PonySide

by Puzzle Piece

Chapter Five: Recon Mode

Anthony stepped out into the yard and took a deep breath. He couldn’t remember when he’d felt this awake and alive. He smiled at the irony. A hint of music being hummed from nearby drew his attention. He looked around briefly and spotted Fluttershy on the other side of the yard, lying next to a pair of robins at the base of a tree. She hummed to them and they chirped brightly back. The little song carried on as Anthony listened. Fluttershy saw him and beckoned him over.

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” Anthony said as he sat down next to her and leaned back against the tree.

“Oh, not at all,” Fluttershy said with a smile. “We’re all just enjoying the morning.”

The robins chirped, and if Anthony had to guess, it sounded as if they were agreeing with her. He looked around at the trees that surrounded the yard, marveling at the soft light that filtered through them from the rising sun. Fluttershy and the robins shared another verse before the birds took flight and winged away into the sky. Fluttershy waved to them as they left. When they were out of sight, she let out a contented sigh.

Anthony glanced over at her. “You do this every morning?”

“No, not every morning. But any time I get the chance, I like to take things slow and enjoy the moment.”

They sat in silence again. Anthony played with a handful of grass with a wistful expression. Fluttershy stole furtive glances at him from time to time. He let her think he didn’t notice, not seeing any harm in it. A squirrel cautiously approached him and he put his hand out so that it could climb up. The squirrel sniffed his hand and hesitated in consideration. With one final twitch of its tail, it scurried up his arm and perched on his shoulder. He reached up and it let him stroke its fur. Anthony caught Fluttershy staring openly and looked over.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said, looking away hastily.

He continued to watch her, waiting for her to go on. After a while, she did.

“It’s just, you don’t seem to act like a soldier. The ones I know are big and serious and a little bit scary.”

“I can be serious and scary when I want to be,” he admitted. “But that’s not who I am. I’m a person just like anyone else, either soldier or civilian.”

“You’re more patient than most ponies I know. I guess I’m surprised that a soldier could be this…” She hesitated, as if afraid of insulting him.

“Soft?” he guessed with a grin.

Fluttershy pushed her mane back out of her eyes and smiled brightly. “Sort of peaceful and open, yeah.”

She glanced at him a few times before inching closer. He lifted his arm and let her scoot up and rest against his side. He put his arm around her loosely. They rested against the rough bark and let the sun’s warmth wash over them serenely. After a while, Anthony looked around curiously.

“Where is Rainbow Dash by the way?”

“Rainbow? She left early. She had some work to do in northern Ponyville for the weather team.” She waved her hoof vaguely in the direction of town.

Anthony mumbled an acknowledgement. He let his hand wander up to Fluttershy’s ears and scratched them affectionately. He didn’t notice right away but she tensed up under his touch. After a minute had passed, she made herself heard.

“Um, could you…could you stop?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry.” He let his hand fall away and shook himself out of the half doze he was slipping into. “I wasn’t even thinking. We had a dog before I joined the military. You’re about the same size and I used to sit with her the same way we are now and…I’ll shut up.”

He looked away. Fluttershy considered his words and was about to say something when the door to the yard opened again. Gadrik stepped out into the yard and slung his carbine over his shoulder. He started down the path, gesturing to Anthony.

“Suit up.”

Anthony sighed and disengaged from Fluttershy. He got up reluctantly and made to go inside but Fluttershy stopped him with a hoof on his arm. She then addressed the Major.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

“Why would that be?” the Major asked sternly.

“It’s just that, before Rainbow left this morning,” Fluttershy said, her voice fading to a whisper as her confidence was drained by Gadrik’s gaze. “She mentioned it would be best if you didn’t take that robot suit into town. It might scare ponies.”

Gadrik was silent for a long time, the light making its way slowly across the yard and chasing away the last of the early morning darkness. Anthony stayed where he was, waiting for the Major’s decision.

“Alright, we won’t take the MAX. But I’m not leaving anything else behind. We still don’t know enough about this place.” He drew his Commissioner and tossed it to Anthony. “Here, take this at least.”

Anthony caught the pistol and followed the Major out of the yard and down the path toward town. He didn’t look back at Fluttershy until he was nearly over the hill. When he did, he saw her gazing off into the distance and absently touching her ear where he’d been petting her. Not sure what to make of it, he shrugged it into the back of his mind.

