Bugbears in the Canyon
The Meaning of Truth
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"But I want to go bed too!" whined the Princess of the Night as her plaintive cry echoed across the rest of the halls.
"Good NIGHT, Lulu," replied Celestia firmly, stifling a loud yawn as she wandered back to her room.
Letting out a plaintive whimper, Luna hung her head. It wasn't fair! Certainly there was some kind of punishment for keeping a Royal Princess up for more than 24 hours. Maybe no cake later on for Tia. Yes, no cake. Tia was getting fat after all. No one wanted a fat Celestia; she could just have it all to herself.
Yes, perfect. Her revenge planned, she turned towards Kiblitz with a weary stare. "Fetch us tea."
"Yes, Princess," said the servant, turning to leave. "Though... in your state of mind, would you prefer coffee?"
Luna pondered that statement for a moment. True, while it wasn't often that she partook in coffee, it did wonders for her mental state. That was to say, if she didn't overindulge, then she would be right as rain, and prepared to lower the moon that night. "Very well, bring us coffee. A strong pot."
"Yes, Princess."
As Kibilitz headed off, Luna flopped down tiredly, trying not to fall asleep as she heaved a powerful yawn. There was really nothing she could do about this but groan and turn over, her limbs spread ungainly across the carpet. "Ah, it feels good against this warmth. we could sleep against this forever..."
A polite cough interrupted Luna's reverie as she looked up as one of her night guard stood there, the bat pony looking all the world a little awkward. "Mistress? Apologies, but you were late for the briefing."
"Oh, Commander Stormbolt, we were merely resting." Scurrying to her hooves as fast as she could without looking like she was a gawky teenager, she levitated the cup of coffee that said "Kiss me I'm the Night" and took a long pull of coffee. The caffeine went straight to her head and she took a unladylike smack of her lips. "Report."
"Mistress. We were to be patrolling the western sides of the kingdom today, heading towards Froggy Bottom Swamp and the Grimstone Canyons. Our men have heard reports of Bugbears roaming the area, as well as a massive Hydra moving into the premises."
Luna nodded, taking another pull and feeling it tingle down her toes. This was good coffee, what was it? Espresso? "We will lead the charge as per the norm tonight. Is there anything else to be spoken of?"
"Just one, Your Highness," said Stormbolt with a little sigh. "Ralph phoned in sick. We had to get someone from the day shift to cover for him."
"We will see about sending him a get-well basket," proclaimed Luna. "Who did you replace him with? Lt. Starstriker? Sgt. Sunstreak?"
"Er, no, Your Highness. We could only get Flash Sentry. The rookie."
She blinked. And then took another pull of life-giving coffee. "Very well. We will give the beginner just cause for battling for the glory of the Princess of the Night!"
Topping off her drink, she returned the cup to Kiblitz. "I thirst for a refill, Kiblitz!"
"Princess, you drank the pot," replied Kiblitz dryly, upturning the coffee pot into her cup, and eliciting a drop.
Luna blinked, looked at her cup and then drained the dregs. "We demand three thermoses before we depart! For the trip ahead."
=====
Flash twitched a little, adjusting his armor a bit. It wasn't like he stood out completely, oh no. His Private rank was pretty underwhelming though, being among the hand-picked team of Luna's Guard. He had no problems with bat ponies, even went to school with a couple but his shining gold armor seemed to stand out like a proverbial flash light.
"Hey, kid, you scared?" grinned a bat pony down the line of three guards that accompanied the group.
"He's quaking, look at him," snickered another, another stallion much bigger than Flash.
"Lay off him, Smokescreen, Blaster," retorted the female in the group, a slender mare with her mane in a regulation braid. "Hey, first time flying at night?"
"Me? Naw, done it plenty of times. Just never under an official capacity," replied Flash trying not to sound nervous. She chuckled. "Something funny?"
