Intermission: Waning Moon
Wildcard stood on the precipice. There were two paths from here. Total defeat, or total victory. Either he would bring down Chrysalis, or she would bring him down. There was no middle ground, no room for compromise, and no surrender. First Class faced a similar challenge, and her campaign against Trotsky had reached a fever pitch. She was leading in general, but a few places were die-hard loyal to the rising power of Trotsky. If an election was held, she would surely win, but those that followed him would definitely pick a fight over it.
Wildcard knew that he couldn’t be allowed to play the game any more. He had rigged the game; even if he lost, he still won. Equestria would be his, either at the ballot box, or at the end of a gun barrel. He didn't seem to care which, and was prepared for either.
Before he solved this problem though, there was another matter that needed his attention. Wildcard found himself in a tent, within a vast military camp set up in a clearing a few miles from the Hollow Shades. The Home Guard and Wonderbolts had been staging their "clean up" from here, and for weeks had been sending out assault teams. Today they finally knew where the queen bee herself was, and were prepared to throw everything they had at her.
They knew where Mezza Luna was, and they would not allow her to escape this time.
Queen Luna herself was briefing him, in her own command tent away from the others. Malgavian stood to the side, watching. Luna was clothed in her armour, and had an archaic- but quite deadly- sword at her side. Her mane sparkled as always, but seemed to have a certain fire to it today.
She had been briefing him for around an hour now on the specifics of what led up to this day. The Legion and Wonderbolts raiding the Night Guard installations, finally capturing Archer himself, and then managing to figure out Mezza Luna's location based on the few hints he gave combined with some new technology. The stories of what they had found quite disturbed him, such weaponry had never been devised before; explosives designed to penetrate bunkers, nerve agents that could kill millions over wide areas, alicornium based magic enhancement, they had even experimented with viral weaponry. Nothing was off the table for them, and if they had been allowed to complete these projects, the death-toll would have been catastrophic.
“You, as the only changeling I trust, are going to be rather important in all this. We have studied your methods, and created our own form of those “dossiers” that you use for intelligence operations. Your objectives are simple to explain, but difficult to carry out,” Luna said, and produced said dossier from under her armour.
“Infiltrate Mezza Luna’s command frigate as Archer, we have already created a cover-story involving his escape from the Canterlot dungeons. Find out if she has forces elsewhere, or if this is truly all she has remaining.”
She handed it to Wildcard, and stared him in the eye.
“Kill her. Kill anyone that gets in your way. They're all traitors, and you shall be their executioner.”
She then turned away, and looked out the tent opening at the scene outside.
“If you fail, we will simply engage and destroy them conventionally. I would prefer not to risk losing lives, but if that’s how it must be, than so be it.”
Wildcard stuck the dossier in his coat, he would get to it in time.
“What if I need support?”
Luna glanced back at him.
“Simply escape, and signal us somehow. A flare, an explosion, radio; whatever is available. If there’s any sign that the enemy fleet is leaving, alerted, or preparing to engage- we will engage them.”
Wildcard nodded to himself. “Good enough. I’ll get it done.”
He left the tent, and felt Luna’s eyes on him for a bit as he left down the rows of other tents. She was certainly prepared, the entire Home Guard militia was standing by, along with elite elements of the Wonderbolts and Legion.
Tomorrow, it would be his Home Guard. Luna was going to put him in command of the entire thing. She certainly did reward those that served her well.
Wildcard grinned, and his chin edged towards the sky. It was a grey sky, and brought with it the cold of October.
His Home Guard. He had found love in Equestria, and friendship. Now he would be tasked with helping defend it, and it brought him great joy; both for his ego, and for his soul.
Granted, the Home Guard was just a thousand reservists, spread throughout several of the cities. Their only actual role was to support the police when they discovered threats concerning national security, and to remain vigilant incase the enemy breached the borders. They were the runt of the military litter, but still had some responsibility just the same.
