Chapter 7: Invader Etiquette
I returned to the Hive slightly less stealthily than when I'd left-- Gnollpoleon wouldn't let me out of his sight, so the ol' low-hanging cloud trick was out. The little maniac had a full platoon of his most murderous gnolls with him, and the bastards couldn't stop sniggering amongst themselves, as if they were just going to play some kind of practical joke, rather than a covert military operation. Then again, given the sort of things gnolls find funny, there might not be much difference there.
It was a simple matter to get back into the Hive-- like any properly imposing fortress, it had a wide-mouthed drainage pipe set into its foundation. Gnollpoleon's burliest troopers wrenched the iron grate out of the pipe, and in we went. The sewer tunnel was even tall enough for me to stretch my wings out into an easy hover, allowing me to avoid whatever unspeakable fluids that even changelings found disgusting. That the flightless gnolls were forced to slog through the knee deep (or chest deep, in Gnollpoleon's case) effluvia was just a bonus.
“This should do.” I said as we came to some sort of maintenance hatch a ways into the tunnel. “You can get in through here-- now give me the antidote.”
“Oh non, Monsieur Sentry! You are in no position to make demands.” Gnollpoleon said, and the eyes of his gnolls glinted in the darkness behind him. “You shall get the antidote for your filly-- but only when the day is won. You could be leading me into a trap, non?”
I grit my teeth and put on a stern expression-- even as a platoon's worth of hyena-creatures sized me up as their next meal. I ignored the twisting lump of fear in my stomach, and took in a deep breath. Given the odor of a changeling sewer, this was a mistake, as I soon broke into coughing and hacking at the foul stench. “Fine.” I choked out. “In that case-- there's one more thing you should know.”
“Oh? Do tell.” Gnollpoleon rubbed his paws together in anticipation.
“The Changelings won't fight you-- at least, not if King Thorax has his way. He's afraid that too much violence will turn them back into what they were-- and nobody wants that. If you and your lot go in and start massacring them right away, they'll get desperate, and then it's back to the black chitin. But--”
“--if we are subtle, then they shall not go to such extremes. Hm.” Gnollpoleon rubbed at his chin. “If I did not know better, Monsieur Sentry, I would think you are trying to protect les changelings.”
“I could care less about the damned bugs.” I shook my head. “It's Carrot Top I'm worried about. If you force the changelings to go evil again, what's stopping them from using her as a snack?” I shuddered at the thought.
“Monsieur Sentry, you are tres romantique!” Gnollpoleon snickered, and the troops behind him followed suit. “Very well, then. You heard the pony, mes amis! You are to take les changelings alive! Now, we go-- to victory!”
Gnollpoleon snapped his fingers, and the biggest of his goons lifted him up out of the muck, hefting him on his shoulders. Two more gnolls wrenched the maintenance hatch open, and the whole lot of us went a-skulking into the hive.
For all his egotism and megalomania, Gnollpoleon at least had the tactical skills to live up to it. He directed his troops with remarkable efficiency, sending them out in little groups to seize key points in the hive and subdue any guards they met along the way. Gnollpoleon himself led the team that captured King Thorax. Within the hour, a team of gnolls threw the Hive's main gates open, and a column of troopers marched in to cement Gnollpoleon's hold on the hive.
Gnollpoleon had Thorax and the rest of the changelings locked up somewhere, and soon set up court in the Hive's throne room. Or, well, the room where Queen Chrysalis' throne had been until it blew up. In lieu of such an impressive seat, Gnollpoleon merely sat on a tall, folding camp chair one of his gnolls had brought. He'd even changed into a fresh uniform, even if the lingering smell of changeling sewage hung around him. He'd set up the same map table from his tent in the center of the throne room, now with little carved figurines positioned across it.
“You have served me well, Monsieur Sentry!” Gnollpoleon said as he looked up from his strategizing. “You've more than lived up to your end of the bargain-- and so, let it not be said I am not a gnoll of my word!” With that, Gnollpoleon took the little blue vial of antidote from his pocket, and tossed it to me.
