Mobile Suit Gundam: Alicorn

by Alines Reinhard

Chapter 4

Black Wine carefully reads through the paper he has left from last night.

It was almost a habit he had developed when he started his position as the Chancellor of Equestria: checking some papers with a hot little cup of coffee right next. He feels like it was something nice and it fit well to someone who works in a high ranking position in the Government.

“Let me see…”, he mumbled “The Diamond Dogs complained that they can’t meet any of the officials? Ha! What a joke! They have stolen some lands at Appleloosa and now they want to meet us to steal more?”

Also working as the President of “The Ponykind” party, a negative view on other species other than ponies is something you would expect from a black coated stallion like him. To him, the creatures have “bleed the ponies dry for 2 decades' '.

He was well respected among his party by successfully closing the School of Friendship. His reason: closed for investigating multiple magical incidents that occurred with creatures doing inappropriate actions. He has addressed that the school would close for just a few months, and he hoped that would be long enough for his party to make some preparation to kick the creatures out.

The masked pony takes one more little sip from his hot coffee.

“Too strong. Guess I over do it yesterday!”

His ears then pay their attention to the door as somepony knocks outside.

“Come in!” he ordered softly.

A pale red unicorn with a perfectly tied bun comes in with some more paper levitating slightly above her head. She carefully closed the door and walked in.

“What is that?”

“The papers from the 265, Sir! They said that S.M.I.L.E has failed again.”

“For the third time? Good! How about Zeta's pilot?”

“It’s in the report. They haven’t told me about that yet.”

“Okay…” , the Chancellor sighed, “You are dismissed”

She bowed slightly and came out. The Chancellor checked the new reports and he was greeted with some special news.

“He has just woken up?” he mumbled. “Guess we should bring them out now.”

Although he was delighted to find his opponent unit failed and “Operation Rainbow Chaser” was threatened to stop permanently, the recovery of the mysterious Gundam that was called by his reconnaissance department as the “Zeta Gundam” . It’s pilot seems to be a fully experienced human that was directly trained by the Earth Federation itself, but this does not worry him since he has more human pilots in the 265’s complement.

“Joseph Barn, Nikita Govarich and Mark Ester. That’s the Black Tristar of the Federation, my favorite pilots!” he said to his subordinate when they were having a party with his Anaheim Electronics (also known as AE) friends. “Those scumbag creatures won’t stand a chance facing them.”

Although the 265 are pushing harder than ever to train ponies to be fully experienced pilots, reliance on AE’s human pilots and technicians. This also makes his strive to complete freedom from creatures a nonsense movement, if the public somehow finds out what his party is really doing.

But still, he still wants to start capturing the Alicorn. At least to him, it would be a machine that will make some weight on the negotiation table when he wants the creatures to hand over some of their “stolen from the ponies” mines.

“Red Velvet! Call Lieutenant Thunderstruck! We’ll capture that thing!”

…

“Wait! I think I know who he is!” a female voice speaks up in the distance “Maybe he is Flash Sentry?”

“Flash Sentry?” another voice said “Who is that?”

-Well… Princess Twilight once told me…

Within the shadow, Flash could hear their voice pretty clear, and it kept getting louder as he moved. The pitch black prevents him from seeing, but he has a weird yet familiar feeling that he is walking on… hooves?

“I`m… I`m a pony again?”

“Who is there?” another voice asked in a rather uncomfortable voice.

But strangely, he could realize that`s the voice of… a kirin.

“But… a kirin was just in legend… No way!”

In the dark, a four legged figure appeared and walked toward Flash. The creature seems to have whites eyes and her mane and tail look exactly like a kirin, the mythical creature he saw in a fairytale book as a foal.

“Yes… We exist! And not only the kirin, but the nirik too!”

“Ni… Nirik!”, he gasped.

Only at that moment, she fully revealed herself: her eyes were bright white and her body was nothing but red flames.

Flash can already feel the heat come from her.

“Awww… is this the pony who fell for us?” she said.

“No! Don't touch me!”

And then, he ran, his mind was nothing but fear. In panic, he tried to find the best way to run, but the heat from the creature just kept getting closer and closer. Eventually, the nirik pushed him to a dead end.

“Save us out, fast!” the nirik demanded with the creepiest voice Flash has ever heard “Or I will burn you alive!”

“No… No… NO!”

Flash screamed and woke up on another strange bed.

“What… What just happened?” Flash asked himself.

“Hey, wake up!” Haystack comes to his bed “You’ll have to meet some important creatures today!”

…

It was a hangar that he knew but he had never seen it in person before.

The Canterlot is a Pegasus class warship, which means it was a fairly old ship compared to the more modern Clop class or the famous Ra Cailum, which Flash has personally seen. But according to Haystack, the ship’s versatility is the reason why S.M.I.L.E chose the Canterlot for their operations.

Another thing that captures his eyes is how much Equestria has changed after 20 years through the scene in the hangar alone. There are creatures working together: mechanics, marshals, even some pilots, and there are no humans like him.

“Guess you are the only human here. Come along and enjoy this sight!” Haystack said.

“Good morning Haystack! Glad you are recovered, Cultrich!” some creature said in the distance.

A pair of middle aged ponies came to the pal and shook their hooves to Haystack before turning to Flash.

“How do you feel now?”

“I’m fine, ma’am!”

“Good, then! Anyway my name is Sweetie Drop, you can call me Bonbon!” she gives her hoofs out and shakes Flash’s hand. “I’m the General Director of S.M.I.L.E as well as the commander of Operation ‘Rainbow Chaser’.”

“And I’m Lyra Heartstring, Co-director! Nice to meet you too!” The magic-mint coat unicorn said. “Welcome to S.M.I.L.E!”

“So… have you shown him the Strike Zeta, Lieutenant?”