It was a decided step up the ladder from “Weird ambassador that has some unofficial pull within the government, has resigned his official position, and doesn’t actually have any official role in anything.” Honestly, he felt more like a mercenary these days than anything.
Life was weird.
Wildcard continued down along the tents, having to dodge a few squads of soldiers going to wherever they were. He stopped before one of the tents, seeing a wide array of weapons inside, and decided to peruse the inventory.
Inside he found a few dozen of the regular rifles, a handful of automatic rifles, and a few suppression machine-guns. As much as he would have loved to sling one around his back and lit up his enemies, it would be rather difficult to hide in his coat. He would be shapeshifting into Archers form, and wore a thin coat over himself. It would take some doing, but he could use his shape-shifting magic to ensure the coat was unseen.
As such, he selected for himself a simple side-arm, and tied the holster around his leg.
He also put a grenade in his pocket, and then strode back outside. Towards the edge of the camp he went, unnoticed during all the commotion. The ground was muddy and damp from the many rains that had come through here, and by the time he left the camp his legs were covered with it.
In the sky the airships formed up, and Wildcard saw an odd looking one at their head. It had what looked like a large plate sticking out over it, and it was slowly spinning around. Twilight Sparkle had built that thing, and it had apparently been able to track down Mezza Luna’s exact location from the few hints Archer had leaked out. It was a brilliant device, and a potent weapon.
If you know where your enemy is, and they don’t know where you are, then they fight on your terms. Luna knew this, and made sure she had won the battle before it even started. The force amassed her could crush anything Mezza Luna could possibly have. It could probably crush the entire Crystal Empire as well, it was an impressive force indeed.
With Mezza Luna defeated, they could finally turn to more important issues. Issues such as the hundred-thousand strong Griffon military on one side, and the million-strong Saddle Arabians on the other. The Saddle Arabians were bogged down in war with the Zebra Empire at the moment, but they would surely try for Equestria eventually.
Win a war, and move on to the next one. History was just the living stumbling from crisis to crisis.
Wildcard trotted out of the camp, and to the clearing the soldiers had made into a landing field. Among the many idle vehicles were a few dozen helicopters, including the one that brought him there from ponyville, sat idle. His pilot had been waiting for him to finish briefing, and would then bring him up for aerial insertion.
Parachutes? Who needs parachutes when you have wings.
Wildcard walked over to the vehicle, parked amongst the others, and noticed the pilot sleeping. He made a note of her name before waking her up, somepony was going on latrine duty tomorrow.
“Hey, Cherry, wake up!” Wildcard said, and bonked her helmet
Cherry shot up, pushed Wildcard aside, and flopped face-first into the muddy airfield.
“It’s not treason if I didn’t know!” she shouted frantically, and rolled over.
“Oh.”
Wildcard helped her up, and she brushed the mud off her dull green uniform. Home Guard reservists didn’t get the nice ones of the Legion, or the Wonderbolt uniforms. Cheap fatigues, made in a factory by the thousand.
“It’s you.” She said, and looked over Wildcard.
“Yes, me. Your boss, as of tomorrow.” Wildcard returned.
Cherry coughed, and tried to look like a proper soldier. The ill-fitting uniform, covered in mud, and her stance didn’t quite work out though.
Inwardly, Wildcard sighed. If the entire Home Guard was like this, than perhaps this was more a punishment than an honour.
“You’re all ready to go then, boss? I’m supposed to drop you at five thousand meters fifty miles south,” Cherry said.
“You bet. Got some business with a waning moon.”
Cherry took her place in the helicopter, and Wildcard sat beside her. The craft was impressive, Wildcard noted. Fast, light, and maneuverable, it was too bad that the engines were too weak for any serious guns to be installed. For now, anyway, the nations best engineers were finally starting to prove their worth, and all sorts of prototypes were being fielded. Wildcard was rather eager to dig into those files tomorrow.