~*~*~

Mat and Trevor spent an hour in the barn that morning, discussing the very real possibility they were no longer on Auraxis. They came to the conclusion that they were going to have to explore the area before knowing for sure, but they agreed to operate under that assumption. And even though they’d joked about their situation being trippy, they decided not to eat any more of the apples they’d picked.

“We need to lay out our options,” Trevor said. “And then put a plan of action into play.”

“Securing some sort of transportation should be top of the list,” Mat suggested. “Whatever we’re going to do, I don’t want to have to walk the whole way.”

“Not likely we’ll be getting anything like a Flash,” Trevor pointed out, but then nodded in concession. “Still, I wouldn’t mind having a set of wheels all our own.”

“Hey, here’s a crazy idea I just had,” Mat said suddenly. “Instead of trying to find a way to ride back to somewhere recognizable, we just redeploy.”

Trevor’s eyes widened at the realization. He brought his hand slowly up to his forehead. “I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of that. But hold on,” he said, grabbing Mat’s arm before he could try anything. “You remember when they were hooking up Hossin and they ran into some logistical errors launching that galaxy?”

Mat thought back and then went white. “Oh, man. If we are off planet, we’d be outside of the links entirely, wouldn’t we?”

“And not be able to respawn at all, yes,” Trevor nodded gravely.

Mat let out a low whistle. “So how are we going to know for sure?”

Trevor pulled out his squad spawn beacon and juggled it anxiously. “We’ll give this thing a shot and see if we get a signal to spawn back to.”

They went outside and found a clear patch of ground. Trevor crouched down and set the beacon into the dirt. He snapped the anchoring mechanism into place and fired it up. The brilliant blue beam of light hissed to life and rose to the sky. Mat couldn’t help himself and he hooted and jumped with excitement. It was something of a victory just to see their colors flying. Even in this tiny beacon’s light, he felt as if they were lifting their freedom up for all to see. He even caught Trevor smiling.

That smile didn’t last long though as Trevor put his hand to the side of his helmet and flipped through channels and HUD displays.

“No,” he said as Mat calmed down enough to realize something was wrong. “I’m reading the beacon. It’s functioning fine. Its signal just isn’t being picked up by anything.”

“Shit,” Mat said. “So we can’t go back that way? And we’re stuck here on our own without our get out of death free cards? Man, are we screwed.”

“More than that,” Trevor said, his voice suddenly shaking with what Mat realized was fear. “We just jumped from a couple hundred feet on just one jet a day back.” He turned to look at Mat pointedly.

Mat gulped. “But hey, we handled that one, right? We’ll handle this too.” He tried to sound confident but he didn’t believe himself.

Trevor didn’t appear to be listening anyway. He was staring at the ground in horror as he contemplated how closely they’d danced with death.

“Trev,” Mat said, putting a hand on the other’s shoulder and shaking him gently. “We’ve got to keep it together, now more than ever. You with me?”

“Y-yeah man, I’m with you.” His voice was still a bit unsteady but he visibly steeled himself. “So what’s first now, you think?”

Mat quickly shouldered the role of leader for the sake of his shaken friend and steered Trevor over to the side of the barn.

“First up, we’re on our own, so we’ll be relying on ourselves and what we have with us. Let’s get that in order before we do anything else.”

They sat down together and sorted out their equipment: Trevor was packing his Brawler and Mag-Shot along with his NC15 Phoenix rocket launcher. Mat had the AF-19 Mercenary and his own Mag-Shot. Between them, they had three bricks of C-4 and three grenades, Trevor carrying two of each. Trevor also had a brace of medical kits, which they both agreed would be a valuable commodity if there was no respawning. Finally, they had their Mag-Cutter knives.

“We’ve got plenty of fire power but we’re going to need some kind of relay to boost our coms so we can get a signal back to our boys,” Mat said as they looked over they line up of weapons.

“I don’t know anything about relays and boosting signals,” Trevor admitted, “I’ve never had to pay attention to that stuff.”

“Well, lucky for us, I do. We just need some materials and I should be able to rig it all up.”

“And where are we going to get materials?” Trevor asked.

“This is a farm. They’ve got to be near a town of some sort. We can take them up on their offer to feed us while we search around for what we need. We’ll hold up here until we’ve got the relay working and then we just have to wait for somebody to come and pick us up.”

“You and I both know it won’t be as easy as all that,” Trevor said. “But it sounds like the kind of plan I can get behind. Let’s get started.”

They packed up their equipment and started toward the road. Applejack was pulling a cart laden with freshly picked apples up to the barn.

“Say, Applejack,” Mat said as they passed her. “Could you point us toward town?”