I caught it (barely) with shaking hooves, and glared at the horrid little creature. “And we get free passage back to Equestria.”
“But of course.”
I didn't run to the infirmary.
Flying was faster.
Carrot Top was still where I left her, pale and unconscious. I uncorked the little vial of antidote, put it to her lips, and poured the stuff down her throat. Within moments, the stuff began to take effect: color returned to Carrot Top's cheeks, and her green eyes soon fluttered open to look up at me with a familiar look equal parts annoyance and confusion.
“Sentry?” She stirred, tangling the sheets up in her legs. “What the hell did you do this time?”
I let out a relieved laugh-- sure enough, Carrot Top must have been feeling better already if she had the strength to get mad at me. “I save your life, and that's the first thing you ask?”
“It's a valid question.”
“That's beside the point.”
“Talk. Last thing I remember was throwing up on your hooves.”
“Because of the poison. Right. So, uh, given the circumstances I ... may have made a deal with Gnollpoleon to help him conquer the changelings in exchange for the antidote.”
“What?”
“What else was I supposed to do?
“Maybe something besides selling out Equestria's newest ally to a power-hungry maniac?”
“Like what? I've been making this up as I go along. Some of us aren't highly trained special agents, you know.” I paused, and a thought struck me. “Come to think of it, how come you didn't know the wine was poisoned?”
“I had ... suspicions, but I couldn't act on them without breaking my cover. So I drank the poisoned wine before anyone important could. It was the only thing I could think of.”
“And I'm the idiot.” I grumbled. “At least I've got a healthy sense of self preservation.”
“You said it yourself, you're not a special agent. You wouldn't understand. Because sometimes, there just aren't any other options. If you or Thorax drank that wine, we'd be in even worse shape-- or at least I thought we'd be in worse shape –so it fell on me. I'm expendable.”
“Not to me you're not.” The words tumbled from my lips before I could even think about them.
Carrot Top gasped softly, and her cheeks flushed a rosy red. She looked away from me, and started kicking the sheets from her hooves. “I-- you-- we don't have time to talk about this right now. We've got to do something.”
“Right. Free passage back to Equestria was part of the deal, but I'd rather get moving before Gnollpoleon changes his mind.” I tried helping Carrot Top out of bed, which was a mistake. With a lightning-quick movement, she had me face-down on the floor with one of my front-legs wrenched up at an angle it was decidely not meant to go. Pain lanced up my shoulder, and some foolishly optimistic part of me noted that Carrot Top must have been feeling better if she had the strength to wrench my leg out of its socket.
“We're not leaving.” Carrot Top said. “Not until we fix this.”
“How? There's only two of us! It's not like we can lecture Gnollpoleon on friendship until--” And then, the epiphany hit me. “Wait. I think I have a plan.”
“You. Have a plan.” Carrot Top said, deadpan. She didn't sound convinced, but at least she let go of my leg.
That was a start.
“Gnollpoleon!” I barged into the throne room turned war room, marched to the central table, and thumped a bottle of red wine down on Appleoosa. “I owe you a drink.”
“Out for le revenge ironique? Surely you do not think me such a fool as that?”
“Of course not.” I uncorked the bottle, and took a swig directly from it. Not quite the best way to enjoy a summer red, but these were desperate circumstances. “You said it yourself, if I wanted to kill you, I'd do a lot better job of it.”
“Oh-ho-ho! Then why are you here, Monsieur Sentry? Why are you not with your paramour pony?”
“She's sleeping-- the antidote did what it's supposed to, but she's still weak. I told her to rest before we set out for Equestria.”
“I see. Then why are you here?”
“Like I said, to offer you a drink. Several, actually.”
“Oh?” Gnollpoleon snapped his fingers, and one of his soldiers scurried up with a pair of wineglasses. “Why is that?”
I poured out two glasses, and settled into an empty folding chair. “I brought a ... considerable amount of wine with me from Equestria. I hate to leave it behind. I also hate drinking alone, which is why I'm here. Cheers.” I clinked glasses with Gnollpoleon.
