CH 32: Depth of Field
=== BABW: A New Conflict ===
=== Chapter 32: Depth of Field ===
[ November 19, 2081 – SPH US South Headquarters near Atlanta, USA ]
===================================================================
“This is strange… I have never been in a dream as lucid as this…” Linda Bowman mused aloud, as she walked through the empty chapel to the cathedral. A player organ played atmospheric music – a somber refrain that filled the air.
The dreamscape itself reminded Linda of her youth, a great cathedral in Nouvelle Baton Rouge that had become a favorite of the many Haitian immigrants and their children that made up a fair chunk of the great diaspora that filled the streets and apartments in the Southern megalopolis.
“I have a question for you…” a feminine voice of seemingly infinite age spoke, her matronly tone resounding through the empty halls of the dreamscape chapel.
“Who is speaking? I can’t very well answer a question if I don’t know who’s asking…” Linda responded, as she looked around the chapel, trying to figure who might have been in this hall with her.
She continued to look around for a few moments, eventually realizing that she was alone in the chapel, for the most part anyway. Aside from the automatically playing organ that continued to fill the hall with low volume but still distinct music, there was only a statue of an angel in the center of the hall, where the pulpit for a pastor normally would be.
“This space is derived from your own memory…” the statue stated, the female angel that stood straight, her wings flared, holding a sword pointed at the ground in her right hand, and a flame in her upturned left hand near her torso. “Your faith is deep, and unshakable; the foundation of your entire being is as firm as any bedrock on Earth.”
“The church has been central in my life ever since I could remember. My Haitian-born parents ensured that we never forgot our faith or our home culture even as we became more ingrained in American culture after the Abandonment[1],” Linda replied.
“A noble effort, but…” the angelic statue started, with Linda now but a few feet from her, standing in the center aisle of the pews for the phantasmal parishioners.
“Yes?” Linda asked, wondering where the ‘speaking’ statue was going with this line of questioning.
“It is fair to say that another is trying to integrate itself into your culture, speaking on the macro-level, yes?” the statue asked.
Linda’s eyes narrowed, figuring where the statue was going already. “Yes, those aliens seem to be making quite an effort to make themselves at home. How they can do such a thing, and yet not have a base of operations that we can find is beyond me.”
“I fear they are trying to do far worse than merely ‘make themselves at home’. I fear that they wish to make this their new home,” the statue replied.
“And what would make you say that?” Linda replied, as she continued to stand near the statue that stood nearly fifteen feet tall, two and a half times Linda’s height and then some.
“Look at all the effort they made the first time around to change your brothers and sisters into their own. And now they have brought more and varied kinds of aliens,” the statue started, as its eyes began to glow, and an otherworldly power began to fill the air in the chapel.
Linda grabbed at her temple, feeling a slight headache come on, as she could feel something flooding her psyche, but wasn’t sure what it was.
“They even went so far as to take your own son. Your lone child, bearer of your legacy, and they took it from you. Then they had the temerity to slowly brainwashed him into becoming their sword – a sword that will warp and twist this world into one of their own image,” the statue continued, it’s eyes still glowing an otherworldly color; almost devoid of such as far as Linda’s eyes could register in the dreamscape.
“My son… a… monster…” Linda said, as she fell to her knees before the statue, remember the trauma of five months past. The demonic horse that claimed to the harbinger of the End, a creature that was ripped right from the fevered nightmares of civilizations long past, one that shared the voice of her son, even as its madness was evident, one that came as quickly as he left, the titanic surge of mana suddenly ceasing, as the Equestrians fled in retreat back across the Aurora Barrier. All of those things flooded into Linda’s mind with that one statement, as she looked as she did all those months ago, her mind tottering on the edge of sanity itself.
“But I did not appear before you just to dredge up past trauma. I have come before you to bring you the instrument of this world’s salvation,” the statue continued, as the stone flame that the statue held in its hand crumbled, replaced by an actual flame of bluish-purple tint.
“This flame represents your soul, and see how bright it burns. Despite your trauma, you still have much to give to this world. And it is time this spark is cultivated into righteous flames, flames that will burn away this world’s corruption,” the statue exhorted, as Linda slowly began to rise to her feet, the tears streaming down her face.
