Alarm
To The Bugle’s Last Call
The strident notes of a bugle calling out in the distance woke Buster from a sound sleep, scattering empty pill containers and used tissues in a spray across the floor as he lunged for the sunny window and listened intently. “To arms! To arms!” was the call, a crisp staccato of clear notes echoing through the warm air that brought floods of memories back to the old warrior, of battles long ago fought and won at the shoulders of his fellow Royal Guards.
“Probably just some young punk playing with his bugle on Princess Mia Amore Cadenza’s’ wedding day,” he groused, settling part-way back into his cushion as he continued to look out the window of the Canterlot Military Retirement Home while well-honed reflexes kept his eyes on the sky. Little black flecks marred the perfection of the magenta dome that protected the capital city, an imperfection that made his dry wings flicker in anticipation despite his lumbago. It was probably nothing. But he watched them anyway.
There was to be a presentation after the wedding, and his grandson had promised to take him to see the newlyweds as they were presented to the populace, but the young punk had never shown. He couldn’t really blame the featherbrain, from what he had read in the papers about every reserve guard in Canterlot being called up for service in this time of need. Even if he was only a cadet in the Academy, they probably had him out with the real guards in the streets, attempting to keep order among the normally flighty populace.
Still, he watched the sky.
The normal flatulent noises of the retirement home surrounded him in an unwelcome familiarity, making him yearn once more for the millionth time for the clatter and clank of armor being donned, weapons being readied, and the casual banter of his fellow guards as they prepared to face unknown danger every day. Now they were all gone, and all that remained of the now disbanded 108th Heavy Aerial Pastry Bombardment Division was one old pegasus major who ate more pills than solid food, and who’s most dangerous weapon he was allowed recently was a plastic knife. The soldiers that griffons, dragons and wyverns had been unable to slay by force, had been picked off one at a time by the inexorable blade of time, and as much as he wished for the feeling of armor against his skin and a worthy opponent meeting his hooves, the best he was going to get was a rather rousing checkers game against one of his peers, provided they could stay awake for the whole thing.
Then the sky collapsed.
Giant fragments of magenta magic cascaded to the ground, dissolving as they fell, and huge wave of little black dots behind them turned into some sort of flying bugs as he watched in amazement. The rest of the nursing home residents shuffled to the windows to watch the display, muttering to each other about the implications of the attack and how it was going to mess up lunch in an hour or two.
But Major Sky Buster, Commander of the last element of the 108th Heavy Aerial Pastry Bombardment Division was gone, leaving only an overturned walker behind.
* * *
“Supplies, munitions, and armor, check,” muttered Buster, hobbling out of the back door of the retirement home and squinting up in the sky where the last of the Royal Guard was fighting a losing battle against the invaders. “Hang on, boys. Grandpa’s comin’ to save you.” He gave a quick stretch to limber up long unused muscles and winced at the pops and snaps of tendons, as well as numerous twinges of pain far too numerous to count, but all of that was smothered in a roaring in his ears, as the battle called from the sky above. With a muffled creak of aged muscles, he opened his wings wide, feeling the summer breeze whistle through the gaps from shed feathers, and then with a burst of energy, he flung himself skywards.
Only to crash back to the ground a moment later from the weight in his saddlebags.
“Okay, too many supplies.” After a rattle of cans and a few packages of frozen peas were added to a short pile in the retirement home’s grassy yard, Sky Buster paused, holding his treasured helmet in one hoof. It was the only piece of armor he had been able to take with him upon retirement, and it fit loosely on his head, but he buckled it back on with a firm yank before dumping out the rest of the canned goods. After all, a Royal Guard was not complete without a helmet, no matter how many cans of creamed spinach they had for ammunition.
This time the roar of fiercely beating wings carried the old soldier high in the sun-drenched sky with an exploding pang of exhilaration in his chest he had not felt in ages. Or an impending heart attack, it was rather difficult to tell them apart. High above, one of the few remaining guards was struggling with one of the insectoid invaders, with two more of the creatures moving to assist. He struggled to bring himself behind the reinforcements with the wind whipping through his thinning mane, bringing up two weapons and flinging them as he passed with an accuracy that his old trainer would have even approved.
“Take that, you monstrosities!” he shouted, watching the two insects spiral down to the ground, their chitinous wings ensnared by the gooey prune danishes. A hard-driven orthopedic shoe to the back of the other creature shook it loose from the Royal Guard it had been grappling, but instead of gratitude from his fellow guard, he cocked back his head and spit out a green lump of goo that narrowly missed Buster’s head.
“We’re not monstrosities, we’re changelings!” snarled the ‘guard’ with a sharp jab of one hoof, an amatuer thrust that Buster side-winged with an instinctive block that drove needles of pain up his unarmored leg.
“Ow, you bastard!” He snapped into a sharp right turn and kicked out with both hind hooves, feeling a shock travel all the way up his arthritic joints and twisting his lower back into a rictus of pain. As he finished his sharp turn, he gloated briefly at the limp changeling falling through the sky.