“Salut!” Gnollpoleon sniffed the wine (whether out of suspicion or appreciation, I couldn't tell) and then drank. His eyebrows went up in surprise, and he reached over to take up the wine bottle. “You have excellent taste, Monsieur Sentry.”
“There's more where that came from.” I said. “In fact, I probably brought enough wine for your entire horde.” I paused, and glanced around at the various aides and guards posted around the room. “Or ... at least most of them. I guess it just depends on who finds the cases first.”
A brief murmur rose up amongst the gnolls, but Gnollpoleon himself just laughed, pounding the table. “Very well! You!” He pointed to a gnoll in a tall shako hat. “Find the cases Monsieur Sentry speaks of, and bring them here! We shall celebrate our victory properly, not with the swill les changelings drink!”
A cheer rose up from the gnolls, and soon the party was underway.
Apart from the teeth and the smell, drinking a night away with gnolls is no different than drinking with any other bunch of ne'er do wells. It's a mite more pleasant than drinking with dragons, at least-- even if one avoids the lava-based cocktails, you've still got the sulfurous fumes to worry about.
It pained me to see my carefully selected wine supply go down the gullets of so many ungrateful gnolls, but I just reminded myself that sometimes one had to make certain sacrifices in this line of work. At least the gnolls were just spilling my wine, and not my blood, I reflected, in what I passed for optimism.
Night turned to morning turned to midday, and the gnolls showed little sign of stopping their celebration. Songs were sung (typically loudly and off key), toasts were made (typically loudly and off-color) and the raucous cackling of the hyena-creatures echoed through every room in the Hive.
I paced myself, remaining marginally more sober than Gnollpoleon and his lot. Luckily, I'd had plenty of practice at carousing-- a more straight-laced pony would've passed out by the fourth bottle of Pinto Noir.
Sometime around mid-afternoon (I remember squinting against the painful sunlight), I found myself staring at the maps and miniatures Gnollpoleon had laid out across the now-winestained table. I tilted my head to the side, and then traced a hoof over the blue line of a river. “You know, Gnollpoleon, you just might have a chance.” I said, idly. “A small one, but a chance.”
“Pardonnez moi?”
“Oh, come off it.” I said. “We both know you're going to set your sights on Equestria, sooner or later.”
“Oh-ho-ho! You know me too well, Monsieur Sentry! C'est vrai-- it is my destiny to live up to my name, and conquer all that I see! Indeed, someday, I shall lead my horde northward, to do glorious battle with you little ponies. And on that day, I shall look forward to facing you upon the battlefield someday. Vive la guerre!” Gnollpoleon clinked his glass against mine.
“I'm not so sure if I'll be the one fighting you, Gnollpoleon.”
“Non?” Gnollpoleon tilted his head to the side. “You are not saying you wish to join me, are you?”
“Damnation, no.” I shook my head. “Look, all I'm saying is that if you invade Equestria, I'm going to be the least you've got to worry about. There's the Princesses, for one. Or, uh, for four, I suppose. Four and a half if you count the baby.”
“L'enfante?”
“L'enfante terrible, more like. I haven't the foggiest idea how alicorning works, but the little sprog's bound to be filled with the power of childlike innocence or some other such nonsense. Mark my words, you keep this up, and the next thing you know you're going to get zapped in the soul with a rainbow.”
“Monsieur Sentry, do you not think I have anticipated this? Why do you think I have chosen Les Changelings as my first target?” He waved a clawed hand over the throne room. “Queen Chrysalis was famous for her black throne, a terrible thing that hungered for power, just as changelings hunger for l'amour.”
“Didn't that explode?”
“Oui! Oui!” Gnollpoleon's grin grew wider. “But that is exactly why I am here! For the fragments of the black throne, surely they remain!”
“There's no way you can rebuild it.”
“I do not have to! Non, Monsieur Sentry-- for therein lies the brilliance of my plan! Each fragment of the black throne can still absorb magic ... if not as much. If each of my gnolls carries a piece of the throne with them--”
“--they've got their own little anti-magic field.”*
*The magical theory behind Gnollpoleon's plan is debatable. Some studies do show that magic sometimes behaves as a liquid, in that it can be directed or absorbed by certain objects (or even certain ponies) given the right conditions. However, the ways in which magic behaves are hardly universal, dependent on any number of factors, ranging from the position of the stars to the emotional status of the pony. Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly) Sentry does not provide enough detail to determine the magical feasibility of Gnollpoleon's scheme.