“That is why I joined the Society, to become the flame that will burn away the corruption of the alien menace. No matter how many or what they drag over here from their cesspool… we will turn them away, and if need be… destroy them utterly,” Linda replied, as she looked at her own flame in the hand of the angelic statue.
“Then I will bestow this power upon you, but with one admonition. Not all flames are meant to burn the enemy directly. Not every instrument of war is a sword meant to cleave the enemy in twain. Your role may not be the flame that burns, but the flame that tempers the sword. But what you do with this power is ultimately yours to decide. I only trust that you will make a sound one, in the end,” the statue stated sternly, imparting the gravity of the situation as best it could upon the cocoa-skinned woman in front of her.
“I understand. If my role is to temper the sword, or light the enemy ablaze myself, I will fulfill it to all my ability,” Linda replied with all of the loyalty and gusto she could muster.
“Then let your will be done!” the statue said as the flame left its hand, and flew into the chest of Linda.
==--==
“Ugh, I really hope hallucinations aren’t some kind of side-effect of this drug,” Linda said as she woke up, working the cobwebs out of her consciousness, and looking carefully at the visage in the mirror.
“I don’t look a day over 30 now. I think I may be willing to put up with a lucid dream or three if this is the result,” Linda said, as she held the vial of small pills labeled Rejuvinus[2].
A chirping and buzzing started from her cell-phone like mini-terminal linked to her brain-implants, showing a missive having come down from base headquarters for a short meeting regarding the aptitude test she had recently taken.
“It’s time to see where the higher-ups want to put me now, I guess,” Linda thought aloud as she grabbed her ‘dress’ uniform jacket, being careful not to get caught on her still-rejuvenating figure.
“The organization should make incredible profit from this drug if they went to market with it, but I need to be on my way. I can indulge my vanity later,” Linda thought aloud again, as she left her dormitory room after putting her ‘black shield’ cap on her head.
==--==
It was almost mid-day along the East Coast of the United States, and by extension Atlanta, and they were still buzzing from a recent report in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“We are looking for a Mrs. Linda Bowman, Enlisted ID 80049,” a stern looking man in a similar black uniform to Linda’s said, the lone difference was a single red stripe that indicated he was a low-ranking officer in enlistment.
“I am her,” Linda stated confidently, as some of the other, and younger enlisted looked at the middle-aged woman who had shed 15 years off her person in the last couple of weeks.
“I can see why her husband was so attached to her, if I had a chance at that I wouldn’t let it go myself…” one of them said, as Linda walked out of earshot of the ensuing conversation.
I want to just accept you are gone, Andrew, but I can’t. Something in me says you are still alive somewhere; but only Heaven knows where… Linda thought to herself as she walked into the officer’s small office, holding her head as a splitting migraine started as she did.
=-- Meanwhile in Safe Haven --=
“Really? That is what happened during your Hallow… well I guess you would call it Nightmare Night party?” Andrew said as he continued his conversation with Blue Vague on the inter-dimensional video phone.
“No pops, that is what happened before the party. The party itself was mostly unremarkable aside from everyone’s reactions to the movies we showed. I was surprised Fluttershy was so calm during the couple of slasher pics we showed. Well, after the first couple of scenes anyway. It was actually Rainbow Dash that was the most jumpy of the lot of them,” Blue Vague replied, chuckling a bit after the last statement.
“From when, Fluttershy I believe, talked to me, she had the eyes of a mare who has seen a lot of things, some of them that’d make a lot of grown men vomit in disgust or shock. Working around sick and dying animals would do that, I’d wager,” Andrew figured.
“That’s a good way to think of it,” Blue Vague replied, as the conversation continued on.
=-- --=
“Okay, let’s pluck your file out of here, Mrs. Linda, now that you got your head back on your shoulders square,” the officer said as he Linda was calmed down again, her pain abated to a ignorable level. “Alright, let’s see… oh, this is very interesting.”
“Interesting?” Linda said, as she sipped some more on headache-medicine-laced water.
“It’s interesting because you, my good madam, have one of the highest officer aptitude scores of anyone we’ve tested that wasn’t part of any kind of organized militia, paramilitary group, or national military before,” the officer said, as he showed the scores on a mid-air projecting screen built into the conference table.
