28 -- Dulce et Decorum est
“My fellow Americans-- no, that isn’t right anymore. To the free peoples of Earth and beyond, I stand before you a humbled man. Throughout the course of my investigation I had sought the worst possible explanation at every turn, since that is unfortunately the case in this day and age. I saw connections with the inhuman and concluded sinister intent. I saw operations across sovereign borders and assumed they were the nefarious. I went looking for evil, and I had thought that I had found it.
“But I now stand before you all to say the words that are so rare from those elected to office: I was wrong.
“I’ve spoken with the survivors from New Zealand; policemen, office workers, housewives, and children. They all have suffered tragedies at the hands of the alien invaders that can never be undone and should never be forgotten. They have also shared stories of heroism and sacrifice the likes of which has never been seen in the history of this planet. For the first time, we have been attacked by forces that did not originate on this world.
“At the same time, we were found by a people so much like us in both temperament, loyalty, and outrage at the actions of the invaders. For every story of horror I heard from the survivors, I also heard a story of courage and sacrifice about our unexpected allies. They came to the aid of all of us, not for promises of trade or wealth. These precious volunteers came here of their own free will because they saw that a potential friend was in need.
“It is because of this that I now stand before you, a man humbled and ashamed of his actions. The Equestrians came to this world to defend their friends, and I did everything within my power to make them regret their selfless actions. At this time, I intend to correct my errors by voting in favor of this bill and resigning from my position afterward. I have done a disservice to my office, this country, and the human race, and I hope you will all help me in rectifying it.”
—Senator Patrick Goleman, speaking before an emergency session of the United States House of Representatives and Senate regarding the deployment of troops and support to assist the ‘XCOM’ organization.
------
18:45, 12/10/2015, DETROIT, MICHIGAN
William Jenkins, or Will to his friends, kicked off his boots as he shuffled into the kitchen of his family’s home. He had just enough willpower left to pull open the refrigerator and retrieve the half-eaten ham sandwich before falling heavily into one of the chairs beside the kitchen table. He had just gotten half the sandwich into his mouth when he froze. Dirt and grime had migrated from his fingers to the bread slices, and he faced a terrible choice. Hunger won over better judgement, and the rest of the sandwich disappeared into his mouth before he shuffled over to the sink to wash his hands.
The TV hummed briefly as it clicked on, and Will tuned out the noise of a politician giving some sort of rousing speech as he resumed his seat at the table. He leaned to one side to retrieve a crumpled pay stub from his back pocket before eyeing the nearly tread-less boots he had kicked off near the doorway. It really isn’t safe to be working outside without better boots, and I'm sure that account Lana set up for us wouldn't be hurt if I took a little out, he thought, before chewing his lip and glancing down at the pay stub. Mom's right, though. It's for emergencies only, and this doesn't qualify. I think I can make the boots last a little while longer.
An idle glance out the window caused Will to groan. I should have known, he thought as he caught sight of the first fat snowflakes of the year come tumbling down from the evening sky. His grumbling was interrupted briefly when the lights from a passing car illuminated the gloomy neighborhood. Probably some kids looking for some place to cause trouble without getting caught. God knows there’s enough abandoned houses in this neighborhood that they could probably get away with anything short of arson.
The young man had just started to zone out by debating the virtues of saving versus spending when a knock came from the front door. “We’re not interested!” he shouted, and a growl followed as the knock could be heard again. If they’re persisting, then it might be the cops. Will thought as he walked to the door. His eyes strayed to the use-worn baseball bat that rested in the umbrella rack before he reached for the doorknob. If it’s someone who wants trouble, then it’s best to deal with it now.
“I said we’re—!” he said, but the words caught in his throat as he opened the door.
A man and a woman stood on the doorstep, both clad in a gray and gold uniform, but that wasn’t what made him pause. A glossy black SUV was parked on the street outside of the house, and two soldiers with heavy body armor and rifles stood watch, but that wasn’t what caused him to hesitate either. It wasn’t even that he recognized the man at the doorstep as his sister’s superior officer, or that he appeared to have a sword on his belt. It was the empty sleeve of the dress uniform, folded up halfway past the elbow, that he couldn’t tear his eyes from.