“Sure as sugar can,” she replied and pointed with a hoof. “That road there will lead ya right into Ponyville.”

“Much obliged,” he said. “One more thing. We’ve got some things to take care of and then we’ll be coming back here. You wouldn’t mind us joining you for dinner tonight?”

“Not at all. We’ll have a place set for the two of ya when ya’ll get back. Good luck with yer errands.”

She waved to them as they walked off toward town.

~*~*~

Katie opened her eyes slowly. She was a little disoriented for a moment but she remembered where she was quickly. She pushed herself up on one arm and wiped the sleep from her eyes. Light streamed in from the window behind the well-made bed on the other side of the room. She made a mental note that Twilight was already up and about. She sat up to stretch and caught sight of Nathan sitting cross-legged on his cushion and watching her.

She suddenly became acutely aware of how much her body was exposed by the damage to her suit. The shrapnel cuts left thin gaps across most of her back and left side. Her entire right side from her waist up to her shoulder was stripped bare. The limited armor on her chest had been burned to thin and frayed scraps that made her feel indecent. She crossed her arms and turned away from him slightly. When she heard his sharp intake of breath, she knew he’d taken it more harshly than she’d intended. She checked the room hastily and, seeing that it was just the two of them in the room, she relaxed.

“You’re staring,” she said.

He dropped his gaze away from her. “I should be apologizing.”

She crawled across the floor to him and leaned against his shoulder. “You don’t need to apologize for that. I just wasn’t ready.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t mean for that, though I suppose I’m sorry for that too. What I should be apologizing for is last night. I was too stubborn. I should have been thinking the situation through more caref--“

She cut off his words with her lips. “I forgive you,” she said when she withdrew.

He smiled back at her and nodded his thanks. He ran a hand up her shoulder, stroking her exposed skin tenderly. She grabbed his hand to stop him.

“Not now. Not here.” She found that she couldn’t meet his eyes at that moment. “We have work to do first.”

He nodded slowly. “Of course. In fact, the Princess should be back soon anyway.” He got up and helped her up with him. “She and I spoke this morning. She inquired about our suits and thinks one of her friends can fix them up. I hope you don’t mind, but I gave her a sample and she’s checking with her friend.”

“No, that’s fine,” she said quickly, eager to agree to something.

They went down to the main level of the building together to wait. They didn’t have to wait long. Nathan glanced out the window just as he was pulling a book open and saw Twilight heading toward them. They stood up as the door opened and Twilight stepped through.

“Oh, good! You’re awake,” Twilight said when she saw Katie. “Rarity says she thinks she’ll be able to copy the material and fix your suits.”

Katie glanced at Nathan’s suit, noting the shrapnel cuts and the hole from the SR-7 round that sent them here.

“I suppose we do need a bit of patching up, don’t we?” She smiled wryly as she touched the fraying edges of her own torn uniform. “Shall we get going then?”

“Just follow me,” Twilight said.

She spread her wings wide and strode into the street. They followed her out, heading east. Nathan turned to look back at the library and chuckled.

“It really is a tree, isn’t it?” he said to himself.

As they continued through town, Katie noticed that Twilight was walking with a rather imperious air. Katie knew Twilight was a Princess of this land, but her sudden change in posture intrigued her.

“Why are you walking like that?” she asked.

Twilight barely looked back at her when she responded. “I’m trying to look as important as I can. I’m leading two completely alien creatures through the middle of town after all. If I look like we’re on official business, everypony will assume everything is fine and not ask questions. Hopefully.”

Katie nodded her understanding, realizing that the ponies were indeed giving them very odd glances but shrugging them off and going about their business. Most ponies gave them a wide berth, although not in a negative manner. They seemed to be moving to avoid getting in Twilight’s way. No one bothered them all the way to Rarity’s; aside from being followed by the frequent curious looks that is.

“Here we are,” Twilight announced as they approached a multi-leveled circular building situated at the edge of what they assumed was the market district of town. “Carousel Boutique.”

Katie hugged Nathan’s arm playfully. “Hear that Nathan? We’re going clothes shopping.”

He gave her a wistful smile. “Thrilling.”

They teased each other all the way to the door and walked into the boutique arm in arm.

Comments

[Aunoraux]

Wait, so rarity just happens to have replacement material for body armor that (judging by how thin and damage resistant a cloaker's uniform is) is at least 4x stronger than the most cutting-edge shear-thickening fluid treated kevlar known to man?
Wut?