XXIII. Mothballed
XXIII
Mothballed
Bombay Station, Magus’ Motte
Everfree County, Equestria
22. November, 2015
18:16 pm ICT
Fighting Fit’s heart raced.
He stared down on the purple- and gold- adorned captain’s helmet that rested on his lap, and got lost in the miniscule details of the engravings, counting the spirals and laurel leaves and stars and planets that held their place on the artful panoramas of the visor.
Only occasionally did he look up to the windows and let his mind be flooded by the landscape of bright winter wonderland outside. The snow once again fell thickly, though the snowflakes looked rather grey and dirty to him. Funny. Fighting just blinked and decided to cool his eyes on the dark wooden shadows of the chamber instead. It looked fairly ordinary, if hopelessly rustic. The furniture, among them a massive chest-like oak desk, two throne-like cherry wood stools - one of whom he just happened to be cowering in - and a lumbering palace-like walnut armoire in the corner, were very obviously from a simpler, less sturdy time. While the place wasn’t exactly in a state of disrepair, it definitely wasn’t as well maintained as it could have been.
The more he twisted his head to get a better view of his surroundings, the more he noticed he was still stuck in a far-too-tightly buckled embroidered officer’s cloak. He felt his neck twisting and hooves uncontrollably trying to loosen the knot around his throat. He would have taken this darn uncomfortable cloth off altogether, but the prospect of freezing to death seemed a little bit worse. He could see his breath turning to fog before his eyes.
Yes, the insulation of this place was atrocious. Behind the corroded wood paneling lay a blunt layer of stone masonry that was designed to fend of arrows and missiles rather than keep the denizens warm.
But alas, such was Magus’ Motte.
The legendary former stronghold of none other than Starswirl The Bearded, archmage and co-founder of modern Equestria.
Fighting could remember being in these halls exactly once before in his life. It was as a little foal on a school tour for third grade history, retracing all the hoofsteps of Starswirl across the Southern Equestrian region - of which there were a lot. Fighting couldn’t think of a single village that didn’t hold a plaque somewhere in his honour. 'I, of all ponies, should know.' he thought, 'My Miss Holly used to take us to all of them.'
It was little more than a rugged conglomerate bailey that sat atop a hill somewhere in ‘Plough County’, a dirty little speck of farmland stuck somewhere between the Smoky Mountain range and Everfree plateau, and surrounded by a perpetually flimsy wooden motte at the hill’s foot. Erected countless millennia ago as a Unicornian outpost to monitor the highway and surrounding countryside from its elevated position, and later transformed to be a country estate to absconded Canterlot nobility, and even later serving as a laboratory to the stallion of stallions himself, this place was no longer really fit to serve any of those three.
No, this castle now served new masters.
Already on his way here, this had become obvious to him as soon as he spotted the flags that flew above the parapets. Neither was Equestrian. One was a baby-blue banner sporting a white globe, while the other was a rather awkward-looking tricolour of green, white and orange, with some kind of cartwheel slapped on in the centre.
Incidentally, this was the exact reason Shining was here. With close to a hundred stallions in tow, he had commenced on his trek up north. His orders read that he was due to arrive at the Crystal Ridge at the discretion of Princess Luna by the twenty-fourth of the month. The fact that he would schedule a short stopover at the Magus Motte was not only an order though, but a matter of utmost secrecy to boot. Of his host, not a single one knew why they were even here. Even Fighting had the strange feeling that he wasn’t quite as ‘in the know’ as he was meant to be. He just wished he could get this over with as quickly as possible.
As he kept staring on the empty desk in front of him, he heard the clacking of boots vibrating over the groaning floor. A door behind him was noisily unbolted and opened.
Fighting immediately snapped to attention, just as he was used to from Canterlot and all his other postings.
Climbing out of his chair, he turned to see two humans stepping into the windows’ light. The duo had somewhat darker skin than he was used to from others of their kind, and both sported mighty black facial hair - one a bushy moustache, and the other a smart beard. Both seemed to be clad entirely in forest-coloured fatigues from the neck down, but on the older creature’s head sat a baby-blue beret with the emblem of the United Nations on it, whereas the younger one had a long piece of blue cloth artfully wrapped around his head in a thick bundle.
“Very sorry to keep you waiting, Sir...” the younger human with the cloth apologised with a smile. “I did not expect visitors any of these days. You see, I had been rather busy coordinating my men...”
He struck out his claw as if to offer a friendly hoofshake, before abruptly - and with a very embarrassed expression - retracting it and instead gave an apt salute, the palm of his claw facing outwards.
Fighting was confused. He would have expected the older, more rugged-looking human to take the lead. While he was no expert in human biology, the one standing in front of him just struck him as very boyish and youthful.
“Lieutenant Prathu Gavaskar, Pioneer Platoon, Support Company, 8th Battalion of the Indian Army.” he introduced himself, and then nodded to the brawny man to his right. “This is my number two, Havildar Chavan. Now what can I do for you, Sir?”
Fighting could remember when he was first made Lieutenant all those years ago, but even then he fancied himself a lot older and mature than the human standing in front of him right now. Still, he decided to take it as it were. He promptly mirrored the salute and inflated his chest a bit. The fact that he was called ‘Sir’ by a fellow officer did still excite him a little.
“My name… is Lieu… Captain Fighting Fit... from the Canterlot Regimental staff.”
Lieutenant Gavaskar bore a bright grin.
“Are we being invaded?”
That comment took Fighting Fit entirely off-guard.
“I’m sorry?”
The youthful lieutenant quickly waved it off.
“I’m… just joking. But when I heard that our base had gotten a visit from the Equestrian Guard, I wouldn’t have expected to see an entire company camping outside our gates...”
“Oh well…” Fighting stammered, just the tiniest bit embarrassed by his unannounced ‘goodwill visit’, “I hope I didn’t force you out of the shower or anything.”
“Shower?” Gavaskar smiled. “I wish we had showers here. No, I was just instructing some of my men to move fuel barrels into our depot.”
He proudly presented his blackened, oil-stained fingers.
“I just thought...” Fighting smiled back, pointing at his own head for reference, “With your hair in a towel, I just assumed you were busy.”
Here, Gavaskar sighed and scratched his long piece of cloth.
“Ah… no, I’m Sikh, Captain.”
“Oh…” Fighting exclaimed sympathetically, “I’d apply for medical leave if I were you.”
That, strangely enough, made Gavaskar only smile even more.
“Heh… good one. Very good!”
He strode around the desk and prepared to take a seat at the other end, while his ‘number two’ officiously assumed position by the door, right behind Fighting’s back.
“It’s freezing in here, isn’t it?" Gavaskar continued, "I’m sorry that we couldn’t accommodate you in a warmer room, but our electric heaters are going a little crazy at the moment.”
Fighting selflessly raised his hooves.