The helicopter quickly rose into the air, and then swivelled around to head south. Wildcard was able to get a good view of the camp from the air. The tents were lined up haphazardly, except for a section slightly split off from the rest. If he had to guess, that was the elite soldiers here to make sure everything went according to plan. In the air above, overshadowing everything, a dozen airships floated behind the leading radar-ship. The Magnificent wasn’t here, but there was still plenty of firepower aboard those frigates. A majority of it was held in the three largest ones, a triple line of missile frigates. With Mezza Luna out of the picture, the Wonderbolts finally were able to get their full complement, and it was already making a difference elsewhere. Each of those frigates had enough to tear a smaller fleet apart, or raze an entire town to it’s foundations.
So naturally Luna had brought three.
Miles away, on the other side of all this, Wildcard had his own insurance. Silver Shield and a few others had infiltrated the Hollow Shades, and anybody that tried to go to ground after the engagement today would find themselves… disappearing.
The cancer would finally be cut out of Equestria, after so much pain. That removal would be total, none of Mezza Luna’s people could be allowed to survive. Their existence alone was a threat, and they had all been party to capital crimes. They would all pay, today or tomorrow, they would all pay.
The helicopter flew onwards and upwards, and slowly the trees receded into the background to become a green blur far below. Wildcard, somewhere around the 2000 meter range, noticed for the first time his pilot was an earth pony.
It was so minor he hadn’t even thought about it, but why was an earth pony piloting a helicopter? They had no way to escape if something happened, they would perish along with it.
Brave pony.
Wildcard read his dossier on the way in, and carefully noted the details of Archers capture. Flash Sentry's report read like a science fiction novel, it was so utterly outlandish. It explained a few things though, such as where that bizarre technology had come from.
Over the clouds they went, and then the craft edged its nose upwards to slow its forward momentum. Cherry flicked a switch on the control board, and turned to Wildcard.
“This’ll do it, five thousand meters,” she said, and glanced out the open side of the helicopter.
“This’ll do indeed. You get back to Luna, and tell her the cure is here,” Wildcard said, and leapt out his side.
Wildcard flipped around in the air, and then stuck out his limbs to steady his descent. Far below he could see a few spots on the ground, which looked to be grounded airships. Smaller ones, probably gunships, circled around in the air. Compared to what she had commanded before, the force was quite pathetic. Two frigates, a handful of gunships, and by the looks of the nearby tents, less than a hundred troops.
The only reason they hadn’t surrendered, despite clearly impossible odds, Wildcard knew from experience. They knew that if they did, they had still committed terrible crimes, and would have to pay. Treason had a high price, even in such a peaceful nation as Equestria. So they waited for inevitable, in the hopes that at the very least they could go down “honourably.” It was the same reason no changeling warrior had ever surrendered, and standard protocol was to either run or die if overwhelmed. These soldiers, if they could even be called that, just waited for one last chance to lash out before going into the night.
These thestrals had lost their right to anything like honour when they started on this quest for total power. They knew the risks going in; they either won, and took the state for themselves; or they lost, and perished. To allow them to live would be to allow others to attempt the same, the risks had to be followed up, backed up, by actions. Allowing them to surrender, to go back to their lives, sent the message that treason was some sort of game to be played, with no real risk if you lost.
It was a sort of game, but you never got to play twice. Those were the only rules.
On approach, Wildcard noticed the formation on the ground. One of the frigates was in the middle of everything, and the rest circled. Wildcard figured this must be the command ship, and finally opened his wings to properly control his descent towards it. He quickly disguised himself, and blushed slightly when he realized he was a few inches taller than Archer was, which wasn’t something he couldn’t quite control.
Any being of the same mass.
Wildcard, now clearly in the form a thestral, slowed himself down to normal flying speed, and circled around downwards towards the command frigate. From up close it looked more like an airyacht, which had been hastily converted into a ship of war. It was an older design, and relied on a great big balloon of gas to stay floating. It would be magically attuned so that even if the ballon was lost it would descent slowly, but relied on that balloon for actual movement in the air.
It had a name, stencilled on the side in great golden letters. A name that they had let stand, even after the ship made its way to its new master.