“As you can see, my dear, your scores as both a front-line commander and ‘desk officer’, as it were, are both well above the average for our recruits. However, your scores as a front line soldier are below average, though we are not sure if that was because of any lingering physical issue that we weren’t able to account for at first,” the officer concluded for the time being.
“So what you are saying is that I shouldn’t be carrying a thauma-rifle, but sitting in a command van telling everyone where they need to be?” Linda responded with an even tone, trying to take in what she was hearing.
“If I had it to control all by myself… that is exactly what I’d say. We have people who can shoot guns and blow stuff up as well as anyone else. But what will make this all work will be good officers that can tell them who to shoot, and what to blow up. Without that, we’re just roving bands of thugs in snappy black uniforms and armor, and we don’t want that, now do we?” the officer replied.
“No sir, not at all,” Linda replied politely.
“In any case, we are taking you out of the rotation until my recommendation for reclassification is processed, which should take about 48 hours give or take. In the meantime, I would try and find whoever you can in the officer corps you can talk to, and pick their brains a bit. If everything goes through like I think it should, we should be ready to put you through our 8-week training course before long,” the officer replied.
“I see. I think you for this opportunity,” Linda replied.
As I told you before… you may not be the flame that burns the enemy, but instead the flame that tempers the swords to be forged in their opposition… a voice told Linda, which made her stop halfway out of the sliding door.
“Is there something troubling you, Mrs. Bowman?” the officer asked, with some mild concern.
“No no, just a stray thought…” Linda said, as she smiled politely and walked back to her dorm, silently contemplating the potential source of the voice and the earlier vision.
~=== Roughly the same time, in Ponyville, Equestria ===~
“I swear Rainbow Dash, you are one of the most unable-to-stay-still Ponies I have ever had to deal with. Even when I was fitting Scootaloo for that outfit for her school dance, she wasn’t nearly as fidgety,” Rarity complained, as she tried to mark off bits of a lycra-based outfit.
“I don’t see why you couldn’t have gotten Applejack to help you model this stuff…” Rainbow Dash replied in an annoyed huff, as upset as Rarity as she squirmed from the white Unicorn tightening certain bits and loosening other bits of the prototype outfit she was wearing.
“I’m trying to keep you all from freezing your flanks off while you work on the snow events for the coming Hearth’s-Warming and Winter Moon celebrations,” Rarity said, as she got a small yelp of pain out of Rainbow Dash from tightening a strip of cloth near the base of her wings near her shoulder joints.
“Can you do it in a way that doesn’t cut off circulation or breathing?” Rainbow Dash replied with a strained voice, the tight cloth making it somewhat difficult to breathe. After a few moments, Rarity loosened the cloth enough to allow for comfortable air-flow again.
“And to answer your earlier question, Miss Dash, Applejack is the wrong model entirely. I got something for the ‘athletic Earth Pony’ build, but right now it’s ‘similarly athletic Pegasus’ day,” Rarity replied, as she put up color swatches next to the lavender base she was using, trying to find a good shade of blue that wouldn’t blend in too much with the sky, but still be noticeable and close to what as on the national flags.
“Anyway, I got a letter from that Gryphon I was telling you from about way back when we went to Vogelstad. It seems like he’s graduated from the Marksmanship School there and is heading to Safe Haven as part of a new contingent of volunteers,” Rainbow Dash reported, with a remarkable scholastic tone.
“Really, and how would you know all of that,” Rarity asked with a bit of a teasing tone, figuring why Rainbow Dash would know something so specific about the Gryphon volunteer rotations.
“Because that Gryphon sent me a big, long letter about it a few days ago…” Rainbow Dash replied with a matter of fact tone.
“Oh really, do tell,” Rarity said, her tone still light.
Rainbow Dash finally caught on to the tone of Rarity, and quickly tried to dissuade her from her assumptions. “Wait what, it’s not like that. I know what kind of letters Flash Sentry has been writing Twilight, especially since Twilight can’t help herself but blab about them… like a lot, but Godfrey’s letters are nothing like that.”
“Oh so his name is Godfrey, that’s quite a nice name for a Gryphon. I think it means ‘warrior of peace’ in the old version of Kattsprache,” Rarity mentioned, remembering leafing through a book of Gryphon Baby Name a couple of years before.
