Chapter 7: Diplomacy
Chapter 7: Diplomacy
“Truck, sweep left and check the front. Me and Grinch will sweep right and scan the back.”
The three men had just entered the town. It was still dark outside, allowing them to more easily maneuver without being detected, but morning would be coming soon, so they would have to hurry. Their plan was to search any of the homes nearby for a phone or radio that they could use to contact Overlord, or at this point, any other human.
“Front’s clear.”
“Back’s clear.”
“Okay… Truck, check the door. Is it unlocked?”
“Hang on… um… yeah, it’s unlocked.”
“Lucky for us I guess.”
“Get inside and sweep the bottom floor. Look for anybody first, then start checking for a radio or phone.”
“Rog’…”
The soldiers slowly opened the door, each taking a different direction once inside.
“Living room clear.”
“Kitchen clear.”
“Dining room clear.”
“Bottom floor clear.”
“Ok, me and Truck will start looking for a phone or something. Grinch, sweep the top floor. Only shoot if one of them tries to attack you or capture you. Otherwise, leave it alone. The last thing we need to do is to start killing off the civies.”
“Got it.”
Grinch slowly ascended the stairs while Sandman and Truck began to search every square inch of the bottom floor. After a couple of minutes, Grinch quietly descended the steps.
“First room on the right, two of those horses are in there, but both are sleeping. Did you find a phone?”
“No… there’s nothing here. How about you, Grinch?”
“No, only paper and inkwells. Talk about some serious tech here, huh?”
“Ok, let’s bug out and check the next house.”
The group repeated the process for the next four homes, only to come up with the same results. No phone, no radio, no technology that would help their problem in any way.
“Jesus man, not a single piece of tech! At this rate, we will have a better chance of getting in contact with Overlord by writing him a goddamn letter!” Grinch mumbled in anger.
The group sat next to the final house, contemplating what to do next.
“Well, what we gonna do boss? The sun is coming up soon, so I would rather not stick around here for too much longer.” said Truck.
“We aren’t, but we are running out of options here. We are almost out of water and rations, and we can’t even find anything of use here. There’s really only one more option I can think of that’s still open.” Sandman said.
“What are you thinking boss? I’m willing to do about anything right about now if it will get us the hell out of this place.” remarked Grinch.
“I’m thinking that we need to get in contact with this ‘Princess’ of theirs. She is probably the only one who can help us here, or at the very least answer some of our questions.”
Moments of silence along with some odd and skeptical glances were exchanged between the three of them.
“Well?” Sandman finally asked.
“Uh… I don’t know how that one’s gonna turn out. We didn’t exactly make the best first impression, and we don’t even know if we could get anywhere close to her. Plus, we don’t know where she is!” Grinch responded, followed by a nod from Truck.
“I don’t think we need to find her, we just need to find one of those horses that tried to capture me. They said that they had called the Princess and that she would be coming down here to talk to me, but obviously that never happened. If she did come here, she’s probably already left by now. Perhaps we can reason with one of them to get the Princess back down here for us.”
“But how do you know that one of those things won’t try something? Even if we do somehow convince them to overlook the fact that we shot one of their friends and in general have been a pain in their side since we got here, and they call their Princess down here to come talk to us, what then? How do we know that their Princess will listen to us? How do we know she doesn’t have some sort of army? Some sort of weapon?”
“Well, to start, the worst things I have seen them do have been kicking people in the face and putting up shields. Not exactly the most dangerous things on the face of the planet. Second, they don’t know much about us from what I can tell. They are probably asking themselves these very same questions right now. For all THEY know, we could have some sort of super weapon with us, so I doubt she would try something if it could threaten her or her people. Third, I don’t think these things want to try and fight us. All of the ones I have seen have tried to avoid combat, or tried to use non-lethal tactics. Well, all except for ONE.” Sandman said, remembering how that Rainbow colored one had smashed his face in twice without a moment’s hesitation.