“Hey, no problem. Is Magus’ Motte really so bad?”
The youth’s eyes inflated. “What? God, no! Personally, I love it here. I grew up around castles. In Jodphur.”
“Are your soldiers happy too?”
He grinned.
“They should be. It beats having to build a tent city out there in the snow any day.”
Fighting couldn’t help but return the smile.
“I wish we could have supplied you with a more ideal base for your peacekeeping efforts, but I don’t think there are many locales that would suit your purpose quite as well.”
“I understand. If anyone’s to blame, it’s us.” Gavaskar muttered humorously, “I mean, a platoon of engineers that cannot take care of their own heating? What a disgrace! But you see, we’re deployed all over the place. None of us is back at base long enough to carry out any real repairs on them.”
“Now that you mention it...” Fighting muttered.
When he had first entered the motte through the gates, he had taken a moment to count up all the human soldiers he could spot.
“I only saw eight or nine of you here. What happened to the rest?”
“Busy, busy, busy!”
Lieutenant Gavaskar trundled up to a calendar on a nearby wall that, for some strange reasons, featured photos of human mares in different acrobatic positions. He led a finger around between some small written annotations and proudly began to read them out loud.
“Let’s see, I have a crew in Trottingham erecting a satellite tower, I have another troop laying telephone lines from Hoofington to Trottingham, a transport moving twenty electric generators to Hoofington, and lastly a fourth group delivering aspirin and penicillin to several hospitals and medical stations across the Everfree.”
“I see you do a lot of good work.” Fighting nodded.
“Just helping to maintain some humanitarian and modernisation efforts. As dictated by the UNEVEG mission statement.”
The lieutenant’s smile suddenly vanished.
Fighting leaned forward and peered at him.
“Lieutenant?”
“Or… well, we do as much as we can with those… trespass bans of yours that are in place. Our convoys are being stopped every other kilometre. We lose three to four hours to detours every day. It’s very...”
He trailed off. The way his eyes looked away like he wanted to see better days than these.
“Yeah… so I heard.”
Fighting humbly cleared his throat, before proposing, “Those, I'm sorry to say, all badly needed security measures. So... no offence. If there is anything we can do, let us know. We can at least help make your stay in here a lot more pleasant.”
Gavaskar nodded and grinned at the generous offer. “We... could always use kettles. Something for my men to make chai with.”
“That can be arranged. You won’t be freezing here on my watch, let me tell you.”
“Thanks… sir.” the lieutenant harrumphed.
“I suppose...” Fighting continued, “You’re owed an explanation for the security measures then.”
“No, please...”
Naturally, the Lieutenant Gavaskar tried hard to put himself across as reserved and humble in front of the senior officer, but the reproachful air remained in the room.
Fighting sniffed nervously. “You see… I was on my way north. The Crystal Ridge, to be precise.”
“From Canterlot? Canterlot’s already north of here, isn’t it?”
“I made a little detour. I’m visiting several of the important human peacekeeping bases peppered along my route. Only this morning, I’ve paid a visit to an… ehm… Indonesian regiment, and then I met up with a… a... “
He gesticulated to where a sleeve should be. “Ugh, what’s that country with the red flag and white cross?”
“Uh, Switzerland?”
“No, no... Something with a ‘duh’ sound...”
“Denmark?”
“Right!”
Gavaskar smirked.
“And, uh... how do all of us deserve this honour?”
Fighting sighed, malforming his mouth into a much more somber frown.
“You might be aware of what... may or may not be brewing in the Frozen North right now.” he assumed, trying to avoid sounding too specific.
His claws touched.
“Certain intelligence details have… indeed reached us. Or, well, my Captain. He briefed us on some of them. Troop movements of some sort, I recall?”
“Yeah. We are moving a massive number of our available regiments to the Crystal Ridge, which has become something of a frontier for hostile changeling activities as of late.”
The human acted vaguely, sitting silently and tapping his claw’s fingers all over the writing surface.
“Aha,” he merely said, his voice a little more nervous. “So… is this the reason why-”
“And, you see, Command has been planning to seal this border. Establish a frontline of sorts. Cut off the changelings and kettle them. It’s an... ambitious plan. It's got its flaws.”
“I’ll leave that judgement entirely to you, Captain.” Gavaskar humbly tried to talk himself out of that information. “If that’s the reason for...”
Fighting just sighed heavily and looked up, as if to signal to the youth that he ought to brace for what was to come next.
“What… what I... an officer of an armed force... am about to tell you... a junior officer serving a distant, completely uninvolved nation... shouldn’t ever be said, in any situation. And it… really shouldn’t leave this room.”
“Oh… alright. I… I can guarantee full discretion, of course.” Gavaskar stuttered and smiled empathetically. "Please go on!"
Fighting gulped. It was demeaning. Yet, he knew, it was the only way.
“As things stand now, if push ever came to shove, this plan might just lead to... complete and total disaster. The Royal Equestrian Guard is no match for changeling aggression. Absolutely none.”
Awkwardly, he averted his eyes.
“Gosh. What… what makes you think that?”
“I don’t think that. My Princess, Luna of the Night, thinks that.”
“That is… regrettable.”
Fighting watched as Gavaskar folded his claws and very carefully edged his way towards more information. “Exactly… what kind of conflict are we talking about here? There were mentions of a police action, but… it’s more than that, isn’t it? Is there an uprising?”
He bleakly shook his head.
“War.”
The barely perceptible grin on his face faded into a frown.
“I… I wasn’t aware your nation was at war.”
“I know. Sometimes, I forget it myself.” Troubled, Fighting let his ears droop and gazed down at his helmet all over. “Ever since our worlds met a year ago, things have been going topsy turvy among the other races, and the changelings in particular. We used to always have some - faint - idea of what they’re up to, but the moment we finally got our hooves on Chrysalis, they’ve all seemed to drop from the face of the earth. From one day to another, we were left in the dark. Vulnerable. And the changelings were left at their strongest and most dangerous. I mean, you’d expect the opposite to happen, right? You’d expect the whole rotten trunk of the changeling oak to fall in on itself after we took the Queen out of the picture.”
“Yes, of course.”
Fighting couldn’t help but sigh at the frustration of it all.
“But instead, it looks like they have begun... consolidating. Getting together to plan some kind of... ultimate payback.”
A moment of silence swept through the office before Fighting brought himself to continue,
“You know that feeling? That… violent frustration of knowing that your country is plagued by some very real threat, and you are just in no position to do anything about it?”
“Honestly?” Gavaskar asked back, then consequently shook his head. “I must confess I have felt rather safe amongst the three million soldiers of our Armed Forces… But that might not mean much, all things considered...”
That made Fighting Fit whistle in surprise.
“Three Million? Wow… I mean… wow.”
Truly, those humans were a martial race, paramount to anything the ponies of Equestria ever had to do with.