“Oui!” Gnollpoleon howled with eager laughter. “It shall give them the edge they need to conquer Equestria!”
“Why are you telling me this?” I refilled my wineglass.
“I like you, Monsieur Sentry. I had thought ponies to be weak and sentimental-- but you have proved me wrong! My plan is so brilliant, I must share it with someone who will appreciate it.”
“Look, Gnollpoleon.” I said, flatly. “If this anti-magic-rock business works out for you, that doesn't mean you're going to win. That just means things are going to get ... unpleasant.”
“Oh?”
“I am absolutely certain Princess Celestia knows there are some problems that can't be solved through tactical applications of friendship. And for those problems, she has contingencies. More contingencies than I care to think about.” I pounded down the remnants of my wineglass, and poured myself another red. “I have to admit, you've got the foundations of a halfway decent scheme going. But if magic rainbow nonsense is off the table, then it's all dirty tricks and knives in the dark.”
“Assassins? Pah! I spit upon them! What do ponies know of cloaks and daggers?”
“More than you'd think.” I shrugged. “But to be honest, it probably won't even come to that. You ... do realize pegasus ponies such as myself can control the weather, yes? How far is your invasion going to go once the weather corps drops a couple of blizzards on you?”
“Les blizzards?” One of the gnoll troopers said. Gnollpoleon silenced him with a general's glare, but the seed had been planted. A few other gnolls began to murmur amongst themselves, listening more closely to the conversation. I rubbed at my chin-- and then started speaking louder.
“Oh, absolutely. They might mix things up with a thunderstorm or two, but there's nothing quite like a few feet of snow to make things properly miserable. Can't really march once frostbite's gotten a couple of your toes, after all. In fact--” In a rare moment that would've done my old academy instructors proud, I dredged up some fragments of a lecture I'd probably slept through. “Isn't that what happened to the first Gnollpoleon?”
Gnollpoleon paled, at least as much as a speckled hyena-beast could beneath his grey fur. “Why are you telling me this, Monsieur Sentry?”
“Because, Gnollpoleon,” I said, with remarkable (read: drunken) candor. “I don't like you.”
“Quoi?”
“You are an ugly little creature-- both inside and out. Which normally I wouldn't care about, but you've made an already miserable trip even more unpleasant. And that's before you tried to poison me. Also, you're short and that hat makes you look ridiculous.”
“You dare?” Gnollpoleon stood on his chair, and pointed a claw at me. “You dare to speak to the great Gnollpoleon this way?”
“The great Gnollpoleon?” I scoffed. “Hardly. All you've done so far is terrorize some clueless, bug-brained changelings. You're just number fourteen in a long, long line of losers.” I drained my glass and reached for the bottle again, only to find it empty. “And you know what they say about sequels.”
Gnollpoleon fumed and growled, while the rest of his gnolls looked on, shocked at such a display of disrespect to their commander. He threw his wineglass to the floor, and hopped onto the table, walking across his own maps in a vain attempt to loom over me. “Monsieur Sentry, for this affront, I will see you--”
“Sir!” A gnoll with sergeant's bars on his sleeve burst through the door, panting. “The changelings! They have escaped!”
“Quoi?” Gnollpoleon said, in shock-- only to turn his beady eyes upon me once more. “Zut alors! Monsieur Sentry, this is your fault! J'accuse!”
“Not entirely my fault.” I said, having imbibed enough liquid courage to put me at Daring Do levels. “I just provided the distraction while Carrot Top did all the hard work. I'm frankly surprised it took you this long to notice-- I imagine they're halfway to Equestria by now.”