“But they’re CIVIES. I wouldn’t expect them to try and fight us either, especially if they don’t even know what we are! What I am talking about are soldiers. They have a Princess, which means there must be some semblance of government here. If there is a government, there is a chain of command. If there is a chain of command, there must be SOMETHING in place to uphold that chain of command. Usually, that SOMETHING is soldiers, a police force, some form of authority, something that has the power to keep people in line. After all the shit we have been through, I don’t want to be done in by some colorful horses because we didn’t care to take into consideration the fact that they could have something capable of taking us all down. We are in the dark when it comes to them just as much as they are when it comes to us.”
“You make a point Grinch, but from what I have seen, not a whole lot seems to happen down in this town. I haven’t seen ANYTHING that resembles a police force, an army, or really any type of authority down here.”
“Well, then we are all missing something here. No society, no matter how cheerful and peaceful it looks like, can stay in constant peace without somebody keeping it that way by using some form of force. Laws alone won’t work.” Grinch responded.
“Maybe they don’t need to use force because there is no reason for the people here to become restless.” Truck said, shrugging his shoulders.
Sandman and Grinch both turned to look at him.
“What do you mean?” Grinch asked.
“Well, the way I see it, there are only two ways that a government could get away with not having any form of authority directly over their citizens. The first would be that the people are content and pleased with the way things are going on, so there is no need for restlessness or disturbances to occur. The second reason would be that the government is so powerful, that the people live in constant fear of them and none of them have enough courage or resolve to try to do anything about it. Now, from the looks of it, these things don’t seem like they’re living in a perpetual state of fear, so reason one seems to fit best.”
“In theory that would work, but there is no way it could happen in reality. No place in the universe can be THAT peaceful. There has got to be something else…” Grinch started, but was cut off by Sandman.
“OK, SHUT UP! BOTH OF YOU!” Sandman interrupted.
Both Truck and Grinch turned towards him in surprise.
“All we are doing is talking in circles and getting absolutely NOTHING done! I don’t give a shit how their goddamn government is run or how their citizens feel about their everyday lives! I want to figure out WHERE the hell we are, WHY the hell we are here, and HOW the hell we got here! Now, in my opinion, the only way we are going to be able to figure those three things out is by getting in contact with their Princess. I don’t particularly want to, but I don’t see any other choices. If you guys have any other ideas, please tell me.”
No objections were given from any of them.
“Then we are going to go back to that cottage. It’s the only place I know of where we could get in contact with one of those original horses. We will wait there for one of them to show up, or hopefully find one already there. Let’s go.”
Not a word was spoken between the three on their way to the cottage. They took the long way by going back into the woods and running the edge of it all the way back to the cottage that was on the opposite side of town. It took them about fifteen minutes to get back over to it. As they approached the cottage, they could hear someone talking inside.
“Looks like we got lucky.” Grinch whispered.
Just as they got close, the front door opened up and a purple unicorn, which Sandman recalled to be named Twilight or something like that, stepped outside and turned to address someone else.
“Remember Fluttershy; meet us at the train station at 4:00. It is about a fourty five minute train ride to Canterlot and we will be meeting the Princess at 5:00. Don’t be late, okay?”
“Okay, Twilight. See you then!” Fluttershy called back out to her.
The door shut and Twilight began to trot off down the path that took her back to town.
“Well, here’s our chance!” Truck said.
“Wait, what should we ask here? How should we address ourselves? I doubt saying were US Special Forces would ring any bells to her.” Grinch asked.
“Uh, I don’t know, but it’s worth a shot. We are supposed to identify ourselves as US Special Forces if we come in contact with civilians.” Grinch answered.
"Aw, screw it. I will think of something!” Sandman said as he stood out from behind the building and called out to Twilight.
“Hey!” Sandman yelled.
Twilight turned around to see who had spoken to her, only to be met by the three humans standing next to Fluttershy’s house. Her chin dropped to the floor, but she said nothing. She only stared back in response.
“US Special Forces! We need to talk to you!” Sandman called out.
Just then, the front door opened up and out stepped Fluttershy.