“But, alas,” he continued, “We don’t have your luck, Lieutenant. Our lines are… beyond stretched. We can scrape barely enough colts together to police the Crystal Ridge in its entirety. Much less fortify it. Much much less… hold it against an invasion force. If the changelings decided to launch an incursion into Equestria right now... we would lose decisively.”
Finally, he glanced back up. “There’s that one bridge that leads over the ravine. Crystal Bridge. It’s the only one of its kind, really - it’s stone, and it’s broad enough to support carts and trains. Some… some crazed earth pony businessmare a few centuries ago thought it would be a good idea to have a set of tracks leading all the way north and bring civilisation to that Celestia-forsaken region.”
Gavaskar nodded sympathetically, if still a little confused by his digressions.
“I suppose it didn’t do that.”
“Not really. But now, of course, anything that goes over Crystal Ridge and doesn’t have wings must pass by that bridge. That includes changelings hauling heavy stuff, or transporting prisoners, or evacuating their own injured and exhausted. As you might imagine, we should be shovelling as many soldiers on that bridge as possible! We’re not talking about some road blocks either, we’re talking about turning that bridge into a frigging citadel!”
“Perfectly understandable. It’s academy 101.”
“And yet…”
He giggled caustically. “We do not have the stallions to do any of that. Posting a remotely effective garrison on Crystal Bridge means abandoning large swathes of ridgeland elsewhere, which the changelings can then easily cross unnoticed, by air.“
He cleared his throat. “Cutting a long story short, Lieutenant… We need help.”
“Hm.”
He caught Gavaskar making a tiny note on a scrap of paper lying between them.
Almost obliviously, the lieutenant answered, “So... what help did you have in mind, Captain?”
“Well...”
He leaned forward, hope sparking behind his eyes. “How many soldiers do you keep at this site in total?”
Gavaskar looked up, a little alarmed. “Me? Ehm… one platoon. That’s thirty men. Plus some attached medical personnel.”
“Right. Can you tell me more about the weapons you carry?”
“S-sure.”
He ducked under his desk and retrieved a folder that he threw a short glance into, but reined himself in at the last second. “But, uh… you may understand that I am not at liberty to go into too much detail.”
“Absolutely. Just give me a rough idea.”
“Sure. Pioneer Platoon possesses… a light machine gun plus ammunition, as well as a two-inch mortar plus ammunition. Standard kitting for a unit like ours. That gives us basic anti-personnel, anti-vehicle and anti-air capabilities.”
“Are they very capable, those weapons?”
“Tried and true, Captain.” he smiled. “I mean, our mortar type’s been in use permanently since World War Two. You can’t get any more tried and true than that.”
“If you say so… I saw one mortar in action myself, half a year ago.”
“Oh really? Was that... your first one?”
Fighting nodded with a geeky mien.
“The army of… Australia, I think, demonstrated some of their weapons to a small group of officers from Canterlot command. I went there representing Captain Shining Armour, who was held up elsewhere at the time. It was... magnificent.”
“Mortars are quite handy, true, true...”
Fighting leaned back and stared at the wooden beam ceiling. “I mean, can you even imagine how many soldiers we could free up if we had equipment like that? How many valleys and hilltops we could hold with… less than even a platoon’s worth of ponies?”
“I suppose I can...”
Gathering up all the authority he had in him, Fighting Fit rose up and leaned on the desk.
“Lieutenant Gavaskar… I humbly request to requisition your machine gun and your mortar, plus some ammunition, as well as a crew capable of operating them in the field of battle. Any soldiers willing to accompany us are free to join in.”
Gavaskar stared up at him.
He stared for a very long time.
“Sorry?” he ultimately asked.
“Just what I said.” Fighting stated abruptly and harrumphed. “I think it goes without saying that the Royal Guard would benefit immensely from equipment such as yours. Equestria would forever be in your debt.”
“Yes, but...” Gavaskar stuttered, still a little dumbfounded, “I can’t do that, Captain.”
Fighting Fit sat still like a statue. There was no real reaction on his face.
“I cannot give out equipment of the Indian Army to the Royal Guard. That’s… absolutely impossible. Not to mention, inappropriate.”
“Why?” Fighting inquired, not losing his composure in the slightest.
“Well… you see… Where should I start?” he gasped, nervously tugging at his tunic. “We are not here to sponsor anybody’s war efforts. If I just gave you our weapons, it would cause an international incident. A political meltdown!”
Fighting marched forth unabashed.
“We’re ready to pay for the use of your equipment, of course. We’d pay back our debt to your nation hundredfold!”
“Sir...”
“Look...” Fighting leaned in, his expression both intensely frank and everso-slightly desperate, “Let’s just leave politics out of this. You’re a Lieutenant, and I’m a Captain. This isn’t Equestria asking India, this is a soldier asking a soldier. We may be at the precipice of a military disaster here. And your platoon might just about save this... sceptered land from complete destruction.”
“And you… you think the fact that we’re soldiers gives you the right to roam the countryside and requisition foreign weaponry?” Gavaskar mumbled, more terrified than sympathetic.
“Actually...”
He stuck a hoof in his cuirass and retrieved a scroll with a broken ‘L’ seal, “Princess Luna herself has decreed that I make my rounds and make the inquiries. Here’s the signature.”
Gavaskar just shrunk back from the writ in some faint revulsion.
“That… doesn’t change anything.”
“The Princess herself is-”
“I swore an oath on the Constitution of India, Captain.” He declared with a little more resolution, tapping a finger on his desk. “And India did not send us to Equestria to fight.”
Fighting was mystified by that statement. His eyes narrowed.
“You came here to lay ‘telephone lines’ and build communication towers, but not to fight?”
“...Yes.” the youth gulped.
He shook his head in disbelief.
“I… I thought you were all soldiers. Those were all jobs that could have been done by engineers.”
“We are a platoon of sappers, Sir.” Gavaskar declared, sitting up straight. “This is exactly what we trained for. Before we were delegated to peacekeeping operations under UNEVEG, we were part of the Bombay Engineers Group.”
“My point still stands. Why are you here?”
He cocked his chin upward.
“I… uh… could read from the UNEVEG mandate, if you have the time.”
“Soldiers fight, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, but... not for you.”
Fighting felt stunned.
“For who do you fight then, if not for Equestria?”
Gavaskar silently kneaded his claws.
“I don’t know what standards humans are used to, Lieutenant Gavaskar, but if foreign soldiers station themselves in my country and do not lift a hoof to fight with my country… they’re either an invasion force or an occupation force. Take your pick.”
“What… no. No no no...” Gavaskar was aghast, waving his hands feebly to put a brake on the pegasus captain. “We are international observers. We were deployed to Equestria to handle civilian developmental tasks because it was expedient to send a regiment - for no other reason. We have pledged strict neutrality.”
Fighting’s head drooped.