“Yeah, I think that’s what Gilda told me when I asked her about it,” Rainbow Dash confirmed, Rarity continued working on the prototype on Rainbow’s body.
“Eh? He’s related to Gilda, I didn’t know you were into bad-colt Gryphons, as it were,” Rarity teased.
“I’m not, and he’s not like that, and stop assuming this is some mushy thing, seriously,” Rainbow Dash complained. “He’s kind of a quiet guy, not that different form Fluttershy, except the thing that gets him talking is ranged weaponry – bows, rifles, and the like.”
“Sounds a bit like Twilight when we first met her. She was so about her mission of Friendship research, she forgot it was more sociology than physics,” Rarity figured aloud.
“Yeah, I guess. So he’s gonna be at Safe Haven starting on the 24th, for how long, I dunno. If I read his letter right he has to be there a minimum of 60 days before he can ask to be relocated. Though knowing him he might be a kid in a candy store with all the stuff the humans have built,” Rainbow Dash recalled and then figured.
“Oh that’s great, we were planning to go back at the end of the month, so that’ll be the perfect time to maybe… spark something between the two of you,” Rarity continued with wide smile.
“Of course you’d think that…” Rainbow Dash replied with a groan.
[ November 21, 2081 – Manhattan, New York City, USA ]
=====================================================
“I am pleased to report that the rebuilding of our communication and analysis infrastructure is almost complete, Leader-1,” the nervous CIA Director said, as Yanovich seemed to be constantly wiping his brow out of anxiety.
“That is good news, first good news we’ve had in some time,” Peter, as Leader-1, replied, his body language denoting calm like the other two of his cohorts that sat in on the five-person conference call.
“Sir, if I may. We now have control of 80% of the Congress, most of our enemies having resigned in disgust, and the state and municipal governments have been more than forthcoming in offering us replacements that are, how you would say, amenable to our positions,” the fifth man said, as he looked on with an attitude of near glee at what he was reporting to the masked leaders of the SPH.
“More good news, this means that no matter what Aguillar thinks she might be able to do, she is utterly powerless to stop us from writing our will into black-and-white law,” Leader-3 said, as she scrolled across a tablet pad looking at the names of the new legislators that were to function more or less as a rubber-stamp for the Society now.
“Not that she has tried anything in recent months; if anything she has been remarkably docile. It makes me nervous to a small extent…” Leader-2 mused, thinking about what the President might have been planning.
“I am not sure what she could be plotting from her position, at least anything that would be significant or relevant to us,” Leader-1 countered.
“If I may, sir,” the fifth man offered. “Aguillar is not to be underestimated. She was nothing more than Attorney General of California when she ran for President, only to take this country’s politics by absolute storm. Even in a position where she has no effective power, she still has her office, and if she were willing to take the risk, could attempt to galvanize the public into open revolt against us.”
“Speaker Wilmington, you seem to have some level of conviction about Aguillar not being in as prone a position as we would believe,” Leader-2 questioned, the bemusement evident in her voice despite the masking.
“I am just attempting to be cautious. With the HEA apparently having operating capacity around the world, and the resistance movements still gathering some level of legitimacy in the eyes of the public, it would not take as much as we’d like to believe to galvanize a true counter-revolution. We cannot afford to close our eyes to that,” Wilmington replied, the anxiety starting to creep into his voice.
“It is true… the resistance movements might have hit some level of stalemate in trying to take the cities, but every day that goes by that we are aren’t able to put out these fires, are days where the flames go stronger. Though my project is still in the works to help up finally quell this uprising, we are still ignorant to what their or the HEAs capabilities are,” Leader-3 explained.
“Along those lines, Leader-3 – although our intelligence apparatus is fully functioning, we are scarcely able to gather more information on the leaders of the resistance other than prior occupations and online communities they have frequented in the past. Someone is teaching them, or they may already know, how to muddle their tracks enough to where, if we do not have human operators in the field, it will be difficult to track them. On top of that, I am especially concerned about the leader of the resistance movement in Los Angeles,” Director Yanovich, explained, with a large amount of trepidation.
“Why would Los Angeles be of particular concern?” Leader-1 asked.