“William Jenkins,” Matt Harris said evenly as he reached up with his right arm with some effort and tucked his hat under whatever was left of his left arm. “Is your mother home?”
“Do you feel a draft, William?” Mom yelled from upstairs, and the diminutive woman started marching down the stairs. She was bundled up in her winter coat already and her purse over her shoulder when she caught sight of the source. “Why do you have the door open?! We aren’t paying to heat the neighbo—” Her rant died just as easily as it started, and a single shaking hand rose to cover her mouth.
“Lorie Jenkins, may we come inside?” Matt asked. His tone filled William with a creeping dread he hadn’t felt in years. “It’s concerning your daughter, Elaine.”
Mom drew in a ragged breath as she descended the stairs. She dug into her purse and produced a mess of crumpled bills as well as the keys to the van. “William, I want you to gather your brothers and go see a movie, okay? Can you do that for me, please?”
“Mom, what’s going on?” Will asked, his voice strained as he stared at the offered money. “We can’t afford that! Shouldn’t we be—”
“JUST GO!”
The shout was enough to make Will recoil, and he didn’t protest as the money and keys were thrust into his hands. The sounds of Mom’s sobbing chased him down the hallway, and he had just rounded the corner when Robert’s head poked out of his room. “What’s going on? Why’s Mom yelling?” he asked, and Will turned to face his younger brother.
“Robby, you just got your driver’s license, right?” Will asked, and when the younger Jenkins nodded, he passed the money and keys to him. “You and the younger ones are going to the movies. You’re going to drive ten miles per hour below the speed limit and make sure everyone gets popcorn and a drink, alright? If you do that for me, I’ll introduce you to one of my cute co-workers over Christmas break. Deal?”
“Billy, what’s going on?” Robert asked again, and he winced when Will turned towards him. “Okay, I’ll do it. Will you be okay?”
“Don’t worry about it, just take the younger ones out and have fun,” the older brother ordered, and the pair worked with efficiency born from experience as they gathered the boys and their coats before shuffling out to the garage. Once the van was out of the driveway and out of sight, Will walked back into the house as quietly as he could.
The sounds of Mom sobbing could be heard through the hallways, and for a brief moment Will felt like he was ten years old again. She was crying back then, too, and we all got hurt because of my big mouth. Lana… she’s…
The sounds of footsteps down the hallway caught Will’s attention as the woman that had been standing beside Matt appeared. Red hair was tied back into a tight knot behind her head, and the combination of a fair complexion and striking green eyes might have been considered attractive were it not for the haunted expression on her face. She rounded the corner of the hallway and leaned heavily against the wall before wrapping her arms around herself. “I told myself I could do this,” she said with a trembling voice, and she cast a painful look towards Will. “I told myself that I should be here to deliver the news, but… it’s too much for me.”
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Saying the words felt like jamming a spike into Will’s chest, and the feeling was only compounded when the woman nodded. He mirrored the woman’s posture as he leaned against the wall before sinking down to the floor. “How did it happen?”
The woman’s jaw clenched, and her gaze locked itself on the opposite wall. “She volunteered for a forward assault against an enemy-held position. Her actions saved tens of thousands of innocent people from whatever the aliens do to their captives.”
The knowledge of what she had accomplished smacked painfully against the excruciating she’s dead loop that continued to race through Will’s thoughts. Silence stretched between the two as neither could think of anything to add, before he finally asked, “Did you know Lana well?”
“I knew her better than most, I think, but not as well as I would have liked,” the woman said, and a wan smile crossed her face. “She was probably the most interesting person I’ve ever encountered in my life.”
“So you two were close, then?”
The question was rewarded with a soft chuckle from the woman. “Not as close as I would have liked. Nothing ever scared her except me, and she never told me why.”
“She always thought that if she was happy, something terrible was going to happen,” Will said, more to himself than to the woman. “She always had to make things right for everyone else, and she never would accept any help from anyone. When we were in high school, I found her crying and she refused to tell me why. When I found out who was responsible, I was prepared to do terrible things to them. Lana stopped me, forced a smile and said, ‘I’m doing a terrible job as a big sister if I need you to help me, right?’ Like it was her fault that I was going to beat someone to death. I don’t think I ever saw her sincerely smile after that.”