“So, you’re saying you’d rather ‘observe’ Equestria be ravaged by a changeling horde big enough to be measured in acres rather than soldiers, than actually do something about it?”
Gavaskar gulped.
“My orders read: In case of such a... conflict ever arising, we would monitor the fighting and make sure it conforms to international laws and customs of war. We would however not assume any active role in this conflict.”
Fighting massaged his face with his hooves.
“You know that a changeling invasion would also trash all those ‘humanitarian’ efforts of yours, right?”
He just shrugged.
“Well… what can we do? What can I do? I’ve got my orders. Just like you.”
Fighting began to understand that reaching that human on this level wouldn’t do much. So he tried to appeal to something much more straightforward. Something much more basic.
“If - or rather, once - it comes to that, what do you think will happen to you?! What will the changelings do with you?”
“They are as entitled to our efforts as you are.” Gavaskar muttered, “We would not give them a reason to view us as a party to this conflict.”
“Changelings don’t need a reason, though. They’re changelings! They’d obliterate you and your soldiers as soon as they get the chance!”
He eyed the youth as though he was looking at a naive, pampered brat. “You might not know about all the awful things changelings are willing to do. But believe me when I say that I do. I was there. I walked amongst their victims - or rather, what was left of their victims. They stow away and cocoon as many as they can, sucking them dry of life until there is nothing left of them. And they’re the lucky ones! The not-so-lucky ones get their minds bent to the changelings’ will, and get to serve for the rest of their measly existence as willing slaves. And… and all the ponies they’ve done this to, they were civilians! Ponies who never held a weapon in all their lives. So what, might I ask, will they be doing with somepony like you?”
By that point, Gavaskar had hopelessly shrunk back together, eyeing the pegasus with hopeless terror in his eyes. He stumbled onto his feet unceremoniously and stepped away to escape the Captain’s onslaught.
“If… if this platoon found itself under threat, it would of course take measures to defend itself.”
“Well...” Fighting said and crossed his hooves. “So this is where your neutrality ends? At your own doorstep?”
Panic-stricken, the Lieutenant tugged at his duty belt.
“We cannot just let hostile forces impair the integrity of this combat unit. We have permission to conduct self-defence.”
“Okay. And how?”
“Pardon?”
“How would you try and defend yourselves?”
Gavaskar stepped up to one of the tiny casement windows and hesitantly pointed out at the motte at their feet, at the decayed wooden parapets and battlements and crates of human weapons stacked in their shadow.
“You think those walls are gonna protect you against them? Don’t you see you’ve already lost?”
“Wha- how?” he breathed confusedly, like an ensign stuttering his way through an officer’s examination, “Because I refuse to give you our weapons?”
Giving the brawny havildar behind him a short, scornful glance, Fighting Fit jumped from his seat.
“No, because I am a changeling!”
The Lieutenant just offered him a momentary, strangely aloof stare.
“C-come again?” he asked carefully.
The havildar by the door winced, and instinctively placed a claw near his holster.
“Yeah, Lieutenant. Congratulations.” Fighting sneered up at the both of them, joining Gavaskar by the window with a swagger. “You let me and my hive brethren march through your gates. And not only did you do nothing to confirm our identities - like, oh, I don’t know, contact Canterlot to see if they really did send almost a hundred guardsponies your way - no, you even invited me into your office!”
The human was deeply confused. Nervously, he shook his head and forced himself to a smile.
“I… I don’t… think… I...”
“So now you have me, a changeling infiltrator, running around your compound, scouting out every inch of your… truly pathetic defence measures, taking note of your armament...”
He casually trotted back over to the calendar wall, “...and, naturally, checking your timetable to see when your soldiers are moving and where. Which gives us brilliant opportunities to ambush them! Next time they deploy for a mission, we will be lying in wait, and we’ll snatch them wholesale, and we’ll send back more of our own instead!”
“No… please… wait...”
“Bottom line!” Fighting interrupted him anew, “You currently find yourself under siege by at least an entire company of changelings. Your garrison is understaffed. Your soldiers are not under arms. As a matter of fact, most of the colts that should currently be oh-so-busy moving your barrels into the depot are, by now, probably changelings themselves. And so is this guy.”
He pointed a hoof over to Gavaskar’s nervous second-in-command.
The havildar just looked around and pouted.
“Kya... Kya kaha tumne mujhe?”
“So congratulations, Lieutenant Gavaskar.” Fighting scornfully declared. “Your fortress has been breached, and is now under our control. You have lost your command, and you haven’t even noticed. Now please be a dear; step outside and lower your flags.”
Gavaskar, to put it mildly, seemed to be no longer in the condition to do anything of the sort. Frozen motionlessly, and holding on to his desk and window frame with a claw each, he gaped at the pegasus with glassy, surrendered eyes.
“Well?” Fighting prodded him.
He looked as though the life had been sucked out of his body. Nervously scratching an invisible itch under his turban, he returned to his seat and slumped down.
Fighting was well acquainted with that kind of look.
Before Gavaskar could get the chance to go catatonic with frustration, Gavaskar lowered his temper and calmly returned to join the youngster by the desk.
“Lieutenant.”
“Hm?”
“When did you make your Lieutenant?”
“Uh… three-and-a-half months ago.” he muttered meekly.
Fighting rolled his eyes.
No wonder. This human wasn’t just green behind his pink fleshy ears, he was barely poking out of the soil yet.
Fighting wondered if he shouldn’t have been as harsh to the freshly made officer.
“Lieutenant Gavaskar...” he cooed. “Have I made my point?”
“Y-yeah.” Gavaskar finally sighed, with an air of relief. “You...”
He gulped. “...made your point.”
“Now then. What will you do to help this situation?”
“Uhm… not… not letting you in again?” he asked with a coy smile.
“Well, you let me in once. If I can come this far, any changeling can.” He nodded towards the windows down into the courtyard. “And your own soldiers, who are permanently on the come and go, running errands and transporting goods... They’re a liability lying in wait.”
“I… I’d think I’d notice if a changeling was miming one of my own men.” Gavaskar remarked.
Here, Fighting Fit knew he could shake his head slowly and luxuriously.
“No, you wouldn’t. That’s why they’re called changelings. Once the changeling invasion rolls around, this stronghold is doomed to be among the first places to fall to them. They will not hesitate to hollow this apple out from the inside.”
The Lieutenant forced himself to a nerve-wrecked laugh.
“A superior officer might call this... paranoid.”
“A superior officer might have relieved you of your command by now.” Fighting determined grimly, harkening back to the horrors of his own examination. “You don’t need to be a tactical prodigy to realise that you cannot manage this on your own, Lieutenant. If we don’t stick together, both of us will soon be done for. First us, and then you.”
“Okay… alright....”