“The leader of the resistance is a woman only known as ‘Amanda’. She has absolutely no history beyond two months ago in that city, period. Nothing even as rudimentary as a Social Security number; it is as if she was created out of whole cloth two months ago,” Yanovich said. “Even with a pseudonym, we would still be able to trace community registrations and health records enough to figure out who these people are. To have a complete and total wildcard like her show up, something doesn’t feel right about it.”
“So a totally unknown, anonymous woman has come completely out of nowhere to galvanize one of the strongest resistance militias in the Americas. Something smells utterly rotten about this, indeed,” Leader-1 grumbled, knowing full well the problems he was starting to have out of the whole of the American Southwest due to Amanda’s success.
~== Around the same time in the White House ==~
“So how long do you think they’re gonna hang on to the Caged Bird?” an SPH guard asked of another, as they stood post near the bedroom for President Aguillar.
“No telling, they own so much of the legis and courts now it probably doesn’t matter,” the other guard replied.
As they were talking, another guard walked near the corner, sunglasses hiding his eyes… which were a sharp royal blue – and slitted like a large reptiles.
I believe I am in the right hall now. This will teach me to trust Jacques with his intel instead of just relying upon my own instinct, Silentclaw thought to himself, as several guards laid on the ground in the hall he took to this one, his body now visually matching one of guards’ diluted Asian descent.
“At some point, we won’t have a reason to keep holding her. I mean just having her here being a symbol of what was and what the Outsiders were trying to do…” one of the guards started, before he was cut off by the other by the double doors.
“And that’s why the rumor is floating around that she won’t make it too far into ’82,” the second guard said; Silentclaw using an enhancement spell to be able to her the two clearly without needing to be all that close.
That’s an ill sign, but I doubt they would just dispose of her; that would do no more than make her a martyr. There has to be something else that’d prelude such an action… Silentclaw thought, as he was kneeling on one knee behind the corner that joined the two hallways.
“Ok but say we get rid of her, then that’d just make it obvious we’re trying to off anyone opposing Leadership. They probably gotta make it look like an accident or some kind of monster attack; something that wouldn’t immediately arouse suspicion,” the first guard said.
“Ain’t no tellin’. Hell those other monsters people on the ‘Net been talking about might do it for us. You heard about that explosion in the Charlotte slums a week or so ago, right?” the second guard said.
“Yeah the eyewitnesses said they saw a flaming horse, coat black as pitch, and even taller than the White Princess,” the first guard thought aloud, as he was remembering the news reports and social media posts out of the Charlotte area.
Giant black flaming horse… that sounds like Nightmare Moon to a small extent, but her mane was like a wild nebula, not blue flames. Damn, it could be the Mythiks the Conduit of Fire was talking about, this world has non-Human Sapients just waiting to come back, and they surely wouldn’t follow any protocol we set forth… Silentclaw suddenly realized, as he contemplated the image given by the two guards.
“All I know is, we better consolidate our power now, while we have a chance for it…” the first guard said, as they saw the third clear the corner, sunglasses still on his face.
“Hey, it’s not time for shift change yet, you shouldn’t be here for another fifteen minutes, at least,” the second guard said as the third place a hand on each their shoulders.
“Let’s just say, friends, you are being dismissed a few moments early… Walnnun Lajza[3],” chanted briefly, as bluish runes appeared in a flash on the third guards face.
The two guard made brief yelps of protest, before falling into a deep slumber within seconds, collapsing to the floor in a pair of snoring heaps. After a few more moments of moving prone bodies, the disguised Silentclaw stood before the bedroom of the President of the United States, wondering what exactly may lay across the threshold.
Hoepfully she is still in one piece, and of sound mind… Silentclaw said, as he slid in one of the guard’s keycards, unlocking the door.
Silentclaw walked inside, noting the bedroom was quite large – easily the size of a den in a typical Dragon residence, and therefore probably could comfortably house several humans, most likely in a familial unit. He looked around to the right and to the left, seeing a small kitchen area, some inactive compu-pads, a large pile of paper with all manners of notes written on it.
“Whatever Madame President has been doing during this internment must be occupying a lot of her mental energy…” Silentclaw mused aloud, but quietly.