“Night Star”
Wildcard was sure now that it was the command ship, and swooped down towards it. The many thestrals flying around didn’t pay any attention to him- they had no reason to expect attack from one of their own.
Ironic that this trust would be their ultimate destruction, Wildcard thought, and grinned as he slipped under the balloon to the ship deck. A few dozen armed thestrals stood watch down there, and they noticed him come in.
In the middle of them, positioned on a rail pointed outwards, was a long cylinder. It looked like a Wonderbolt or Griffon missile, but scaled way up. A few thestrals that had been doing some sort of work on it glanced back, but didn’t pause in their work.
“Director Archer!” One of them shouted, and saluted with the rest.
A larger, and more armoured, thestral near the edge of the deck noticed him, and strode over.
“Well I’ll be damned, you did make it out of Canterlot. Commander wants you, the story will have to wait for later,” He said, and pointed down the deck.
Wildcard saluted, and strode off towards the wooden doors that he assumed led below decks. The door guard saluted, and opened the door for him. Wildcard quite enjoyed the feeling of being in command, and held his head high as he walked inside. The room beyond the doors was full of electronic machines, buzzing away while away a dozen thestrals managed them. At the far end of the room was a large display, which was currently showing a map of Equestria. Their position was marked, and so was Canterlot- with a great big X.
There was something else beside it, which sent Wildcard into a panic.
“Launch: T-5:00:47”
Wildcard coughed to give himself an excuse to wipe a sudden bout of perspiration off his brow, and one of the thestrals turned to him.
“Oh, hey Director. Just in time for the fireworks, I imagine Mezza Luna has a front row seat for you,” he said, and then turned back to his station.
Wildcard slipped away to the side, and down a staircase that led into the belly of the ship. The captains quarters would be below, he guessed.
Wildcard turned the corner, and was right. The door to the room directly under the bridge was wide open, and inside Mezza Luna was flopped on a desk, apparently asleep at her station.
The evil generally didn’t sleep well.
Wildcard knocked on the door, and she groggily opened her eyes to look at him.
“Oh! Director!” She exclaimed, and shot up in her seat.
“Come on in. They’ve hurt us, but we’re not done yet. Give me your report on Location B, and I’ll fill you in what we’re doing now.”
Wildcard closed the door, and took a seat and the desk across from her. He remembered the report he had read, and gave her his.
“Location B… was a wreck. Most of the equipment was water damaged, and those bastards they sent in after me made short work of what was left. It’s a write off, I told you we should never have shut it down to begin with,” Wildcard said.
Just the right amount of arrogance, in his opinion. Mezza Luna scowled at him, but a resigned sigh proved him right.
“Yeah well, if we had kept it up, maybe there wouldn’t be an Equestria left for us to fight over,” She said, and spun a paper around on the table before nudging it to Wildcard.
“Recognize it?” She asked.
Project Waxing Moon, it read on top. Below was the outline of a cone shaped rocket, with a large warhead mounted on top. It looked extremely similar to the Griffon missiles, except much larger according to the diagram. That wasn’t the most terrifying part though, according to this they had managed to keep a stockpile of nerve gas. This warhead could carry enough to wipe out an entire city.
Leave it to Mezza Luna to take insecticide and turn it into a weapon of mass murder.
“That’s what that countdown is for then, our victory?” Wildcard said, and looked back to Mezza Luna.
She grinned at him, baring her teeth.
“Not quite victory, we’re well past that now. Revenge, Archer. Celestia and the other alicorns are meeting in Canterlot today. We’re going to kill them- all of them. They may have taken all our sites, but we still have this ship,” she said.
“Along with a hundred thousand ponies, and all those that betrayed our cause. It’s perfect,” Wildcard said, and slid a hoof down his leg.
“Quite, and during the chaos our fleet here will blaze a patch out towards the Griffon Isles. Equestria is dead to us, but there’s a future there.”
Click
“What was that?” Mezza Luna asked.