Gavaskar digested his brief shock with closed eyes and a claw stroking over his beard. Trying to act as calm and laid-back as possible he trudged back to his desk and plopped down. Fighting closely followed him at every turn. “The thing is, Captain…” he began, “that even if we cooperate with you and even if we wholly committed ourselves to your course…”
“Yes?”
“There still are less than seven thousand peacekeepers stationed in Equestria at the moment - less than five hundred of them are Indians. I mean… we could not mount a potent resistance against anything right now, regardless of how hard we fought.”
He nervously wiped his brow. “As someone who… well… passed his examination, I summarise the situation as follows: We don’t have the ammunition, we don’t have the combined arms support, and we don’t have the logistics to manage protracted combat situations. All of those things will have to be deployed from abroad first.”
“We can provide all of that for you!” Fighting pleaded desperately. “That’s not for you to worry about!”
“Please, Sir...” Gavaskar raised a silencing hand, before scratching his turban with it in thought. “Now… if the UN were to authorise a full-fledged intervention, on the other hand...”
Here, Fighting’s ears perked up.
“Huh?”
“Well…” the Lieutenant shrugged and folded his arms, “Here’s how I understood it: If the UN deemed a conflict sufficiently menacing and in direct violation of international law, they could pass a resolution condemning changeling aggression and calling all UN member states to arms on the side of the Equestrian principality. It will have to go through a Security Council vote first, of course. Just like in Korea in the Fifties.”
“Oh. Yes. Yes.” Fighting stammered and, overcome by a wave of fresh hope, threw himself back onto the seat in front of the desk. “That sounds great. How… I mean… how can we kick such a vote off?”
“With a war.” he just smirked, embarrassed. “And you don’t really have one… right now… do you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You said it yourself, there is only the risk of a changeling incursion. If things do escalate though, Equestria should have no problems filing a motion for military assistance.” Conclusively, he flapped his folder shut and stowed it back under the table. “But that’s not even between you and me, Sir. That’s between your government and the Security Council.”
“When the war happens?” Fighting backtracked and raised his hooves in a commanding pose. “Hold your horses there, Lieutenant. The war is already on! It’s been on for the last thousand years.”
“I don’t mean disrespect, Sir… But I don’t think sending a few regiments to search a forest or surveil a ridge qualify as an open conflict situation.” he sighed.
“How do you know all of that?” Fighting spluttered.
“I… attended a mandatory Peacekeeping seminar.” he mumbled.
“Then you should know that those Security Council votes might take months! It’ll be too late for us when ‘open conflict’ starts!”
“I mean,” the Lieutenant shrugged again, “Equestria can also try for such a motion now, I suppose. It’ll just not pass, because there’ll be no case for intervention.”
Disappointed, Fighting plopped back on his own seat.
“In that case... we might not hold out to see reinforcements. Come now. What other options are there?”
“You can appeal to individual countries, of course.”
“Like yours?”
He smiled and adjusted his turban.
“Again, your Princess is free to speak with the Indian ambassador. There certainly is the possibility to secure Indian support for your cause.”
“That’s great!”
“But... given our country’s foreign policy doctrine, military assistance might not be on the agenda.”
“Ugh.”
“And even if, India would first have to negotiate with the UN about pulling out of the UNEVEG mission first, since we would no longer be an impartial party. That would take as much time as everything else.”
Fighting weakly swayed away from the lieutenant’s desk, only holding himself up by his forehooves. “What… what are you allowed to do right now? Apart from laying cables and building towers?”
Gavaskar relaxed a little and tented his claws anew.
“In an armed conflict, the UN’s most straightforward role would be to… you know... establish diplomatic channels between the changeling powers and you. You will have someone to turn to if you’re looking to negotiate ceasefires or demilitarisation processes. Maybe even peace. Or surrenders.”
Here Fighting shook his head and furrowed his brow.
“There will be no negotiations.”
Gavaskar wimpered.
“Sir, I mean no disrespect to you or your cause. I wish I could lend you a hand. I really do! But if I supply with you with weaponry, I will get court-martialed! You need to understand that, sir!“
“Yeah, yeah...” Fighting moaned and scraped his hoof on the tabletop.
“I… We could supply you with extensive medical support to all sides and the civilians. We can erect field hospitals at strategic locations, maybe even carve out so-called ‘safe areas’. We could help move civilians out of the way of the fighting. Things like that.”
Fighting shrugged sluggishly.
“It’s a start… but still not what we were hoping for.”
“You mentioned you already visited two other peacekeeping camps today.” Gavaskar suddenly stated. "The Indonesians and Danes."
He nodded melancholically.
“Did they tell you... anyting different from what I have just said?”
Fighting closed his eyes and let a long breath out.
“Then… this is the situation now, Captain. I mean… there doesn’t need to be a war.”
“Don’t tell me.” His hoof sought out the horizon beyond the casement window, the first treetops of the Everfree Forest. “Tell them.”
“The changelings surely aren’t deaf.”
“No. That’s not the problem.” Fighting muttered powerlessly and squinted his eyes in thought. “They’re just… brutal.”
A buzzing noise resounded through the room.
Both Fighting and the two humans started up and glanced around.
On the officer’s desk, a suitcase-sized electronic machine had sprung to life and began spitting out a piece of paper, pushing it out of its maw line for line.
Gavaskar immediately grabbed hold of it and pulled the paper under his own nose.
“Sorry, that’s important.”
“What is it?”
“A transmission from UNEVEG Command… Excuse me...”
His small human eyes quickly scanned the message. When he was done a few seconds later, he looked back up at Fighting.
“Sir… Do you know where the ‘Castle Of The Two Sisters’ is?”
Fighting’s ears perked up.
It was a very strange convoy indeed.
Captain Fighting Fit flew in on a chariot, hovering mere inches above the country lanes and fields and cleared the thick layers of snow under his wheels with an impressive gust of wind. Right after him, and riding on that same freshly cleared gust of snow, roared in the humans on their motorised wagon, as white as the snow around them, with five very jumpy soldiers - Gavaskar, Chavan and three hastily assembled medics - squeezed into four seats, each wearing a bright-blue helmet, a bright-blue scarf and a bright-blue flak vest, crammed in-between stretchers and medipacks.
Behind them all galloped one hundred Canterlotian guardsponies.
The brief, sparse words of the transmission were still stuck in his head.
“Attention.
Attention.
Be advised:
General warning to all units stationed in: Everfree County.
Reported incident: Skirmish (minor), structural fire (minor).
Warning Issued By: Equestrian Royal Provincial Guard - Southern Command.
Additional notes: Human involvement - affiliation unknown.”
Additional requests: Avoid operational area.
Human involvement. That certainly aroused the Indian garrison’s attention. And it quickly overturned the appeal to steer clear.
The forest was only a few horizons away. Before he knew it, Captain Fighting could already feel snow-strewn twigs and branches whizzing past his ears left and right, and the two pegasi up front dodging the odd misplaced or leaning tree.