“Quite a lot of mental energy, drawing up all manners of laws to pass once I’m returned to power. I plan to make the SPH and anyone allied with them scream bloody murder by every legal means I’ll have available to me,” a somewhat gruff but feminine voice said.
“I assume that is you, Madame President?” the disguised Dragon asked politely, as he looked at the woman in business casual dress, her hair decidedly graying from all the stress put upon her in the last few months, but looking none the worse for wear otherwise.
“It’s rare that any of my guards would take interest in these notes; all they can see are the scribblings of a deposed leader slowly descending into madness. I would like to think I am still quite sane and quite sharp mentally,” President Aguillar said as she sat down at the chair; unnervingly calm in the presence, ostensibly, of a guardsman of the organization that had deposed her from effective control of the nation.
“I can assure you, anyone who thought otherwise is merely deluding themselves. I would have suspected some measure of histrionics, or at least anxiety, at me finding all of these legal notes and plans,” the disguised Silentclaw stated, having long since closed the door to afford the two of them privacy.
“Call it a politician’s, or prosecutor’s, instinct, but I feel that I can trust you far more than anyone else I would have access to at the moment,” President Aguillar stated, as she looked over one of her recent drafts, looking for any large loopholes or anything similar.
“Would you mind if I divulged a bit?” Silentclaw stated, as he stood near the small round worktable, opposite where Aguillar was sitting.
“No, not at all, within reason of course,” Melinda replied, raising her head to look the guard in his eyes.
She was mildly shocked when the guard took off his sunglasses, and revealed the brilliant sapphire blue eyes – eyes that were anything but human.
“… Interesting…” Aguillar stated, doing her best not to show the shock she was feeling at the moment.
Silentclaw quietly dispelled the glamour coating his body, the Draconic-tinged mana wafting off of his body as he reabsorbed it, revealing his true body - the almost six-foot tall, black and blue-spined Dragon of almost eight hundred years of age, though his body hardly showed any wear all those years on it.
“You remind me of one of Celestia’s fellow travelers, though clearly older and much more… robust… in stature,” Aguillar stated, catching her breath after a momentary lapse.
“If you saw him now, you would probably be as surprised, assuming we are thinking of the same once-small Dragon,” Silentclaw replied, as he took a chair and sat down, crooking his tail to not cramp it or get it stuck in the back.
“You seem very casual for an alien in the middle of one of the most populated strongholds of an ostensibly anti-alien installation,” Melinda stated, looking the lizard-like-man in the eyes, finding a serenity that was calming to her.
“I have to be, my stock in trade is infiltration for intelligence gathering purposes. I must be calm in my words and my actions, lest I arouse suspicion. Plus it is difficult to maintain a glamour when your emotions are out of balance,” Silentclaw replied.
“Point taken. In any case, I suspect you are not here just for a friendly chat with a mostly deposed leader of a major nation?” Aguillar asked of the Dragon in front of her.
“No, in fact I do have important news for you,” Silentclaw started, as he reached into a hidden satchel on his person. “It is in regard to this…”
Aguillar looked at the amethyst necklace the Dragon pulled from seemingly nowhere, thinking back to five months ago. “I appreciate the offer, but I remained here to at least act as some kind of buffer against the SPH.”
Silentclaw merely sighed, chuckling internally at the stubbornness shown by the President. “Madame President, I mean not to browbeat you into a decision, but you don’t have any more power here. You can probably figure from looking at the roster of the new members of your legislature, but the SPH has filled with their allies and cronies. The executive departments and courts are similarly stacked with SPH sycophants and fellow-travelers. Much like Celestia had to face the option of retreat to fight again at a later date, so do you.”
“I know, but a part of me doesn’t want to give Vaughn the satisfaction of that level of victory,” Aguillar stated, the calm in her voice giving to some measure of frustration and anger, thinking of the red-masked man who called himself Leader-1 for his public appearances.
“I can see that now. But you also know that, especially at this moment, the entire line of succession is populated by their followers. If anything were to happen to you, then we would be left with a government entirely in their control, instead of just mostly,” Silentclaw argued, trying to get the President to see things his way.