“She couldn’t ever leave things alone, could she? That meddling need to fix everything for everyone was always on her mind,” the woman said as she closed her eyes.
Will tried to laugh, but ended with a choked cough instead. “I know it doesn’t mean much now, but if you got close enough to make her scared, then she was probably happy deep down and just didn’t know how to react to it. I suppose I should thank you for putting up with her as much as you undoubtedly did.”
“You shouldn’t be so quick to thank me, since a good part of our interactions involved me chasing her. Literally,” the woman said, and she managed a genuine smile when that won a laugh from Will. She cast him an evaluating look before observing, “Your family seems rather close.”
“We had to be, after Dad died,” he answered, and a wince crossed his features at the memory. “Aren’t you close to yours?”
Had Will blinked, he would have missed the narrowed eyes and clenched jaw before her expression shifted to a sheepish smile. “Mother and I don’t get along. She was wounded during a recent attack, but the truth is that my family would be better off is she was dead. She nearly got them all killed, so I can’t find it in me to care about her.”
Better off if she was dead? Will repeated to himself, and he couldn’t help but remember the night that Lana had defended herself. “I’m sorry if I’m overstepping, but I think Lana would want you to try and reconcile with your family. I don’t know what mistakes your mom made, but she’s family. Nearly dying can... change people, you know? And if your family loses her, they might need you to help hold them together.”
The woman stared at Will with those piercing green eyes, and for a moment he considered apologizing and retracting his advice. “I’ll consider it,” she said simply, and silence fell between the two of them again.
The pause was punctured by a soft beeping, which was quickly overwhelmed by a surprising string of profanity from the woman. She produced a small phone and brought it up to her ear. “Now’s not a good time,” she said, and the annoyance morphed into something approaching relief. “Pinkie’s been found? And her condition? Ah, I guess we got lucky then. I appreciate the good news, but there must be some other reason for the call?” The relief morphed into confusion. “There’s no way a foal could-- Lieutenant Romalov’s already deployed?” Her other hand moved up to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Understood, I’ll inform Captain Harris.”
“Is something wrong?”
The phone was slipped back into the woman’s pocket, and she ran her hands down the length of her uniform to straighten it. “Duty calls, I’m afraid. I know I didn’t have a chance to say it to you… but I am truly sorry for your loss.”
Without anything else to say, the woman walked down the hallway from the kitchen and into the living room with Will close behind. The heart wrenching sounds of Mom sobbing could be heard briefly as the woman entered and spoke with Matt. A moment later, the two soldiers exited the living room and marched out the front door without a word. Once they were gone, Will stepped silently into the living room and made his way to the couch.
“William? I told you go to the movies with your brothers!” Mom yelled, though there wasn’t any fire in her words.
Will didn’t say anything as he sat beside her and pulled her into his arms. Without the scrutiny of outsiders or the younger children to worry about, the angry facade was dropped and Mom cried into his shoulder. I’ll take care of the family now, Lana. Wherever you are, you can rest easy, Will thought as he tried, and failed, to stop his own emotion from showing.
------
“What was her name?”
Tommy’s question caused the unicorn guard to stop in his tracks and turn back. “Who are you referring to?” he asked as he turned to regard the stained glass window that the boy had stopped at.
The window was akin to a mural, depicting a city battle between a red giant and several other creatures of similar stature while figures in white and gold faced off against the opposition in orange and black. The boy’s gaze ignored the scenes in favor of what was depicted at the bottom of the window. A woman with black hair lay in bed as a pair of sinister characters hovered over her, while panes of vibrant purple were used to show an alicorn defending the helpless figure.
The unicorn looked from the window then to the boy, then back again, and he closed his eyes before taking in a breath. “Hope,” he said, and Tommy finally glanced away from the window to watch his guide. “Hope was what she wanted for everyone she met. I do not know what her real name was, but I think the name ‘Hope’ fits her best,” the unicorn further explained as he met the child’s gaze.