“Twilight? What’s going on?” She asked as she turned to look in the direction that Twilight was staring, only to be met by the gaze of three humans.
“Fluttershy! Get back inside!” Twilight called out to her, but Fluttershy was already darting back inside and shutting the door before she could finish her sentence.
“Wait! Look, we need to talk to you!”
Twilight began to muster up enough courage to respond to them.
“About what? Haven’t you all caused enough trouble already? Why can’t you just go off and leave us all alone!?” She cried out to them.
“We know you don’t want us here, and neither do we! We don’t even know how we got here! We need to get in contact with your Princess so she can answer our questions and get us out of this place!” Sandman called back.
Twilight stopped for a moment and contemplated their offer. She was going to be heading for Canterlot with everypony else to meet the Princess in a couple of hours, but how could she take them? They were dangerous, evil, the Princess had said. She doubted any of the others would feel comfortable with having them on the train with them. For all she knew, they could be lying to her. They could be trying to trick her into letting them get close to the Princess. Who knows what they could do?
They couldn’t be trusted. But, she could call the Princess down here to talk to them. It would be much easier that way, but much more risky.
“We are not here to hurt you! We just need answers and then we will be out of your way!” Sandman yelled out.
“How can I trust you? After what you did to Rainbow Dash, how do I know you won’t try to hurt one of us, or the Princess for that matter!?” She asked.
“I guess you can’t. We can’t offer you anything except our word.” Sandman called back to her.
Twilight stopped and thought for a moment. There was only one pony she knew who could tell if they were lying or not. The Element of Honesty.
“Fluttershy! Come on out! I need to talk to you!” Twilight called out to the house.
Slowly, the door creaked open and Fluttershy peaked on outside towards the three men. Sandman took a couple of steps back to show that he meant no harm to her. Fluttershy darted out to Twilight and hid behind her.
“Why won’t they leave me alone?” She asked Twilight.
“I don’t think they are here for you. I need you to go tell Spike to write a letter to the Princess telling her that the humans want to talk to her. After that, go get Applejack and bring her here. If you run into any of our other friends on the way, bring them here too. These humans want to try and reason with us it seems, but I need Applejack to see if they are telling the truth. She has a sense for people telling lies. Can you do that?”
“Yes, but what are you going to do? You can’t stay here alone with those humans!”
“Don’t worry about me, I will be fine. Just go tell Spike and get Applejack, and hurry!”
Fluttershy nodded and got up and flew off as fast as she could towards the Library. Twilight turned back towards the humans, who were still standing next to the house whispering with each other.
“Um, I don’t think things are gonna turn out well boss. Where did she send that yellow one?” Truck asked.
“Probably to go get help. I knew this was a bad idea.” Grinch responded.
“Well, we don’t have any other choice. We will just have to wait and see.”
Sandman turned his attention back to Twilight, who was still sanding over on the path watching them.
“Have you reached a decision? Will you help us?” He asked.
“It depends… we will see in a few minutes.” She responded, keeping her eyes locked on them.
Around fifteen minutes passed and the situation had not changed. Twilight kept a good distance from Sandman and the others while they sat next to the house in silence. The silence was broken when Twilight heard somepony running up the hill behind her. She turned to see Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash approaching her. This attracted the attention of the three solders sitting next to the house, who rose to their feet.
“Great, they brought the Rainbow one with them.” Sandman muttered to himself.
The four ponies began to whisper in a group while Rainbow Dash shot nasty glances towards Sandman.
“It seems like that Rainbow one doesn’t like you that much, boss.” Grinch pointed out.
“Yeah, it’s pissed at me because I shot it in the shoulder when we first met.” Sandman responded.
…
“Fluttershy, did you get that letter to the Princess?” Twilight asked.
“Yes, she sent one back almost instantly. She said to not do anything until she got here.”
“How long will that be?”
“It didn’t say.”
“Twilight, are ya sure ya can trust those humans? The Princess told us that they are pure evil and such.” Applejack asked.