“I know, I know. This Caged Bird lives on borrowed time the longer she stays here. At the same time… this is my office, I was elected to do a job, and I am prepared to see it through to the bitter end,” President Aguillar stated, a strong level of conviction in her voice as she did.
The runes reappeared on Silentclaw’s face, as he softly chanted “Cudlav Emssawt[4]”, a grid-like pattern appearing across the floor, the outer walls, and the ceiling of the bedroom/suite the President and he sat in. He then stood up, and put his clawed hands on top of the table, to look at sternly as he could into the eyes of President Aguillar, but still maintain his verbal even-tone. “Look, Madame President, I can see in your eyes you are willing to die to see your ideals carried through this office. And as much as I trust your vice president Mr. Oberweiss, this nation, and this world needs you alive to serve out your term and to serve as a voice a reason once it expires. You have a chance to be written into the history books as a woman that not only guided a nation as it’s leader for eight full years, but being able to guide leaders of the future along the same path that you are trailblazing. You cannot very well do that deceased, at least not with any measure of ease…”
President Aguillar stood up as well, meeting Silentclaw’s pose along the table with one of her own, placing her hands across the table from his, looking at him with the same stern-but-measured visage that he had on his face. “Trust me, I know what you mean by that. At the same time, I cannot very well abandon my post; a ship’s captain must see her duty through to the end.”
“I will not stand here and watch a woman make herself a martyr before her time,” Silentclaw stated with a small measure of anger to his voice now; the two creatures now locking horns rhetorically like a pair of stags would literally.
“And I will not stand here while an alien, as well meaning as he is, tells me to flee my post in rank self-preservation,” Melinda rejoined, the two of them practically staring daggers into his eyes.
“It seems that we are at an impasse this day,” Silentclaw stated, as he placed the necklace in the center of the table, equidistant from their pair of hands.
“It seems that we are…” Aguillar stated, as she picked the necklace up, examining it.
“I can see now why you are a dangerous entity politically,” Silentclaw stated, as he folded his arms, looking at the woman with a level of bemusement as she put the necklace on, seemingly completely opposite to the words she said earlier.
Aguillar tapped the center of the necklace a couple of times, quietly marveling at the visible Shadow-aligned mana within the crystal. “Today may not be the day for me to leave either this office or this plane of life. But I will meet either day with the same resolve I showed just now.”
Mr. Silentclaw, I can see that President Aguillar placed the necklace on her person, should I go ahead with the Evac? a Dragon tech asked the head of Intelligence for his nation’s Council.
No, that will not be necessary at the current time. I am willing to place trust in the good Madame President that she can account for her own health and safety until we can find a better opportunity… Silentclaw responded mentally to the telepathic request.
“The time may come tomorrow, or maybe weeks from now. But I will come calling again,” Silentclaw stated, as he made to leave Aguillar’s presence, and residence.
“I look forward to the next time, count on that,” Melinda stated, as she looked on at the Dragon with a silent acknowledgement of the resolve he showed in trying to rescue her that day. “Besides, I can reasonably figure I have a guardian angel, or several, looking over me through this necklace. I merely want to ascertain, with my own eyes and ears, the full extent of what those SPH bastards have planned.”
“And I merely ask that you maintain your guard until we can do so for you,” Silentclaw replied, as he dispelled the sound-blocking spell, and exited the suite, resuming his human guise.
~== An hour or so later, in Safe Haven ==~
“So, I’m to understand the American President refused Evac back here?” Admantia grumbled, hearing the news from recent events straight from the Dragon-in-qestion’s mouth.
“Indeed, and she was as adamant about it as you can manage without raising your voice. To be honest I was taken aback for a few moments,” Slientclaw admitted to the Dragoness several hundred years his junior, but possessing actual jurisdiction in this scenario.
“I would imagine, you have a way with coaxing beneficial statements or decisions out of your targets. But, as you implied earlier, she simply refused to leave until she felt comfortable with her first-hand knowledge of the Black Shield’s plans,” Admantia nodded knowingly.
“Madame President is entitled to her decisions, though I fear how your wider plans could degenerate if she were to die, especially while in their custody. As much as the public could be galvanized by her being a martyr, I do have the feeling she is of particular political talent, and I would not want Mr. Oberweiss or anyone else pressed into a decision making position by her untimely death. Plus, if she were to die in their custody, but we then unseat the Black Shield, we could end up with a succession problem that is ultimately unsolvable,” Silentclaw figured, hoping the latter scenario would remain a hypothetical.