Towards the solid stone street far below.
He almost was not aware of breaking into a sharp dive, as it was so ingrained into his Royal Guard training to catch a falling comrade, but even as his thinking brain substituted the words ‘horrible bug thing’ for ‘comrade’ in his action, his frazzled wings pumped to the edge of their endurance.
“Gotcha!” Tendons inflamed with tendonitis twanged in a horrible symphony of strings as he heaved the unconscious changeling’s trajectory away from the cold stone landing and to a explosive splash of water as he was dropped into a fountain. The drone of other changelings closing in from all sides grew, and the old warrior pointed his nose to the sky and took of in an impressive zoom climb that left a few scattered grey feathers in his wake. He could hear the frantic buzzing of their wings behind him, but Sky Buster had been the undisputed climbing expert in the entire Royal Guard, and despite his age, they stayed behind him.
But he had forgotten about one changeling.
Fire burned in Buster’s chest as the black dot above him rapidly swelled, the two of them twisting in a fervent dance of destruction as they met. This changeling was no newbie like the other, and Sky Buster flung himself away from vicious blows that would have crushed bones or paralyzed muscles without the Royal Guard armor he missed so much now. An exchange of blows turned into one hole-ridden hoof glancing off his head, giving just a fraction of a second of surprise to Buster’s advantage as the changeling expected the stunning blow to knock him unconscious, but instead sparks flew wildly from the old enchantments on the helmet. His counterblow went home, smashing solidly into the changeling’s right eye, but there was something that tapped his strike to a weak blow that merely made the creature jerk his head back instead of dropping unconscious. The fire in his chest was an inferno now, sucking the air out of his lungs and turning his powerful wingstrokes into weak motions.
And then, nothing.
The burning fire in his chest grew as the air whistled past, the changelings around him receding into the distance as he fell. The hard stones of the plaza were so far below that he would never survive the impact, but the darkness swelled around him and carried him away long before…
---^---^---^---^---^---
“Major? Can you hear me?” The steady beep of hospital machinery in the background drove little spikes of pain into Buster’s head, but the fresh scent of lilacs and the most beautiful brown eyes he had ever seen greeted his slow swim back to consciousness. The light-purple mare fussing with his hospital gown had more than a few grey hairs in her violet mane, but a radiant smile that exposed perfectly white dentures made his heart pound and the beeping machine pick up the pace to a healthy clip as she shook her head.
“Buster, you’re incorrigible.” Lilac Breeze held a hoof to his forehead before lifting his eyelids one at a time to check for a concussion, continuing to shake her head and tisk at his matching grin.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, Lilac. Why don’t you lock the door and get me a few pills and we’ll see?”
“Buster!” Lilac Breeze blushed as she stepped back, gesturing to a second Royal Guard standing placidly in a dark corner of the room, and apparently avoiding a broad grin by the smallest margin. “Lieutenant Stormstrike wanted to have a few private words with you about the invasion. He told me all about your actions, and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if you get another medal out of it.” She leaned down and whispered in his ear, “I’ll see about the pills once you get healed up, you old coot.”
With an adjustment of her nurse’s hat, Lilac nodded at the Royal Guard and excused herself, leaving Lieutenant Stormstrike to move closer to the bed with a sharp nod.
“No pills for me. I’m on duty, and you’re not my type.”
“Heh. Very funny, Lieutenant. I take it the changeling invasion was repulsed?”
“Yes, sir. Big pink bubble of energy from the Throne Room threw ‘em all out a few hours ago. Rumors are buzzing around, but it seems Princess Cadence and Prince Consort Shining Armor kicked their plots. I was more impressed by your performance up in the sky this morning. Sounds like you may even get a medal. For an old stallion, you’ve still got it, don’t you?”
“Well, I think there’s something in that IV bottle that has something to do with most of it. I should feel like I’ve been ripped in half… Stars, after a fall like that, I should be dead as a brick.”
Stormstrike shrugged. “A couple changelings caught you as you fell and gummed you to the pavement once they were done fussing over your body. All I could see was your nose sticking out when they were done. Supposedly that goop has some healing properties in addition to being a royal pain to wash out, so maybe that explains it. And the sedatives. You still feeling sleepy?”
“No,” replied Buster with a yawn. “Maybe a little.”
“Well, I’ll let you get back to sleep then. With guards like you, I don’t think the changelings will try poking their nose back into Canterlot again for a very long time, if ever.”
“I wish,” said Buster as the guard walked to the door. “There’s really no guarantee of that.”
“I think you can take my word for it, Major.” The armored guard paused at the door to give a sharp salute to the bedridden old pegasus, who returned the salute just as crisply as the first day he had joined the Royal Guard. “Until we next meet, old-timer. Live well, and guard your nation with honor.”
There was a flash of green light at the door that revealed a changeling with a wide ring of bruising around his right eye. He nodded once in respect before the green magic flared again, and a pink earth pony in a nurse’s cap slipped out the door without a backwards glance.