Tommy looked back to the window, his eyes drawn to the bedridden figure almost of their own accord. “Oh, okay,” he muttered, and he couldn’t help but feel that he should know the person in the glass. He would have likely continued to stare at the glass for several more moments, when a figure in the next window caught his attention. “Is that… Sweetie Belle?”
“Oho? Tell me, what do you know about Sweetie Belle?” the guard asked, and Tommy nearly took a step back as the guard looked over the rim of his sunglasses at the child.
“W-well, she’s an exchange student at my school… and she’s really nice to everyone,” Tommy stammered, and try as he might, he couldn’t tear his eyes from those of the guard. “She’s also a really big fan of those Daring Do books that everyone seems to like and… and, I really like her mane?”
The guard held Tommy with his gaze for several moments longer before raising a hoof and pushing the sunglasses up. The unsettling red irises disappeared behind the darkened lenses as he turned towards the window in question. Three scenes were depicted, the first of Sweetie and another unicorn with a red mane having a conversation with several humans. The second was of Sweetie and Twilight surrounded by nightmarish shadows. The last was of Sweetie waving goodbye to the Element Bearers and Discord, oddly enough. Above all three scenes was the serpentine form of the avatar of chaos with a lavender shard hovering above one paw.
“To answer your earlier question, you’re right! This is Sweetie Belle. However, this isn’t the Belle that you know.” The unicorn let out a sigh before looking down. “No, this Sweetie travelled a long way to get here, and she’s travelled a long ways since. I’m afraid we don’t have nearly enough time to go over everything she’s done, but we certainly have enough time to talk about what she taught Twilight.”
“I don’t get it,” Tommy said. “Sweetie’s just a kid, like me. What could she teach Princess Twilight?”
The unicorn guard gave the child a long look before glancing away. “To one who holds herself to so high a standard, the fall from grace can be… cataclysmic. Doubly so if a pony thinks she’s doing the right thing and it gets others hurt.” The guard looked back at the Sweetie in the last scene and smiled warmly. “Sometimes you also need the help of someone who has an outside perspective. Have you ever struggled with something, only for a random person to point out a solution that looks obvious in hindsight?”
When Tommy nodded slowly, the guard let out a helpless laugh. “I could spend hours confusing you with poorly crafted analogies and anecdotes. Why don’t I just tell you about this very special Sweetie Belle, and what she did to help.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.03 seconds
Total duration
900 users online
345,474 hits today, 2,314,256 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Evening folks!
This is the interlude to the next arc in the story, and is a little bit of a breather. Closing up a few lingering questions from the last chapter, and setting the stage for what comes next.
MORE SWEETIE BELLE.
I hope Alvar and the Myrmidon teach her about martial arts and swordplay and she joins XCOM as a totally badass space filly.
Also, woot! You nailed the internal dialogue italics
Hope you plan on fixing that for your previous chapters as well.
Sweetie Chronicles tie-in?
6344437
It's on the to do list. I'm reluctant to do it at the moment, because I see a lot of fics that go back to make corrections... then revisions...then rewrites... then die a slow and painful death. :(
Oh shit, I know what this means.
Xeno scum won't know what hit them.
6344447 Have you considered bringing on-board an editor/proofreader? If you offload most of the work to them, and merely supervise and accept/reject changes that they make, it helps get rid of most of the busywork. That way, you spend very minimal time on corrections, and can focus on the important stuff.
Crossover with Sweetie Chronicles I'm assuming?
6344453
Most of the problems happen after my editors have fixed all the errors and I'm porting it over to fimfic. I do have a few editors/pre-readers to help and they catch a LOT of problems, but the formatting issues (bold, italic) are 100% me not catching everything as it migrates over to fimfic.
6344470 That's... interesting. What method do you use for importation? Maybe you can assign editors to help with post-import corrections?
<silently grumbles at Fimfic's insistence on BBCode...>
Is that Sweetie from the Sweetie Bells Chronicles? Interesting... this will be the first time that Sweetie has met humans.
Sweetie Chronicles crossover?