“And the last thing the HEA or any of you all would want is a major power on Earth with a confused status as to who the leader of said power is…” Admantia concluded.
“I would be more comfortable if we could get a human asset into the White House to keep tabs and call us if anything were to happen, that Pres. Aguillar’s intuition couldn’t red-flag for us,” Silentclaw stated; contemplating what might needed to be done in the near future.
Admantia nodded, as she continued to contemplate the situation. That was, until a beep appeared on a device sitting on her desk.
“Hrm, the computing and messaging machine has a note for you, it appears,” Silentclaw said, as he looked at the blinking light on the computer pad that sat on said desk.
“You can just call it a computer, I swear…” Admantia chuckled, as she read the message silently to herself.
“I could, but sometimes I like being humorously obtuse,” Silentclaw replied, as he looked at the eyes of Admantia narrowing a bit. “Is the message of some concern?”
“Somewhat… our investigators in the city of Charlotte on this side have completed their preliminary look at that recent incident of a ‘monster’ sighting. They’ve been able to rule out the source of the magic that sparked the conflagration at the mass settlement building being started by Thaumatic-epsilon based magic, and they were able to nail down a more consistent description of the beast that in all likelihood is our culprit,” Admantia started, as she ‘pecked’ at an option button on the active screen to print out a copy of the report on a nearby printer.
After a few moments of waiting, both she and Silentclaw were reading over the HEA investigative team’s initial report. As she had stated before, they were able to rule out the blaze that damaged the near-bottom floors of a giant housing project as started by Equaan-derived Magic. And they finally had, for themselves, a solid enough description of the ‘monster’ the residents and passers-by saw those evenings ago.
“Alright, according to these eyewitness reports and follow-up interviews, the beast that started this blaze was apparently a gigantic horse, easily taller than either Equestrian Princess or most draught-breeds of Terran horses. They estimated the height at… 3 meters to its withers, and black like obsidian…” Silentclaw stated, as he looked at his own scale color in a moment of contemplation. “The most distinguishing thing about this beast, aside from its apparently massive size, was the fact it had a mane of pure flame, as far as the witnesses could tell – head, neck, tail, and fetlocks were all nothing but intense, red to orange to yellow flame.”
Admantia looked through an online photo and art gallery of horse-based monsters in Human mythology, both modern and classical, and found a hit for the description given. “I see, it seems to resemble the monster the Human refer to when speaking of a ‘Nightmare’.”
The Dragoness tapped another icon on her pad, displaying the picture on the projector built into her pad. Silentclaw took a good look at the image, commenting on how relevant the name was.
“Yes, I can see why a beast of this nature would be called a ‘Nightmare’, hopefully Celestia doesn’t fall and become such a monstrosity.”
Admantia sighed and agreed. “Indeed, both worlds could be ruined in short order if a being as powerful Celestia were to become the flame-equivalent to Nightmare Moon, but that is another thought for another time. What still intrigues me, in a somewhat morbid way, is the statement they said someone shouted over the din of the chaos caused by the fires the Nightmare started.”
“A statement? Ah I see: ‘This is but the beginning! The world of Man is overgrown like weeds, and we will come to reclaim our territory!’ It appears that we will have to contend with Mythiks who are going to look to reclaim whatever territory they feel they have lost, practically immediately after they begin manifesting en masse,” Silentclaw read, as he skipped ahead in the short stack of papers he was reading through to the relevant passages.
“Call it a wild hunch, but I would not be surprised if the beast itself made this statement. There is nothing in the interviews that said the beast was feral in any manner,” Admantia figured.
“Because we didn’t have enough problems already… I just hope that we will have enough time to establish ourselves before we are having to fight a two-front conflict with both the Society and these rogue reclaimers,” Silentclaw groused, upset that he had such little information on a potential enemy this close to showing itself in full.
“I believe we all are, Silentclaw. Let us hope that Tiamat’s spirit will guide us through this turbulence,” Admantia offered, as she took a few moments to gather her thoughts before tending to other business.
~~~=====~~~
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