. She flipped through crudely made books filled with information so confidential that under any other circumstance she wouldn’t even know of their existence. “Never thought I would be one of the people to start a war between Equestria and Standing Refuge. If a war were to break out I always thought I would be dragged out of bed and sent to protect some random building in Aria. Maybe a post office or something.”

“Never thought you would be in the same sub as warheads?”

She gave him a flat look, “I thought Pelagia was banned from making more of those things after the desolation of Sroh, Knogurd, and Naguhsh. I swore they executed the lead scientist for that.”

“Apparently not.” He said, the dates for that incident never did match up, “The power must have been tempting.”

“Even after the resulting famine that hit Mara?” She said.

“Very tempting.” To be able to attack an enemy from that far away with that much force, it would be tempting. Even if they had destroyed farm islands when perfecting their attack, “It's a stark comfort in war to have the bigger weapon, but it's better than being unprotected.” He said, and with Kim's tone of dismissal they went back to work.

Though the possibility that they might need to resort to such measures kept Alec up at night, though he would never tell Kim this. Two days of tensioned passed, and on the eve of the second day they finally got word back from Standing Refuge. The message back was short and not entirely unexpected. ‘Do not use the warheads. Scout further into the mainland. Report any movement from the ponies’. Teams were made up and the warheads were put on lockdown to the dismay and shouting of everyone on board.

Alec spent restless nights going over plans and outcomes. Kim spent what time they had left training. On the day of the launch the sound of their names being called over the submarine's systems came as a cold shock. Not that they weren’t expecting the call; they were among the first to volunteer. The shock came from the realization that this was happening now, and they had no more time left to prepare. They didn’t speak to each other about the coldness or their concerns over the vagueness of Standings messages. Instead they dressed and joined the other volunteers.

Kim stood beside him on top of the Leviathan shifting her newly dyed feathers. Grey and blue dyes hid her natural bright red. She combed her nails through them repositioning feathers that were carelessly handled by quick hands. He himself had already spent a hour preening before they had went topside, however the way Kim and the ten other people in their group scratched made his hands twitch. The unfamiliar merging grey, green, and brown fatigues he wore did not help with his restlessness.

Black water lapped at the dark grey-white sides of the submarines hull. The sail reach toward the clouded night sky behind them like the fin of a breaching sea monster.

Alec tapped the amulet around his neck. It would cover them as they flew over the seaside towns, once they were in the Equestrian interior they would be flying uncovered. Though closed circuit magi-tech stayed functional longer it only lasted up to a point.

The point where the nullifying field grew stronger. The reason that their technology died, and their self imposed objective.

Discover what is creating the field, destroy it, and whoever made it. He had a theory on how the field worked. It was untested, but if it was true it was too dangerous to leave that information in the hands of the ponies.

Assuming that the ponies were foolish enough to keep the information needed to make the field in the same vicinity as the field itself. If the situation was such that only the damping device was present they would have to bring it back with them and disassemble it. Ideally they would learn from the technology and use it against the ponies. Unfortunately, Zachary's message implied that they did not have time to master the extremely foreign technology before attacking. A possible solution to this was a controlled scorching of the enemy's forces. It would keep them at bay while they had time to gather more intel.

A rough poke brought him back to attention and he joined Kim in staring at the dark cliffs on the black beach. The first section of their infiltrating wave disappeared in green energy and three Equestrian sparrows stood in their place. The birds rose into the air in a flurry of wings and feathers allowing the next wave to take their place. These actions repeated once more until only he and Kim were left standing on damp dark metal.

Kim’s feathers tousled in the cold ocean spray and she tapped her amulet, “Any bits of insight before we go?”

He shook his wings a more than futile attempt to dry them, “In acts such as these silence is necessary for survival.”

“You don’t say. I was going to sing on the way there, but I’ll make sure to keep your advice in mind.” Kim said and was engulfed in swirling green magic that expanded from the both of them.

He took a moment to get used to the shift in his perspective and center of gravity. Kim hopped beside him her tiny talons clicking on the hull of the sub as she mimicked avian movements. She chirped brightly and took to the sky. He followed keeping what was observed as a natural distance between them.

Dark water and sand was left behind and they basked in the lights of the seaside town. Some sort of festival must have been happening as the ponies were out enjoying the calm of the early night. Screaming children and loud music played below them as they wove high above in the sky. Their chirps were drowned out by those of the local birds who were annoyed at the present brightness and noise.

Leaving the town behind they took a sharp turn away from an orchard and over the dark foliage of the forest. Hidden from their eyes animals completely unknown to humans creaked, hissed, and grumbled their presence to those around them. Alec ignored the nighttime sounds emitting beneath him in favour of counting the towns and landmarks they passed.

The Town of Green Stone, The Whispering Peaks, Town of Bluebell, an unnamed lake, Chestnut Swamp, the Town of Small Creak…

A pulse of green wrapped around him as his amulet began to fail. His wing beats became sluggish in a way that was unusual for a bird as small as a sparrow, but not for a much larger winged creature.

He pulled up bringing the trajectory of his flight higher, and higher until his vision fogged out in a haze of cloud cover just as his form changed. He was human again. Kim cut through the clouds beside him her frown reinforcing what he already knew.

The amulets were supposed to take them to the town of Warm Gate the furthest that any team had gone so far. There were two landmarks between their current location and Warm Gate. The field was growing.