Alternate Sweetie Belle stopped Pinkamena from going full Genesis Project?
The Talk is something Noone likes.
becauseitstuesday.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/MemeOneDoesNotSimplyUnderstandHowAwesomeYouAre.jpg
And now we will have to wait for more
img.izismile.com/img/img4/20111115/640/awesome_memes_that_predate_the_internet_640_16.jpg
The Sweetie Chronicles? Oh dear...
Last time I've seen her pop up in an already established story it backfired spectacularly.
I really, really hope this is not the case...
"Every time I think I'm out, Sweetie Chronicles keeps pulling me back in!"
Seriously, though between Mendacity, Platinum Crown, and this I'm re-invested in a story I had once written off.
6344476
Won't her presence overcomplicate the crossovers?
6344453 There are four of us editors (Arzoo, Vandenbz, Setokaiva, and myself), but like 6344470 says minor errors will still crop up with italics and bolding due to the GDoc conversion to this site. Though I and the others certainly wouldn't mind going back through the previous chapters and find any of these mistakes to fix them to help Arad out so he can churn out more chapters.
6344571 Really? Not confirming or denying here, but when? If you're talking about TPC, you'll find the majority of the people liked it. If you're talking about Scion of Chaos, it started a whole new arc for the local Sweetie and again, the vast majority of the commentators liked it. Just because a couple of people are loud you can't claim that stuff backfires. No offense.
Sweetie chronicles?
Looks like my theories of Lana's 'spirit' getting trapped in Beowulf after her physical death are not to be vindicated.
6344438
I was thinking the same thing, and i'd be pretty damn disappointed in Arad if he did this.
So... She's dead this time? Or is she getting another 'Get out of death free' Card?
6344589
I was ambivalent to it, but I know several people who were annoyed.
EDIT: The inclusion of Sweetie Chronicles, Sweetie Bell into the story of Platinum Crown, I mean.
Firecracker?
Yep, Firecracker.
Now for Twilight to learn how to calm her mind and find where true focus lies, between rage and serenity.
*edit*
I really hope it isn't a Chronicles thing. Once you go beyond 1+1=2 stories become train wrecks.
6344608 Fair enough, and I really totally understand. I just think it's a bit extreme to claim it backfired when it wasn't even 50-50. Some people were annoyed, and I can see where they are coming from and respect that (even if at least one was a bit of a jerk) but at the same time many people were pretty happy with it. Plus if you want a glimpse of the future of TPC, TSC is the way to go!
Anyway, I just wanted a bit of clarification there, since there's always someone who doesn't like what someone else does. But we shouldn't really carry on the comment section here. This is Mente Materia's turf, after all. If anyone reads this and wants to argue the pros and cons of this sort of thing, feel free to PM me!
6344589
Didn't mention the exact fic because, lurking much and posting little, I'm ever unsure on the netiquette of mentioning an author's work on another author's page.
I was talking about TPC anyways, and to me having to add author note after author note to introduce a character and try to explain how it wasn't a deus ex machina (and the jury is still out on that) can be considered a backfire, from the story cohesion's point of view, if not from the popularity one.
To be honest, I liked your story, in its "self-contained" environment, but using that Sweetie in other stories has IMO a high deus ex machina potential.
OMG! SWEETIE BELL CHRONICLES SWEETIE IZ COMING!
This is going to be completely and utterly epic.
Yeah I'm still not buying that Lana's dead-dead. She's too snarky; she'd get kicked out of the afterlife.
The Sweetie Chronicles works fine when it's its own side thing, but the main story turning around and doing a crossover with Sweetie Chronicles? I really don't like it. Crazy crossover time works for stories that are meant for it, but when a story has a section where it breaks away from it's established setting, continuity and tone to throw in a character from elsewhere really knocks me right of of it. When I'm reading a story, I'm invested in it, and to ask me to suddenly be invested in something completely outside of the story makes it hard to even keep reading.