His chariot wasn’t bound to follow the narrow forest mud roads, but they did have to watch out for foliage and underbrush.
The motorised cart behind them was left to swerve with the street, ineffectively trying to keep up with the three pegasi in front of him.
Over the treetops to his right, Fighting could already see the towers of the Castle of The Two Sisters rising out of the tundric forest. What had caught his attention many leaps earlier, however, was a thick black column of smoke billowing forth from in-between those ancient castle towers.
He gave the signals for the vehicles to slow down. They came to a halt just in time of the next untraversable spot in the road - three pearly white human coaches, sloppily parked square across the narrow path.
“Dismount!” he commanded.
As he got off himself, he crept his way towards the vehicles, keeping an eye out for any telltale signs of occupation. The lights were off, the doors shut. Peeking through the darkened windows, he could find no passengers hiding inside either.
“What are those doing out here?” he wondered out loud.
“Captain!” he heard Lieutenant Gavaskar address him from his own coach. “I… I wouldn’t touch these jeeps if I were you. They’re under UN protection.”
“I wasn’t planning to.” he answered, trudging around the vehicles one whole circle before returning to the others. The sight of the empty things strangely sent a cold shower down his spine. “Let’s… let’s continue on hoof. Best not take any risks. We’re in the middle of no-mare’s land out here.”
It was starting to snow all over.
That, in and on itself, Fighting Fit wouldn’t have minded further, but as the little flakes kept flitting down onto the ground before him, and began settling on his helmet and his cape, he realised that they really were all grey and black.
Curiously, he scooped some of the flakes up with a hoof. He realised he was actually holding charred bits of paper, peppering the fine dust of ash all over his white coat.
“What in the name of...”
He glanced up, hoping to see where it was coming from. All he saw above was the black column blowing over the group’s heads.
“Is that... paper?” he heard Gavaskar wonder behind him. “Almost like an office somewhere got caught in the fire.”
“Yeah...”
Clearing away the ash, he inspected the biscuit-sized flakes closer. They were old and stained yellow. But more importantly, he could make out very faint ink scribbles - single letters of a language he didn’t quite recognise.
Yet, watching those symbols instilled a very eerie feeling inside him.
It was almost as if the ink was springing to life as he contemplated them more and more closely, curling around the paper like very lively mandalas.
In fact, it was almost as if the writing was trying to lure him in with its captivating slopes and curves…
But before he could become lost in the flakes’ strangely compelling sight, the gears in the back of his head ground his body to a halt.
Sudden memories of his magic lessons in the academy came flooding back - watchful caveats and cautionings of past instructors echoing through his mind. Within moments of trying to get to the bottom of this sudden memory, the grim realisation of what was happening caught up with him.
He immediately tiled the mandala-infused flakes off his hoof and frantically brushed the rest off his uniform.
Then he took a cautious step back toward his chariot.
“Lieutenant...” he called over to the humans.
“Aha?”
Fighting turned, only to see Gavaskar holding some snippets of his own up to his face, attempting to read their contents just like he had.
“Don’t look at it!” he ordered him worryingly. “Throw those bits away. Do not try to read what’s written on them!”
“Why?” Gavaskar smiled. “Is it classified material or something?”
“No… It’s dark magic!” he explained, “Those symbols are all spells! They’re infused with more energy than a grown unicorn! Do not read them, they might taint your mind!”
“Excuse me?”
Gavaskar looked up, hopelessly confused and not entirely believing it. But he knew better than to ignore a senior officer’s instructions, and dusted the burnt specks off his claws.
“But… who burned them?”
“I don’t know!” he yelled, “I don’t even know where this dark magic’s supposed to have come from. We’re in the middle of nowhere here...” He turned to the rest of the group, “But until we find out, nopony picks anything up from the ground. Clear?!”
The hundred ponies and five humans were soon double-marching down the slope towards the old castle of the Everfree.
Rounding the hill that oversaw the ravine running by the side of the decrepit fortress, Fighting could already see the gleaming armour of guardsponies that had been posted by a flimsy rope bridge.
Beyond it, they found a surprisingly lively display.
They saw scores of militia ponies who, with all their spears and swords abandoned and cast into the snow, had formed up in long rows that snaked around the different wall fragments and columns and into the innermost parts of the keep.
The guards had also taken off their helmets, which they were now using to scoop up snow and passing them down the line by the dozens.
In the midst of it all stood one solitary guardspony desperately trying to shout commands into the action.
He turned around as soon as he noticed the approaching newcomers.
“Halt! Who goes there!” he yelled in a high-pitched, yet familiar voice. “Wait a minute… Lieutenant Fighting Fit?!”
Wasn’t that… Corporal Morion?
Fighting Fit needed to readjust his eyes and take another look at the young pegasus. Of course, before him stood the simple little private that he had once commanded as lieutenant. Junebug’s unfortunate very-special-somepony.
Fighting hadn’t heard or seen from him ever since they had ventured into the cavern.
Of course Fighting knew that colt.
The rather lanky pegasus who stood on the other side of the rift nudged his ill-fitting helmet to the side and waved it to attract their attention.
“Morion!” he hailed him back. “Long time, no see!”
“Did that messenger reach you?! Are you the reinforcements?!” he asked, though obviously still too far away to make Fighting and his companions out for sure.
“Not quite… But I’ve got a hundred stallions and five human peacekeepers in tow! To take care of the wounded! What is all this circus?”
“A… a fire!” Morion gasped helplessly. “I already called for the Ponyville fireponies, but they’ve an been evacuated with the rest. We had to do something!”
Only now it dawned on Fighting what the militia ponies were trying to accomplish here.
They were frantically trying to somehow smother the flames under small piles of snow, slush and soil.
He couldn’t help but shake his head at this desperate, rustic firefighting technique. It was, perhaps, one step in sophistication away from just blowing up the burning structures with generous amounts of blackpowder.
“Couldn’t you find any rain clouds in the sky?”
“Only snow clouds! But the colts keep looking!”
Fighting nodded with a sigh and a shake of his head.
“We’re coming over!” he announced.
“Yes, but… be careful!”
The rope bridge swayed dangerously, but it held the armoured hooves and heavy boots well enough.
Morion was shivering profusely, trying to get his - still pretty ruffled - feathers in order as he addressed the newcomers.
“G-glad to have you back, Sir.” he told Fighting.
“Glad to be back.” Fighting nodded, and waited until the humans had caught up with the group. “These are Lieutenant Gavaskar and… uh… Sergeant Major Chavan, from the human Indian Army. Now, what’s the situation?”
The corporal just sighed nervously and pushed his helmet off his forehead, revealing a properly swollen shiner on his right eye.
“Sweet Celestia, what happened to you?”
Disregarding the humans, Morion leaned in to explain the situation to Fighting.