“Seize him!” Gnollpoleon shrieked, and before I could take wing, a platoon's worth of gnolls piled onto me, pinning me in place. Gnollpoleon jumped off of the table and landed right in front of my nose, sneering. “This treachery shall not go unpunished! Your wings shall be plucked, your bones shall be broken, and your skin shall be flayed! But not before you get to watch your beloved Equestria burn.” Gnollpoleon spat in my face, and then turned around to literally bark orders at his troops. “Enough of this! We have celebrated too long, and too early! Prepare the troops, for soon, we march!”
“March where, pray tell?”
The gnolls turned, and gasped as they saw none other than Princess Luna tromp into the throne room. Guards in shining armor (led by Shining Armor himself) flanked her, while Spitfire and a handful of Wonderbolts streaked in and started circling above our heads. Gnollpoleon's troops (at least the ones who hadn't drank themselves to unconsciousness) warily backed away from the main door, cowed by the sudden show of force.
“Fools! Imbeciles! Cowards!” Gnollpoleon said. “Can't you see? These are not real ponies! They are les changelings! This is just another ruse! Do not be afraid! For I, the great Gnollpoleon Bone-Apart XIV, shall tear away this disguise, and then we shall tear these insects to ribbons!”
With that, Gnollpoleon marched (if a little unsteadily) up to Princess Luna, and kicked her in the shin. His foot connected with one of Luna's armored sabatons, and the resulting 'clang!' echoed off the vaulted ceiling of the throne room. Gnollpoleon hopped on one foot and swore, comically-- that is, until Princess Luna stepped on him. The wind left Gnollpoleon's lungs with a dog-toy-reminiscent squeak, and the little gnoll could do little but flail helplessly against her strength.
“I am no illusion.” Princess Luna's eyes blazed with magic as she swept her gaze over the other gnolls present. “Are there any others who wish to test me?”
There weren't.
“That went ... surprisingly well.” Carrot Top said. She had pulled me out of a chaos of clean-up and congratulations, and dragged me off to some quiet little tower where we wouldn't be bothered. It was a good thing she did, too, as I was finally beginning to feel the deleterious effects of the wine. I hadn't puked while bowing to Princess Luna, but it was a close thing.
“You did all the hard work, getting the changelings out of the dungeon.” I said, looking out the window to the barren changeling lands beyond. It was hardly a landscape worth so much damned trouble, but that was about standard for my career.
“All in a day's work for Special Agent Golden Harvest.” Carrot Top said, deadpan. “It ... it would have been a lot harder if you hadn't distracted Gnollpoleon, though.”
“All in a day's work for Lieutenant Flash Sentry.” I managed a dutiful expression for a few seconds before breaking out laughing.
“I can't believe you saved Equestria by getting drunk.”
“Technically, I saved Equestria by getting someone else drunk.”
“Here's what I don't get-- how did you know when the reinforcements from Equestria would arrive?”
“I didn't.”
“What?”
“I figured they'd get here eventually, once the airship brought the news to Canterlot, but beyond that, I had no idea. Honestly, I'm just lucky Princess Luna teleported her team here instead of going overland-- must have shaved at least a day or two off their time. I just stalled Gnollpoleon for as long as I could. And if that didn't work I was just going to light something on fire and run away.”
“That's a terrible plan.”
“Which makes it lucky Princess Luna arrived when she did.”
“Gnollpoleon was ready to kill you.”
“He was.” I shuddered. “But ... well, even if he did, that still would have distracted him, wouldn't it? You'd still escape with King Thorax, like you needed to. I'm ... expendable.”
Carrot Top touched a hoof to my cheek, tilted my chin up, and looked me straight in the eye.
“Not to me you're not.”
So ends the third volume of the Flash Sentry papers.
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DAMN IT, THE SHIP, THE FLUFF!
AUGH, IT BURNSES US!
Man, these are great, I sincerely hope we haven't seen the last of the Flash Sentry Papers.
Hopefully at some point Twilight Sparkle will make a statement about them.
It's worth pointing out that a good romance cooks slow, just like Sentry and Top here.
Oh I love that ending. The corny one liner carrot spewed just makes it better
Nice to know flash does have a little bit of hero inside of him. And a whole lot of lucky bastard
I'm not going to ask how you ferment lava, but...
