Equestria: The Afterlife

by Timzocker201

Ch11: RE;search

POV: Markus

I fucked up… Seriously: I made a major mistake. What was that mistake? Well, let me explain: You all remember, how I told Fluttershy about me being an omnivore and therefore needing meat, right? Wrong! You remember, how I told the FALSE Fluttershy, but I forgot to tell the real one. Sadly I didn`t notice this mistake until it was too late. So, here's what happened:

After what had transpired the day prior, I decided that I would take to the woods today and get some calm in hunting. What I didn’t know, however, was that Fluttershy also was currently inside the Everfree, for reasons unknown to me.

We ran into each other. Well, actually she ran into me. However, her timing couldn’t have been worse. She found me in the exact moment when I sent an arrow towards a rabbit that was hopping along the path. The only reason I noticed her, was that I heard her squeal behind me. At first I didn’t even realize what just happened, but as I turned around and saw her, I suddenly remembered.

Needless to say, it took a good bit of effort just to calm her down. When she was finally calm, however, she didn’t even let me explain. Instead she came at me and screamed at me, how I was an animal murderer and a heartless killer and stuff like that.

Seeing as I needed to explain to her for the third time, what my diet was and why I was hunting in the Everfree, this situation wasn’t really a good basis for a conversation.

With a good bit of effort and patience, I eventually got the whole situation back under control. I explained to her, how I was an omnivore (again), how I needed meat to survive (again), how we originally had this conversation already, only to find out that the Fluttershy I was talking to wasn’t the real one and how I forgot to inform her afterwards.

Now that she knew my situation, she actually was okay with me going hunting. Well, as okay as a timid, pacifist herbivore could be, that is. Still, I decided that I should give her some time and space to come to terms with it. Luckily, I remembered that there was still a certain mare sitting in the Canterlot Dungeon and waiting for her interrogation.

I quickly sent Celestia a letter through Spike, saying that I would be coming to interrogate her in about six hours and that I would be pleased to have her with me during the interrogation. Originally I had planned to just head out without waiting for a response, however Celestia seems to be an awfully fast writer, as our sentient fax machine burped the answer into my face only seconds later.

I told Twilight where I would go, however as she asked if she could join me, I decided against it. I was pretty certain that the mare would put up a bit of resistance against our interrogation and I certainly didn’t want to risk Twilight having a third mental breakdown after she saw my… more effective methods.

The following train ride was calm, for the most part. The only real problem was that I by myself couldn’t afford first class and the Royal Cabin was, well, only for royalty and their companions. This meant that I had to go with second class and sit amongst the regular townsfolk. That in itself wasn’t a problem, but most ponies have never seen a human in their life. As such I had to put up with quite a few nervous looks from everyone who wasn’t from Ponyville.

I reached Canterlot at 2pm and was greeted by two royal guards which were to escort me to the palace. Celestia was already waiting for me before the entrance to the dungeons. She greeted me politely, though I could literally feel her weariness after the little incident with Shining Armor. I couldn’t help but smile a little internally, seeing as my deception actually seemed to be working.

Celestia unlocked the Dungeon and we made our way into the cool and moist gangway which contained the doors to the cells. The cells, however, were not where we were headed. Instead, we passed the cells and went into a short corridor with two doors on each side. One of them was the interrogation chamber and one was the observer’s room. Sugarcoat got transferred into one of them shortly prior to my arrival and was already waiting for us.

Celestia entered the room first, immediately getting a comment from Sugarcoat.

“Oh, there is our holy Sungoddess. I’ve been waiting so long; I thought you forgot me down here. Now, what nonsensical questions will I have to put up with this ti—“

She inhaled sharply as she spied me standing behind Celestia. Her eyes widened and her pupils narrowed down. Her face went pale and she began to shiver.

Celestia gave me a questioning look. I however, just walked towards the small table, Sugarcoat was placed at. As I closed in, I could watch her shivers increase, her once yellow coat morphing more and more into white. I reached the table and leaned myself on it, slowly creeping closer towards Sugarcoat, increasing her unease. She shrunk slowly into her chair as she tried to make herself as small as possible. Finally, I had my face directly above hers. Her shivers had grown into a full-on tremble by now and her coat had lost all its color.

“P-please, don’t hurt me.” She whispered, as she looked at me with fear-filled eyes.

“Oh, I won’t. As long as you answer all of our questions in a satisfactory manner, that is.” I answered, giving her my best impression of a rape-face.

I slowly increased the distance between us again, settling down onto a chair on the other side of the table. Celestia sat down beside me. She eyed me with mild curiosity, probably trying to figure out how I could have made her talkative that easily. Seeing as those ponies probably aren’t the best at interrogations, given their almost too friendly nature, I wouldn’t be surprised if their interrogations consisted of politely asking their prisoners about their information.

“Now, my little pony, I think it is time for you to give some answers.” Celestia said, as she turned her look to Sugarcoat.

The former Unicorn mare started to say something, however her tremble was so bad that everything she said was unintelligible.