“Well… we were doing our scheduled comb of the forest. We moved in platoons, in thin rows, and kept an eye out for any changelings we would scare out of the undergrowth.”
“And?”
“And… Instead, we came across some humans… surprisingly enough.”
“What were they doing there?”
He just hovered back and forth in contemplation.
“I asked them the same thing. They just looked at us, then sprinted off into the distance. Me and a couple of others went right after them to rein them in and bring them out of the lockdown zone.” He carefully felt the side of his face. “But then… then they jumped us.”
“What?” the pegasus captain and the human lieutenant asked almost in unison.
“Yeah… I mean, we definitely didn’t expect it. There were about ten of them, and they gave us a pretty good thrashing… at least until the rest of our platoon came after. At that point, they up and fled.”
Now came the humans’ own turn to be curious.
“What kind of people were they?” Gavaskar rattled off, “How were they dressed? Were they armed?”
“They wore those weird colourful overalls...” Morion wondered out loud, absent-mindedly pointing at the Lieutenant’s own fatigues. “Just like those, really. One of them also wore some… ”
He hesitated in his remarks to get look at Gavaskar’s face. “A wrapped scarf on his forehead… and...”
At this point, his face abruptly turned white.
“You mean he wore a... turban?” the Gavaskar pressed on, oblivious to the corporal’s frozen expression. He gave his havildar a surprised glance. “Ek aur Bhartiya jawaan? Kya sanyog hai?” he asked.
“Nahi ho sakta.” the havildar whispered back. “Regiment ka is sector mein koi mission nahi hai. Ho sakta hai Galloping Gorge ke pakistaniyon ne kisi ko bheja hai.“
“Saale Pakistani…” the Lieutenant just growled. “Yeh humein Major Chowdary ko report karna hoga.”
“Y-you.” Morion suddenly breathed at them.
Still oblivious, they acknowledged him from the corner of their eyes with an unfocused, “Hm?”
“You.” he just repeated, before shrinking back defensively.
“What ‘me’, Corporal?”
Something very volatile glinted in Morion’s swollen eye.
“You son of a horse...”
And with those whispered words, the pegasus jumped up and lunged straight at the Indian officer.
The human, though startled, managed to dive backward and to the side, so Morion’s attacking hooves only very narrowly missed the throat they had just wanted to curl themselves around.
Just as Gavaskar snapped out of his momentary confusion and protectively raised his claws up in front of himself, Havildar Chavan roughly shoved him further to the side and, getting in front of his officer, unholstered his small black sidearm.
Concerned, Fighting rushed between the raging corporal and the glinting muzzle of the human’s weapon.
“Morion!” he asked the young lanky colt warily. “What the hay are you doing?!”
Morion, still trapped in his fit of rage, fluttered into position to get a second try on the human from further up.
“Out of the way, Sir!” he coldly ordered the Captain from far above, “It was him! That was the monkey that biffed me in my face!”
“Watch your tongue, Corporal Morion!” Fighting suddenly barked at his enraged underling. “You are speaking about a human officer!”
“I’m going to polish that human officer’s teeth!” he screamed back defiantly. “He attacked me! And he attacked our comrades!”
“What the fuck are you talking about?!” Gavaskar interrupted them with a desperate hiss. “Who… who are you?”
Here, Fighting silenced him with a raised hoof.
“When, Morion?”
“What?” the corporal asked.
“When was that? When did Lieutenant Gavaskar attack you?”
Before Gavaskar could protest once more, Morion was already spitting, “An hour and a half or so ago! Just behind those trees, this cur and his friends jumped us!”
All eyes settled on the gasping Lieutenant and his underlings.
“That… is a… a... goddamn lie!” he breathed. “I don’t know who you saw, but it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t anyone of my men!”
“Liar!”
“Morion!” Fighting yelled again. “Shut up.”
He pressed himself further in front of him before continuing. “Just one hour ago, I was sitting with Lieutenant Gavaskar in Magus’ Motte. That’s eighty whole leaps from here!”
“So… so what?” Morion stammered and shrunk back from his former Lieutenant Fighting Fit.
“Means that he couldn’t have been in this darned forest an hour and a half ago, because as you might know, humans cannot fly!”
Morion gulped. He searchingly scanned the two humans’ sour faces.
“And… and the other one?”
“Was with us all the time.”
The pegasus corporal clenched his mouth shut and wildly shook his head.
“Are you calling me a liar too, Morion?”
“No, Sir. But… but it can’t be. I know who I saw. It was him. Scout’s honour!”
Lieutenant Gavaskar was just standing next to the Havildar’s extended pistol and nervously wheezing.
As Fighting looked between them and Morion and his fellow Royal Guards a few times, he quickly became aware of what was really going on.
“I’ll… I’m ready to make a full report about this allegation, Captain!” Gavaskar muttered. “I will not be accused of attacking Equestrian soldiers. This is crazy! This is ridiculous!”
“Don’t bother.” Fighting ultimately sighed, his brow furrowed with a dark premonition. “There were no humans here.”
“Yeah, I agree!” he answered straight away.
Fighting calmly pushed Morion further away from the humans by his shoulder.
“You’ve encountered changelings, Corporal.”
“I have- what?” Morion stammered energetically and settled himself closer to the ground.
Fighting swiftly flipped back around and pushed aside Havildar Chavan’s firearm.
“Changelings disguised as members of your platoon!”
“...You’re joking.”
Fighting Fit answered with an unamused scowl.
“It’s just how I told you it would be. You aroused some changelings’ attention. They stalked you. They got a good enough look at you to copy your appearance, and now they have been passing themselves off as you ever since.”
“I thought...” Gavaskar stated with unsuppressed confusion, “I thought changelings also ran around on all fours. Who could they be fooling?”
“Next you’ll tell me that you also expected the changelings to look like changelings, won’t you?” Fighting guessed, his tone smeared richly with sarcasm.
“W-wait, wait… Sir.” came Morion’s final objection.
“What?!” came Fighting’s immediate rebuke.
“Well, If those humans that attacked us were changelings… Then who or what in Tartarus are the humans we dug out of the castle cellars back there?”
Within seconds, pegasi and humans were battling their way through files of royal guards and their slush-filled helmets, advancing deeper into the destroyed fortress complex, passing underneath nonexistent ceilings and climbing over collapsed ruins of towers and walls until they reached a wide marble square which, while now dirtied with copious amounts of snow and weeds, had definitely once been the ostentatious heart of the Alicorn Princesses’ old empire.
On this floor, there now lay, in a neat line, four bruised and battered human bodies, each clad in white coats and trousers that were either half-scorched or completely covered in soot. Each human’s face was blood-red and covered in blisters.
The mere sight of the four made the Lieutenant roil.
He raised his claw to rally his three corpsmen. “Oye jaldi kar! Chaar ghaayal aane waale hain! Aage barh!”