6344605 My money is on her coming back one way or another. Discord has already shown that he is willing and able to do it so I fully expect to see her come back no matter how sure the characters are that she is dead. After all, Discord could easily leave her dead or in some kind of suspended animation or swap in a fake body or something to let her be "dead" for a while to let the other characters react and learn from it before bringing her back. Hell, Discord is basically Q and we have seen Q do exactly that in Star Trek so there is no reason to assume she is actually permanently dead.
I... really hope that this either isn't what it seems to be, or that if it is, it is done right. Crossing another story into an ongoing one 28 chapters into the second book seems like it is a little late to be adding an entirely new dimension unrelated to all previous ones, doubly so if it is going to be playing a large role in the direction of the story from this point on.
Ultimately this is the authors call to make, I just worry about this change in direction.
Sweetie Chronicles!
And now it's confirmed that Firecracker could have taken human form all along if she'd really wanted to. And to think Lana probably won't get to see it.
Isn't it crazy how much this guard seems to know?
Missed some italics.
So it sounds like Pinkie survived via Chronicles-Sweetie ex machina. Poor filly just can't catch a break, ending up in all these bleak war stories.
Arad, you're great and all buuuuut seriously stop jerking our collective chain and un-deadify Lana.
Stick her unusually powerful psychic spirit in Beowulf or some other robot chassis, but please, for the love of happy endings, keep the core cast alive. If you're gonna start axing main characters slap a Tragedy or a Sad tag on this so the more weak-willed among us (like me) can stay away
And now I am confused as hell at the end, I don't read the Sweetie stuff since I'm not interested. Not from hating it or thinking it is bad, I just don't have an interest in it. So I am kinda hoping you don't shove too much of that stuff into the story, it is very confusing and throws off the pacing that was already in place.
More so as up until just now -which is fairly deep into this story- you haven't been jumping back and forth between story lines. It is pretty jarring and not in a good way.
So...It would seem there is a cross-over with a certain "Sweetie Chronicles" story or something like that.
Seems to be something big.
I'm not sure I like it.Hmmm...Oh,well,the author has yet to disappoint me,so I will just trust him.
Ooh, I totally need to catch up with SBC over the next month or so (you said you're taking a break for a while, yah?)
ALL THE CHRONICLES!!
But seriously, great chapter and it's handling of what happened with Lana.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be over here getting hyped for TSCxMM.
"It is sweet and honorable"... pro patria mori. I see what you did there....
And woot, more TSC in one of my favorite fics
Man, I am so disappointed in the pretty solid confirmation of
Luna'sLana's death. Between this and what happened to Cadance, it's kind of demoralizing. There better be a pay off for some of these recent events other than "war sucks, people die". I could read that anywhere.On the other hand with a counter opinion to a few of the above, I'd be perfectly happy if we are about to get a TSC crossover.
6345038
Pst... you mean Lana.
In the original (rejected) design for this mural, Twilight was drooling vacantly in a corner while an EXALT operative in a paper mask unplugged
LanaHope's life support. It just goes to show, history is written by the victors.if
It's happening!
6345064 Haha, yes. I blame my Swiftkey autocorrect that I have thoroughly taught the ways of pony.
So, like, is Lana dead? Cause that is very sad :c
First time I hear of it. Overdoing the crossover and timey-wimey shenanigans always ends badly for the quality of a fic.
6344424 Arad, let me begin by stating that not only I do enjoy what you write, but this is one of my fave'd stories, and Stardust is, together with Fallout Equestria, the reason why I began reading pony words (haven't seen the series except for episode 100 yet).
That being said, and how I like you as an author in consideration...
SCREW YOU WITH A RANSEUR!!!
Not Lana, just... Not Lana. We need Jenkins, we need LanaCracker to be a reality. She just deserves a happy ending more than even MattTwilight do. Please, give her back to us
6344764 A Heart of Change did it and made it work. What stops MM from doing the same?
6345242 XCOM Ironman mode forgives nothing and no one.
6345252
You might think, but if you read the Sweetie Chronicles, you might change your mind. It's pretty fantastic, and it also visits stories worth reading by themselves.
At least this author has some form of capacity for writing two chapters in the same year. It just happens that the first fic I read here and the most recent fav of mine are both on hiatus, but pretty much everything in between is fine... WTF Trollestia