“Oh, my poor little pony, do you not feel well?”, Celestia said, with a genuine tone of worry in her voice.

Sugarcoat nodded.

“Would it help if Markus here would leave the room?” She said in a motherly caring voice.

Sugarcoat nodded again and Celestia gestured me towards the door. I left the room and chuckled slightly to myself. You see: even though it might not be quite evident, but this actually was an accidental case of good cop – bad cop. The funny thing about this is that Celestia most likely didn’t even know what that means.

I went over into the observer’s room and remained there for the rest of the interrogation. Apparently, while she was the one tasked with taking Fluttershy’s place, as well as leading Luna’s kidnapping, she was not in an actual leading position. The only one with a leading position was that brown stallion, whom she only knew as her >>master<<. At least she didn’t have another name for him. The only really useful information we got out of her was that apparently there are multiple groups beside the bloodmoon cult, which all unify under one entity. While being a possibility, I find it unlikely that this brown stallion would be that certain entity. He probably belongs to some sort of a council or something.

Anyways, after the interrogation we went into the palace, where a quick glance at the clock told me two things:

One: The whole interrogation only took about half an hour, of which probably twenty minutes were filled with Sugarcoat spouting random nonsense. And this isn’t a stereotypical underestimation of useful information, I mean actual nonsense. She was spouting phrases and sentences which in themselves didn’t make any sense. Thinking about it, it might have been that my presence spooked her more than I intended. Luckily, towards the last five minutes she actually managed to calm down.

Two: It was 2:50pm, which meant that, considering the 15 minutes it took me from the station to the dungeon, I would definitely miss the afternoon-train to ponyville, which left at 3pm. The next train would be the evening-train, at 6pm.

Seeing as any try to get to the train in time would probably be in vain, I decided to ask Princess Celestia’s permission to visit the Royal Library. Ever since the Minotaur incident I wanted to have a look at their military Doctrine and this seemed like the perfect chance.

Thus, as I entered the Library, I immediately asked the Librarian about military books. He led me into a somewhat run-down part of the Library, with two shelves, each about four meters in height and full of dusted military books – figures.

I quickly skimmed over the titles, taking a few books that sounded interesting. One that was written by General Firefly and was called >>the importance of formations<<, one by Starswirl, called >>military applications of magic<< and one by an unknown author, called >>the difference between tactics and strategies<<.

Now, don’t get me wrong there: I am impressed by how much they knew about military stuff, especially given their pacifist nature. However that didn’t change that, even for their world’s standards, their military doctrine seemed quite dated, given that the newest book in the shelf was written by Celestia herself about 500 years ago and was called >>The duties and privileges of the Royal Guard<<.

From what I could get from the books, their military consisted of three parts, the Royal Guard, the Solar Guard and the Lunar Guard. The Royal Guard serves both sisters the same, being responsible for guarding the Royal Palace in Canterlot, as well as serving as something like a mix of an actual Army and the Police. The Solar and Lunar Guard meanwhile are more specialized units. They serve solely their respective patron and are hand – or rather hoofpicked by the princesses themselves. Their range of duties mostly includes covert ops and the use as a personal guard by their patron; however they are also trained to be used as an actual elite force in case of a large-scale war.

That alone could be considered surprisingly advanced, if it wasn’t for their military doctrine, which, bluntly formulated, mostly dictates head-butting the enemy until one side gives up. Seeing this, I almost felt sorry for shouting at Shining Armor during the Minotaur incident, as he was just doing what he was taught to do.

That being said, it shouldn’t be surprising that the book about formations was solely meant for Pegasi, as advanced formations for ground troops were deemed unnecessary. The same book also strongly discourages Air-to-Ground combat for reasons not elaborated. Going by this I assumed that the Pegasi would only fly when there was an actual airborne threat, else they would stick to the ground.

The book about tactics and strategies, while technically being correct, also had some fatal flaws in it. While the main question, the difference between tactics and strategies, was correctly answered, the explanations and examples were… pretty optimistic. For one, in almost every example used by the author, the balance of forces is either equal or in favor of the reader, also it is claimed that it is impossible to win when outnumbered. While the latter is, admittedly, less of an error and more of an exaggeration, I myself would highly discourage teaching your students about losses in the very first lesson.

The only book which I couldn’t argue about was the book by Starswirl, albeit that might be because of my yet lacking knowledge about magic. Also, Starswirl has done something that the other authors didn’t: he kept to his own field of expertise. While the other authors wrote about all aspects of the military like they knew them, Starswirl kept his tome solely about the magic itself, not about its use in combat. For example, he wrote about how one can cast a magic shield and magnify it by redirecting some of the energy caught by the shield, however he kept himself from speculating its use in formations or even in one-on-one combat. Sadly the difference in the nature of my magic to that of the ponies makes most of the applications mentioned in this book unavailable to me.

Something that also struck me as odd was that none of the books in both shelves mentioned anything about a navy. I asked the Librarian about it and his answer was… well… let’s say I nearly got myself kicked out of the Library. Apparently there is currently no real naval doctrine in place, as the Equestrian Navy currently only consists of three Galleys, which are anchored down in Fillydelphia, most of the time. Any naval threats are usually dealt with by either the Pegasi or the Princesses themselves, therefore making the writing of an actual naval doctrine a fruitless effort.