“I don’t know, they came here asking to see the Princess so they can get out of here and ask her questions. Apparently they don’t know how they got here, but this is why I asked you to come over. You’re the only one who can tell if someone is lying or not.”
All of a sudden, a giant burst of light emerged between the two groups, blinding all of them. After a few moments, the light died down to reveal Princess Celestia along with around ten of her royal guards standing between them.
“Holy shit!” Grinch was the first to say.
The royal guards that came with her slowly began to create a circle around the three men.
“Uh, boss… what do we do?” Truck asked as he slowly took the safety off of his ACR.
“Don’t do anything yet. Let’s see where this goes…” Sandman responded, although he too was gripping his M9, ready to pull it out of its holster and shoot if need be.
“Princess!” Twilight yelled out.
Princess Celestia turned to the four ponies sitting behind her.
“Stay there for the moment, me and the humans have some things to discuss.” She responded.
She turned back around and approached the three humans, who were looking at her in awe and confusion.
“There is only one thing I require from you, and that is that you tell me the truth in everything I ask you. Is that understood?” the Princess asked.
A moment of silence filled the air as the group turned and gave glances to each other.
“Is that understood?” She asked again, this time with more force to her voice.
“Yes, ma’am.” Sandman responded.
“Good, let’s get started then.”
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Not going to end well
Shit bout to get real
here we go, this is it people, sink or swim
Tension...tension...
And this occurred to me while reading:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccjliss934A
Say what you like about Call of Duty, but it has an epic soundtrack.
Equestrian Stand off.......sort of.
FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! I NEED DEATH!!
loljk any ways cant wait until new chapter!!!
Lets hope Sandman can defuse the situation, other wise there's going to be a lot of dead in the next chapter.
540436 I think that there was a bit of dead in this chapter, but the author rewrote it for some reason.
If this ends badly the ponies are screwed
540567 Really, I didn't know that. i wonder what happened
540597
Yes, the original chapter had some death in it, but I rewrote it because the outcome was taking me away from where I had previously intended the story to go. Also, the actions of Metal were not logical and were in no way, shape, or form the way a real soldier would act. So I took down the chapter and rewrote it to keep it on track with how I wanted it to turn out.
Well, it seems like Sandman is getting his senses back. But no doubt that Task Force 141 handled it a lot better.
Motherfucking cliffhanger
Hurr, cliffhanger is a mission in MW2, herp a derp.
540653 LESS DOOO THIS
540621
First of all a SFOD-D operator would never tell anyone they were Delta Force, secondly Twilight said everyone not everypony, thirdly Delta operators can draw their pistol with lightning speed so there is no reason to put his hand on the grip os his pistol which could seen as an aggresive move, causing further tension. Hope this helped.
540830
Thank you for pointing that out for me!
Why, Simply Divine!
(?)
540911
No problem, am here to help.
540621 For anyone wondering, I believe that the deaths were Lyra and an unnamed guard. Bon-Bon was also shot and in critical condition with a missing left lung, among other injuries. Am I correct?
farm6.staticflickr.com/5147/5849188876_d49d0b5767_z.jpg
54228925.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3crcecz3W1rv4pd3o1_400.gif
542166
Yes, that is correct.
I Just Can't Believe there Dislikes in this Story.
it seems retarded that the us special forces would all show themselves.... I don't know about you but wouldnt it make more sense to have at least 2 out of the way maybe in the trees as support. Being all clumped up together is stupid cause what if they get caught.. one guy a mile away watching over with a sniper would make more sense if the humans are going to show themselves.
"Only shoot if one of them tries to attack you or capture you. Otherwise, leave it alone. The last thing we need to do is to start killing off the civies.”
Good to hear how TM is being a bit reasonable.
I am not sure if being an Element of Honesty actually means that Applejack is a walking lie-detector.
Also, I thought TM was Delta operators, not US Special Forces. Are you referring SF as United States Special Operation Command? Also, wouldn't they try to hide the fact that they are soldiers?
hummmm