Really there were two possible reasons for this sudden growth. Either the ponies grew stronger with their magic and spread the field for the sake of doing so, or they were baiting them. Not knowing which it was shaped up to be more grating then the implications of either.

By the time they got to Warm Gate the amulets were long dead, and he was grateful to land in the woods on the far side of the town. He had never felt more naked flying through the spotting strange cloud cover and seeing his dark shadow cast distorted and thin on the ground below. Though being in the wood did not ease him in the way it should have. There was many things off with Equestria. Things that seemed to reflect a taint on nature itself. A careful cultivation of nature that left it stilted and wrong. Wild forests shouldn’t grow in rows, and he shouldn’t feel uncovered under a canopy.

Before him Krane, the leader of the first team to depart acknowledged their landing with a nod. The man’s face was pulled taut and his actions curt clearly he was already done with being on Equestrian soil. The first team was from Dissimulare it was possible that the poor imitation the woods reflected was more evident to them.

“Pay attention I only have the patience to say this once.” Krane said, “The signal is strongest around here, so whatever is screwing with our magic instruments is somewhere in this vicinity. I want you to spread out and comb these woods until you find some sort of fuckery. We do not have coms’ so don’t be an idiot and stay in view of your teammates.” He reached into a pocket on his hip and pulled out a round brownish grey device that fit nestled in the palm of his hand.

“This is a noise maker. I know you know what this is, because if you didn’t it means you already were an idiot and did not read the horribly insufficient mission brief. It doesn’t use magic therefore,” Krane squeezed the device and a painfully loud noise ripped through the air, “it works.” Kane said releasing his hold. “We tested it among the locals and found a frequency that they can’t hear. Which I must say is surprisingly low. Use it when you find something. We meet back here three hours before dawn.” With his piece said Krane’s wings disappeared in a swirl of dull blue magic and his team turned to the woods.

Alec felt Kim tug his shirt and he followed her in the direction that the others didn’t take. True night hadn’t quite fallen yet and he found that he could see a great distance into the forest. He fought off the feeling of being exposed.

They found nothing on the first night. On the second they found that the field had grown in size. By the fourth they discussed setting up a temporary base in the woods to waste less time travelling.

It was halfway through the eight night that Kim had found her voice, or rather echos of it. With them being so deep into enemy territory she wouldn't directly state her annoyance. Infighting was bad for the mission and worse for survival, but she did begin to grumble.

They stalked through the trees, bodies low to the ground as they darted between the neat rows of foliage. Tonight they were spread thinner with the hope that this would allow them to cover more area. Through the rows of plant life he saw flashes of Kim’s fiery red hair, and he wondered briefly if he was as visible as she was. His brown hair while on the lighter side wasn’t as bright but he had the disadvantage in hearing. She would know if a pony was near long before he would.

With a toss of red Kim turned toward him her hands in the air. ‘SEE THING’ Kim questioned with a quick wave, and in the process of waving the negative he knew that she wouldn’t be satisfied.

‘NOTHING’ Kim repeated his signal with more emphasis.

She had taken to pointing out how fruitless their search had been, and that they should move the temp base more inland. The first time she had brought it up he had shot it down. It had been too early to change course.

That had been on the fifth day and it was the ninth. An urgency had befallen them as a thick feeling of we're running out of time made their work more methodological, more paranoid. It could have just been the influence of Equestria or whatever it was that keep Klein one of their strongest empath’s on the submarine.

He didn't turn to Kim as he signaled back 'NOTHING’.

Ducking under tree branches and vaulting over downed logs that broke the monotony of the forest he continued forward. Silent steps in a even quieter forest. Nothing accompanied them but the wind carrying warm air that wasn’t strong enough to brush the forest leaves.

A painful shriek snapped the hairs on the back of his neck to attention.

Not a shriek a whistle.

He turned on his heel and was running toward that sharp sound which soon echoed into nothing. Kim broke through the cover beside him and he followed her. Because while he heard nothing she still heard something. Though it wasn’t easy to keep up with her. She sailed over tripping roots and dance through trees each spinning movement giving her the cover she needed. In comparison while he wasn’t clumsy speed over treacherous ground was not his strong suit.

Another whistle, closer now. He threw himself into a crawl just behind her. Harden magic wrapped around his hands and protected them as he dragged himself forward and into a large bush that looked like any other in this strange place.

“What’s up?” Kim ever eloquent was the first to speak. A sharp poke to her side got her to move over and allow him a better position. He pulled himself into a crouch squeezing into the line that the other teams had set up in. Having cover on both his front and back did wonders for the tension in his muscles.

Evan, a man on one of the teams kept his eyes forward as he spoke, “Saw a couple of those demon following ponies jump down a hole.”

He let those words tumble through his head and followed the path of Evan’s intense stare. A break in the trees not even a clearing. Just grass, roots, and stones thrown around the most natural patch of forest he had ever seen since he came to Equestria.

The grass moved. A mound stuttered up and from that a hoof broke through pulling a pony with a dusty brown coat and curly red hair behind it. The stallion shook himself shedding a thin layer of dirt. He looked around eyes sweeping over their bush but unable to see them due to distance and darkness. Satisfied with his surveillance the pony walked off into the night, but not before tapping down the mound he came from.

A hand on his shoulder urged him back into the woods and he was crawling again. He kept crawling. It would be sometime before he would be given the go ahead to stand up, by that time their makeshift base would be in sight. Kim didn’t say anything when they got inside. All she did was place a pencil in his twitching hand and gave him enough papers to print a book.