Wildcard stood up, and cracked his neck. Behind him, the door quietly locked itself. Wildcard raised his gun, and Mezza Luna slid back in her chair, looking at him confused.
“Archer? If you think you're going to take over you should know I’m about the only one that thinks you're sane.”
Wildcard smirked, and with a flash of green dissolved his disguise, he pointed the gun forward, straight at her chest.
“Well, isn’t that strange- I don’t”
Mezza Luna shot out of her chair, “You basta-“
Bang.
She bounced forward against the desk, blood spraying out of a new hole in her chest. She snarled at Wildcard, and desperately reached forward with her hooves while struggling to draw breath.
Bang. Bang.
Two more holes, but she was still pulling herself forward with an animalistic hatred. Her eyes burned with it, and she seemed reached out to him with her hoof. Wildcard put the other three rounds into her, and she finally fell forward on her face, dead.
Wildcard tossed the empty gun aside, its barrel still smoking from the barrage it had loosed. He took her own form, and pulled her bloody body to the other side of the desk. Then he opened the door, and was greeted by a trio of rifles.
“Archer and I had… a disagreement,” Wildcard said.
The thestrals quickly lowered their weapons, and Wildcard strode into the hallway. He quickly closed the door behind him, and then turned to the three.
“Go back to your posts, now,” he ordered.
The hesitated for a moment, and then collectively shrugged.
“I never liked him anyway,” One of them said, and the three left back up the stairs.
Wildcard waited a moment, and then went down the hallway. He followed it down into the belly of the ship, down into the engineering section. The middle of the ship, which would have originally held cargo, was now full of cannon-shot for the rows of guns on the side. Wildcard strode over to a convenient window, and made sure he had a clear passage out.
Seeing that he did, and that the ship was still on the ground, he shattered the glass with his elbow and took the grenade out of his pocket. He hefted it in his hoof.
“TG-6”
He had no idea what that meant, but pulled the pin and tossed it down at the collected ammunition. Then, wasting no time, he dove out the window and quickly took wing, flying away as fast as possible. After a few seconds he heard a pop, but no explosion.
He glance back, and squinted to look back into the window.
The ship was on fire.
“Oh, Thermo-Grenade, I get it!” Wildcard said to himself, and then realized just how close he still was to a few tonnes of explosives about to go off.
He covered his eyes from the blinding flash that suddenly blew out of the ship, and was tossed backwards like a rag doll by a powerful shockwave that tore it apart. He lost his disguise, and his hearing, and was forced against the ground- hard.
He managed to fight off the stars in his eyes thought, and weakly pulled himself forward. His back was hot, burning hot, but all he could do was crawl. All he could hear was a buzzing that pierced into his brain, and all he could see was a blur of brown mud as he desperate crawled forward. He wasn’t dead, but he had probably come close.
After a minute or two his vision began to return, and the buzzing faded away. It was replaced by a ringing now, and he had enough strength to pull himself to his feet. He glanced back at the burning wreckage behind him, and was happy to note he had apparently- judging by his trail in the mud- dodged a cannon by a few inches.
His job was done, so he sprinted forwards away from it all. The treeline wasn’t far, and the thestrals were all far too busy preparing for air combat. They buzzed in the sky like insects, probably assuming they had been fired on from the outside. Wildcard made it into the treeline, and slid to a stop to catch his breath. He flopped down in the mud, and looked back at the clearing.
The other ship was taking off, but before it even got over the fire and smoke from the Blue Blood, a trio of explosions tore it aft to stern. It broke apart, and the ground shook as it met the ground- for a final time.
Another trio of explosions vaporized three of the patrolling gunships, following quickly by another trio.
Except for the rumbling growls of after-explosions and haphazard attempts at return fire, it then fell to silence. Wildcard decided it was high time to leave for good, and ran back into the trees. Soon enough, the sound of Wonderbolt guns tore into the air behind him, and the relentless pummelling of gun batteries on the ground shook the earth. Wildcard took to the air, and shot up over the trees. He spared a glance back towards the camp, an allowed himself to savour the moment.