Actually, yes. Yes I am. How do you ferment lava?
In any case, I admit, this chapter surprised me. I hadn't expected Flash to be so sincere about betraying the changelings, but with Carrot on the line, his blend of expediency and ruthlessness came to the obvious conclusion. Still, at least he made up for his mistake, and boy did he reap the rewards afterwards.
Another fantastic volume in this series. Thank you for it. Here's looking forward to more.
I see they're still catering to the cliché of the girl hurting the guy she likes over and over again without any real consequences or repercussions.
Oh, dear.
I don't doubt that you're charging to your doom.
This is too easy.
He has a point.
This should be good.
Oooh, I see where this is going.
To est le plus grand crétin du monde. La Princesse controle le SOLEIL. Elle peut te vaporizer come ça!
See?
You are dangerously smart. However, that doesn't mean you're immune to a solar flare wiping out your army. Or a sudden landslide.
More than you'd think.
See?
Ohoho!
Great nothing. You terrorized pacifists.
What?
You're fucked now.
Sounds about right.
You were both drunk.
Come again?
That's a terrible plan.
TiLTed. Also, I love it echoes like this, it's pretty great.
8384308
Maybe the lava drinks depend on the mineral content? Like troll drugs in Discworld.
A clever ending indeed. I guess gnolls, unlike Diamond Dogs, can't just burrow underground to escape a blizzard while invading.
It feels like I know french, and that's the important thing.
Flash would probably be the one pony to be very, very upset to find out she's real
Bravo, this might be my favorite in the series so far, simply for the increasing closeness of Flash and Golden Harvest. That said, this installment really felt like two separate short stories put together in the middle. I fully expected the story to end with the announcement that Flash was being sent to the changeling lands, to leave room for the next story. The fact that this story claims to be compiled by a historian does cut you some slack in that area, but it does make me question why you didn't either cut this story into two, or publish all of Flash's adventures under one story.
That said, I'm excited to read the next installment!
Inquisitor Amberley approves
8418553
You've got something of a point there, buuuuut, as it is, there's a couple of reasons why I format stuff the way I do. For one, I tend to work on my stories in fits and starts-- they're connected, but episodic. If I just mashed all of the Flash Sentry Papers together into one story, it'd never be properly finished. Not to mention my own personal tastes in fanfic skew towards shorter stories-- I tend to veer away from big novel-length stories as a reader.
Likewise, on the other hand (hoof?) I didn't split this story into two smaller ones mostly because I wanted to highlight the contrast between Flash and Carrot Top murderizing a bunch of Changelings in the first half of the story, and then being forced to protect them in the second. So, uh, thematics! Or something.
In any case, thanks for reading! And stay tuned-- there'll be more of Sentry's misadventures to come. :)
The hell? How did two more of this series come out without me spotting them?
Fuck it; you're getting followed,
And thus, the fourth volume was on it's way.
(Hint!)
8598369
What, you mean this one? :)
(I actually have some vague ideas for a volume five, but that's on the backburner as I work on some other stuff).
Finished the story ages ago, but have only been able to get back online today to comment.
Brilliant work as always. Will some of the other volumes be out of chronological order? Seems to me as if Flash would have ended up in some strange shenanigans that time when Flurry broke the Crystal Heart.
Are you certain this is more Flashman than Cain? Because that was a very Cain (and Amberly) way to finish a volume.
This was magnificent. I love the twists, and the relationship between the two main characters. Lovely echo of the very sweet "expendable"/"not to me" line. Great stuff!
Huh, knew he'd come through in the end, should have expected him to be that willing to ditch the 'lings. But he just needed to be reminded of the right thing. And Love his plan was to just drink them into distraction!
Do also wonder just why the Gnolls needed him at all in the first place. But, either way we got the tiny gnoll to look like the idiot he is. Okay, even if the throne rocks blocked direct magic, how is that going to stop Celestia from using her magic to just chuck a giant pillar of sunfire down on you? Or so many other ways they can indirectly use magic to fuck you up.
Now for some very awkward talks to avoid about emotions and feelings and such!