The battle medics immediately descended on the injured, emptying their rucksacks and medical bags and beginning with the most basic stabilisation measures, recording pulses and loosening clothes.
Fighting remained by the side, watching the corpsmen’s work from afar.
He was no doctor, but the sight of the sore faces on their ‘patients’ was enough to betray their critical state. They were burned, and badly so. Even if he had tried to recognise any of them, he might not have been able to.
“Morion,” he addressed his subordinate, “Keep an eye on the injured. We might never know what they turn out to be.”
“Will do, Sir.” he answered courteously, having once again regained control over his obedience. “Uh… you don’t happen to have any unicorns who know the uncloaking spell with you?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing.” Fighting admitted and shook his head. “Were those the only humans you found?”
“No, those were just the ones from the cellars. We came across two more - one at the foot of the rope bridge trying to stop us with his badge, and another running around the castle proper.”
“Were they injured?”
“Hm...” Morion thought, lethargically wiping his muzzle, “Not when we found them, no Sir.”
“Where are they?”
In one corner of the square, some half-score of royal guards stood holding watch over the two absconded humans, sitting helplessly on the filthy floor and bleakly eyeing their captor’s hooves. Both were holding their heads and eyes sunken in nervous contemplation, daring not to say a word the entire time.
Fighting Fit approached the pathetic pair with slow steps.
Like their injured companions, these two seemed to be wearing uniforms. The younger of the pair, one of equally dark complexion as the Indian humans, was wearing a thin grey coat and fitting ski pants, both fairly clean and unencumbered by the incessant rain of ash that still went down over the area.
Fighting found his face and uniform faintly familiar. Perhaps this one was running through the Canterlotian castle one of the other days as well...
“You.” he hailed him. “Grey one.”
The human started up.
“Tell me what happened.”
The young human gulped, shrunk together, and then finally answered,
“I won’t say anything. I refuse. No comment!”
“Why not?” he inquired strictly.
“I know nothing!" he insisted before beginning to incoherently rattle down his supposed role, "Mister Abel told me to wait by the bridge. I come back, the lower level’s on fire. I try to go look for help, and next thing I know, I’m rugby-piled by your soldiers!”
Here, Fighting began feeling rather frustrated.
“...What? I'm going to ask you once more: What happened here?”
“Ask. Pierre. Abel.” Ibrahim mouthed back.
“Where is he?”
Pained, Ibrahim shut his eyes and covered his face. He blindly pointed back at the four injured.
“Um… Second from the right… I think.”
Fighting couldn’t help but let out a gulp of his own. It seemed he wouldn’t have been able to avoid the burned after all.
Trotting over very slowly to the rescuees as they were in the process of being vetted, he picked out the second-closest body. For all the layers of winter clothes, soot and bushels of wild beard hair, there wasn’t a lot left to see from his face.
As he kneeled down to get a better view of the dilapidated creature, the Indian medic was in the process of applying an electric shaving machine.
“For the oxygen mask.” he curtly explained. “Please move aside.”
Fighting obeyed meekly.
As the medic began excavating more and more of Abel’s face, occasionally stopping to smear away ash with a wet tissue, the more apparent it became that Abel was very much conscious, staring up into the sky with two blood-red, practically dead eyes.
His mouth was jittering, as though he was silently rattling down some eery last words.
Fighting leaned in immediately. He was bent on collecting as much of it as he could.
But what he heard through the hollow, breathless muttering, he didn’t like.
“Edith… Edith… Edith...”
“What?” he himself breathed as soon as the words had hit his mind.
Edith.
No. It couldn’t be.
He remembered leaving her behind in Canterlot like it was yesterday.
No… it was yesterday. Not even twenty hours ago, he had insisted so harshly that she come with him, accompany his host up to the Frozen North. And yes, hadn’t she insisted right back that she was not going to leave?
And yet, here she was, being implicated in some strange assault-arson charge...
Oh, when was that human going to stop running into trouble before his very eyes?
“Where? Where is Edith?!” he queried down at the wheezing human. He wasn’t sure at all that he could hear, much less comprehend his words, but stubbornly asked on regardless.
The silent muttering seized. It was rapidly replaced by an aghast, almost hysterically sad grimace.
“Bastard...” Pierre wheezed.
Was he talking about him? No, it couldn’t be. Fighting didn’t even know that human.
“Who?” he tacitly inquired.
Just before two gloved claws squeezed a transparent mask with a hose over Abel’s mouth and nose, Fighting was convinced he could decipher two very distinct words.
Two other very familiar words.
“Golden… Dirk...”
Captain Fighting Fit arose as a wiser, more harrowed creature.
Golden Dirk.
Sergeant Golden Dirk.
Service number two, two, seven, niner, three, eight, one….
Hello again!
I'm proud to present another work of art made by McDronePone, aka Derpanater, based on that one little scene from the end of Diseased.
I just say, keep on swimming!
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For a second, I thought this was something completely different...
8253235
So, you cannot see any form of mutual existance which could be crafted between the people? There can be only systematic eradication of Changelings in name of defence?
Tell that to starving tribesman as he raided for food for his family.
8253244
You see that Chrysalis is ADAMANT that NO talk can be had. And in more than one millennium NOT ONE changeling has even tried to go away from the party line of enslavement and pillage. It is not a situation that promotes anything other than full scale war, you know? Currently the changeling have done nothing that can be even remotely construed as peaceful living with the ponies. You have Dirk that SEEMS to affirm that he lived his whole life as a loyal subject BUT that can easily be a ruse. Same for Lyra... in the most clement hypothesis she just stole the identity of a dead pony, at worse she put her in a cocoon to be sucked dry and took her place. Both are action that impact heavily on other sapient beings.
The comparison with the starving tribesman is fallacious... The conflict is on resources and CAN be mediated. Here one party REFUSES to acknowledge any possibility of mediation.
8253578
I'm pretty sure that the Axis Powers had no plans for peace either but last I checked no one sane thought eradicating Japan or what was left of Germany was a good idea. Just because you have no choice but to fight doesn't mean the end goal should ever be genocide.
Wait, are there now multiple factions of changelings? It seems a really inefficient way to eliminate-- unless their target wasn't actually Edith and co.
Mysteries upon mysteries!
Keep going! ;)
8254642
sure they had a plan for peace. Win and kill anyone who fought against them and point a gun at anyone who might.
Apologies for the hiccup!
The next chapter comes out tomorrow!
Edit: A.k.a. right now!
Second edit: I myself am not quite sure what the issue here is. Maybe it's a bad internet connection on my part, maybe it's a bug on the site, maybe it's a glitch in my smartphone (and I loathe using smartphones)...
But hopefully, everything's cleared up now! Enjoy!
Okay, this plot line is getting boring again.
I'm so confused right now I have no idea what's going on