After I’ve read everything that didn’t seem like a copy of a book I’ve read already, I looked at the clock again. It was 5pm, meaning that I had another hour to pass before the train arrived. Seeing as I had worked myself through seemingly everything I wanted to know, already, I opted to leave the Library for now and head into town.

In town, I looked around for a shop that looked interesting, while at the same time ignoring the curious looks from the ponies on the streets. Finally my eyes fell, not on a shop, but on the Canterlot Central Hospital. As I still had a good half an hour to spare until I had to get moving towards the station, I decided to visit Princess Luna.

At the hospital I – of course – went to the reception first, to ask for Luna’s room.

“Oh, I’m sorry, but to visit the princess you need a special permission, not to mention that visiting hours are nearly over.” The receptionist said, fighting back her surprise at seeing me.

“But that’s no problem at all, I know the princess personally and Doctor Patch can vow for me, if you want.” I answered. Doctor Patch was the doctor that came to the palace when Luna was injured. Before he went off I specifically asked him about visitation, in case I needed something.

The receptionist gave me a skeptical look and called out doctor patch over the intercom. After only about five minutes of waiting, the doctor arrived, greeting me with a smile.

“Ah, Mister Becker, it’s a pleasure meeting you again.” He said. The receptionist gave him a questioning look.

“Likewise, doctor.” I said. “Might it be possible for me to visit the princess right now?”

“My, of course! Follow me, she’s right down this hallway.”

The doctor went ahead and I fell in step behind him. We went down a long hallway, at the end of which we rounded a corner. The room of the princess was pretty easy to identify, seeing as it was the only guarded room in the hospital.

The room had double-doors, which largely is due to the princess’s size, I presume. The inside of the room was actually quite pragmatic, for a princess at least. It was pretty much just a normal hospital room with the exception that the floor was laminated and there was a small bowl with different fruits on the nightstand. Luna was currently reading as we entered the room. She looked up from her book and smiled wide, as she saw us enter.

“It is quite a welcome surprise for us to see thou again.” She said, as I placed myself beside her bed.

“Likewise, princess. I hope your recovery goes well?” I gave her a smile, as she nodded.

Suddenly, though, her expression changed into a more serious one and she started chewing on her lip.

“What’s wrong, princess?” I asked.

Luna jumped a bit from that, apparently I had ripped her out of a deep thought.

“We are sorry, for the inconvenience. We just had to think about what could have happened if it wasn’t for thy help. We shall see that thou get properly rewarded.”

I gestured her to stop. “I don’t want a reward for this, Luna. Like I said, it is my duty as a soldier to protect those in need of protection. In that case, that was you. That being said, I do have something to ask of you.”

“Very well, thou shall ask us anything thou need.” She answered.

“I want you to visit me in a dream as soon as you can, as I need to have a private talk with you.”

Luna looked at the doctor, who shrugged and shook his head. She then looked back at me.

“We are certain that none of those here will –“

“I’m sorry Luna,” I interrupted, ”but I’m not one to take unnecessary risks.”

Luna thought about it for a while and then finally agreed. With that out of the way, I bid my farewell and made my way to the station.

I reached Ponyville by midnight and went to bed as soon as I was back at the Library. The next morning I was awoken by Twilight, for once. Normally this didn’t happen as not even Twilight gets up at 5:30am. However, that morning I slept in a little, due to me coming home so late the night before. As I looked over to the purple blur next to me, I noticed something was floating beside her head. My eyes slowly adjusted and I saw that Twilight was smiling wide and next to her head, there was a letter.

A letter from Princess Celestia…

Author's Note:

Heya, sorry it took me so long with this one. School started again this week and even though I finally got to write today, I'm still releasing this one a liitle early, at least according to my publishing policy (normally I'm one chapter ahead with writing. Ch12 is currently only about halfway done though... meh, will do for now. ^^)

I hope you like this chapter and as allways, stay tuned for the next!

Comments

[Xblaster]

I really loved this chapter, and the fact you made the Royal guard a completely different branch from the solar and lunar guard, please keep up the good work bud

[Theprophetice]

nice chapter hope the new one will come soon

[MikiStenbeck]

”sentient fax machine”

can you be even more brutal/blunt about what Spike is?

[Munro]

ohh boy they desperately need a copy of "Sun Tzu's Art of War" xD

[Munro]

10053630
i agree on that, it is funny ^^

spike the walking talking fax machine xD

[Furlok Serket]

I actually like how the author sets up the end of each chapter with a minor cliffhanger.

[Foxtrot315]

I quickly skimmed over the titles, taking a few books that sounded interesting. One that was written by General Firefly and was called >>the importance of formations<<, one by Starswirl, called >>military applications of magic<< and one by an unknown author, called >>the difference between tactics and strategies<<.

Of course starswril the fucking bearded has a book written back when ponies had balls