The guns were silent, and Mezza Luna’s force of traitors was nothing but a smoking ruin. Thick, acrid, smoke which filled the sky. She had died before she was able to get her “revenge”, and her entire force had gone down with barely a fight. They had been destroyed utterly, in the middle of nowhere, muddy, cold, and alone.
A dark end for a dark person. Wildcard flew off, and sighted the lead ship of the attack-force in the distance. He flew towards it, and was quickly approached by one of the Wonderbolt squadrons flying out there. A pair circled around behind him, while their leader came to his side.
Rather disconcerting, but they were all on the same side.
“Duke Wildcard, follow us in! Luna wants to talk to you!” The leader shouted at him over the wind.
Wildcard followed them towards the ship, and they flew over its deck. Their leader simply pointed downwards to it, and Wildcard dropped from the sky to land there. Luna was discussing something with a few of her lieutenants, including one which Wildcard thought he recognized, when he did.
“Ah, Duke Wildcard,” Luna said, and parted the group so he could join them.
“We got your… signal. I approve of your method, very direct. Give me your report,” Luna said.
Wildcard stepped in the middle of the group, noting that they were all well-decorated officers of the legion. The one beside him, he remembered, was Flash Sentry.
According to the insignia on his shoulder, he was a major now. He also had a damn respectable collection of ribbons, and, incredibly perplexingly, a fourth leg.
Wildcard stared at it, and forgot where he was.
“Duke, we don’t have all day,” Luna said.
Wildcard looked up, and shared an awkward glance with Flash before clearing his throat to start.
“You were right, that was the last of her force. This was well timed, she was preparing to use a nerve agent against Canterlot. If you had moved tomorrow, Thousands would be dead.”
Luna was clearly angered by this, and scowled at the others.
“How did we not know of this?! I was told all of their weapons of terror had been accounted for!”
Most of them looked the ground, but Flash immediately replied. Wildcard took a look a himself while he did. He hurt all over, his coat was burnt on the back, and his wings were singed on the edges. He was muddy, bruised, and every time he breathed there was a stinging pain on the left of his chest. He had probably broken a rib. The first stop, after debriefing, was the medbay.
“The Night Guard had carte-blanche for thirty years. We thought we had it all covered, but there was always the possibility of more surprises. All we can do now, is hope that’s the last.”
He then turned to Wildcard.
“Is it?”
Wildcard nodded.
“It’s done.”
Luna sighed, and waved them all off. She approached Wildcard through them, and put a hoof on his shoulder.
“You have done well for Equestria on this day. Tomorrow, you will begin your duties as head of the Home Guard. I expect to see you in the briefings once more, and I’ll speak to you in the morning. This ship will return to Canterlot shortly, it’s yours now.”
She then leaned forward, and whispered in Wildcards ear.
“Was it painful?”
“Yes.”
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Uh, what happened down there?
4971744
4971743
4971740
How did you do that?
4974033
I keep getting all excited for comments, and then finding out it's actually just the page being broken.
:(
If I understand right, you're quoting the entire page or something.
Cut that out :(
4974057
This is super annoy though I'm gonna fix it.
4974064
I DID THAT TIME
I get a blip on my page for any comments on my stories.
When it told me I had three new comments I got super excited, and then it was just you messing around.
:(
Anyway, I have no clue what's going to happen next. It looks like everything has been wrapped up... Except for Wildcard and First Class become leaders.
4974099
The Night Guard arc has wrapped up, but there's still the outstanding issue of Wildcard vs Chrysalis.
Also some idiot named Trotsky.
Once I'm done re-editting Desk and ACHNE, the finale will be released with a huge cliffhanger for volume two.
If you have any feedback to give, now is the perfect time.
4974150 Other than, 'this is an amazing story don't stop', and 'how long do we have to wait for volume 2', I got nothing.
4974174
I love you.