“Oh… Yes! Come with me!” the Lieutenant waved at Flash and started leading him to the mobile suit he had piloted in.

“Can I ask some questions?” Flash said “Why do you have these things? I mean the mobile suits, this ship, the pilots…”

“Well… that’s a long story! But it could be said like this: basically there is a business woman from another world who offers us to buy these things. The Council of Friendship, which currently has Princess Twilight Sparkle herself and her friends, rejected. But after some convincing, they agree, only after they find out those guys that corporation called Anaheim signed some contracts with Chancellor Black Wine.”

“So… where is Princess Luna and Celestia?”

“They have retired! Anyway Rainbow Dash has offered this beautiful old lady Canterlot and some nice polished mobile suits to us! She may be old, but she is never outdated, at least to us!”

“How do you train…”

But his questions were cut short when his eyes met the Strike Zeta again.

The 19.85 meters tall mobile suits were carefully covered with military cloth all over some of its area of armor, indicating that it sustained damages after the crash. There are dents, scratches and some exposed electrical wires all over its body. Flash could also see some creatures working around the suits.

“Honestly this is a mobile suit we never see, let alone doing maintenance on it. Lucky for you some of these mechanics are already trained with suits similar to you. I don’t know what are they, but… yeah, it should be identical to this!”

“Lieutenant Haystack!” a hippogriff mechanic called “Glad to see you here! Are you this thing pilot?”

Flash nodded slightly.

“There are dents on its torso, the right shoulder armor, it’s wing… Well we are doing our best, even with magic to fix this. Do you have any instructions for this?”

“I have maintenance as well as some pilot instruction. They are all in the cockpit.”

“Okay, we have seen it.” she said “But we have performed overall maintenance on your suit and it is perfect for battle now! Now we just wait for fixing the armor a bit!”

“Good!… Let’s go to the mission room now, shall we?”, Haystack said.

…

The mission room is getting more and more crowded with creatures. Flash could spot some ponies, hippogriffs, griffons, yaks,… gather in groups, chattering about some nonsense as well as serious topics, and he found most of them are strangely familiar.

“20 years! Equestria sure has changed a lot since I was banished!” he thought to himself.

But they start to change their eyes on Flash when they notice him and Haystack get into the mission room. He could hear some of them talking about him.

“A human? Long time no see!”

“Is that Anaheim’s mechanic?”

“That’s the guy from the Strike Zeta, idiot!”

“Good morning every creature!” director Lyra comes into the room and starts. “Today, I wanted to talk about some hot topics. As you have heard of…”

He could see the creatures are getting bored of how much failure they have to see over the time. As the co-director of S.M.I.L.E has stated, they have failed to catch a strange machine called “Alicorn Gundam”. They have concluded that the mysterious MS that is spotted flying occasionally in the sky belongs to no one, and they are the one in charge of catching it.

Suddenly, a strange feeling ran down Flash’s spine, saying that something familiar is in that strange machine.

“Can… can it be…” he mumbled, but couldn't say the whole sentence.

“And finally, I want you to welcome our newest member of our ship, Brandon Cultrich. He is the Strike Zeta pilot that you are waiting to meet!”

The room clapped their hooves and claws when he and Haystack came on to the stage.

“Thank you for all of your support!” Haystack said calmly “So this is him, Ensign Brandon Cultrich, he'll fight those fitthy ponies with us from now!”

Then, the feeling that he has felt before comes to him again. He feels like there are creatures that, being unfairly imprisoned, wanted his help. It was indescribable and unexplainable.

“Thank you everyone, and now here comes Captain Discord!”

The Lieutenant's words pulled him out of the thinking when he said the name Discord. He knew him well, since he was the one who had been redeemed by Fluttershy, a member of the Council of Friendship. He both had some surprise as well as happiness when he saw the draconequus get on to the stage.

Flash and Haystack come down the stage as the Canterlot’s captain starts his speech.

“Hello every creature!” he said with his normal un-formal voice “Nice to meet you, again. And hello to you too, Mr. Cultrich…”

Flash nodded slightly when the Lieutenant said to him.

“Come to the hangar, I’ll show you your new team.”

…

A group of 2 ponies, a yak and a hippogriff standing near a Jegan, waiting for the pal to arrive.

“There they are! Cultrich!” the Lieutenant said “Meet my team: Blue Thunder, Sparkle Shy, Watervapor and Yamina! How about your Jeagan, Blue Thunder?”

“They are going to give me a spare hand for it. Oh and nice to meet you, Cultrich!”

The blue pony gave his hoofs out and they were shaken.

“I guess that’s an unfortunate situation for you to randomly get to another world like this!” Blue Thunder said jokingly. “And getting a job right after you wake up, but I guess you are too valuable to us!”

“I… Yeah…” Flash mumbled.

“Haystack! Where are you?” Discord yelled in the distance. “I thought you should show up at the bridge!”

Suddenly, from the other side of the hangar, Discord shows up. He waved at the team and came to them.

“Good to see ya still safe and sound, Cultrich! We will have a tour with this ship later with you!” Discord shaken Flash’s hand again “So, what are we talking here?”

“Just a team gathering, Sir. We are discussing what we should…”

All of the sudden, the siren in the ships goes up, and then the speaker announced:

“The Alicorn has been spotted travelling just 10 kilometers from us. All personnel go to the battlestation!”

“What? We just…” Haystack mumbled.

“Okay! Gather your team Lieutenant! I’ll go to the bridge!”

“Yes Sir!” Haystack replied before turning to Flash. “You should also come with us too, Cultrich! I know that the Zeta hasn't been perfectly polished yet, but as that mechanic has said, it was basically battle ready! We want to test how fast that thing is as well!”

“Yes Sir!” Flash replied.