"Normally, Ralph would be there griping about how he has to pull duty but nope. Name's Midnight Dreary."
"Flash Sentry."
"Huh so you're part of Shiny's unit?" Flash nodded as Midnight grinned. "Well that's not bad then. Anypony who managed get on Shining Armor's unit for a while deserves credit. Y'know with him practically being top brass now."
"Protecting princesses and all, it's what we do," said Smokescreen and Blaster nodded in agreement. "Besides, you never figure out what's out there sometimes."
"We're just hunting Bugbears, right?" inquired Flash and the guards dissolved into howls of laughter. "Is there something I said?"
"Kid, once you find out that 'Hunting Bugbear' is code for something crazy, you will never want to fill in for Ralph. EVER," choked out Blaster.
"A-ten HUT!" On reflex, the four ponies snapped to attention as Luna landed, followed by Commander Stormbolt. "At ease, soldiers. Your Princess will now brief you on our mission tonight."
Flash snuck a peek at Princess Luna who seemed to be... off somehow. Her eyes were nearing bloodshot and she was sipping from a cup that was sloshing but other than that, she seemed okay. He privately wondered if she wasn't a morning person. Er, day person. Wait a moment... had she gotten any sleep at ALL?!
"Ponies, lend us your ears!" exclaimed Luna, her voice making pitches and squeaks for a moment before she inhaled sharply and levelled out her breathing. "We are headed first to Grimstone Canyons to hunt Bugbears. We have good intelligence from our special allies that there are ten of them. A venerable nest of Bugbears. And then next to Froggy Bottom Swamp to persuade the Hydra to leave Equestrian Territory."
Ten? This many ponies for ten bugbears? Something didn't add up, thought Flash.
Luna took another pull. "We are to head to the Canyon and drive out the Bugbears before they mine out more of the resources beneath our soil. Follow our allies instructions to the letter. DO WE MAKE OURSELF CLEAR?"
"Sir, yes, sir!" The five ponies chorused. "Yes, Princess, ma'am!"
"Good. Away we go then! Take flight, Dusk Guard!" And with that, Luna took off in a erratic path into the sky, followed by her guard and one confused Flash Sentry.
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The trip to the Grimstone Canyons was uneventful, as Flash hung to the back and attempted to strike up a conversation with Midnight. "So, uh... how long have you been serving?"
"Three years," replied Midnight as they banked left to keep up with Luna's weaving trail. "I got promoted in the Battle of Rumble Basin six months ago and I joined the Princess's strike team since then. We've been working together, me, Smoke, Blues, Ralph and the Princess."
"Blues?" inquired Flash.
"Blaster. He hates it because his real name is Moody Blues, and he's got a cutie mark for music," laughed Midnight. "Don't tell him that unless you really want to see him all bucked off."
"I'll keep that in mind," said Flash. "So this team, we go and eliminate threats to the kingdom?"
"More like clean up messes," said Smokescreen, pulling back to swap formation with the slower paced Midnight and Flash. "See, Princess Luna decided that a lot of critters were getting too ornery for their own good and we got to whomp 'em every so often. Course that's with royal sanction. Celestia knows we do this every night, and we go with her blessing as well."
"That's where you come in," replied Midnight to Flash. "You get to be here for a special assignment, a Bugbear hunt. Bugbear is code for 'stuff that really doesn't make sense, nor does it want to.' It's sort of like the great pony equalizer of bad and ridiculous things all rolled into one."
"I don't get it. So Bugbear could mean anything from...?"
"Could mean a lot of things. It's an old UNIT classification..." Smokescreen suddenly frowned. "You ARE cleared for UNIT right?"
"Uh... no?"
Smokescreen facehoofed as Commander Stormbolt hung back. "You've worked with Shiny, so he's got you covered. Look, kid, you're green so we wanted to break you in gently. But seems like Shiny knows you have potential for some reason. We've seen your records and you do good work. So I guess we can lay it down for you: UNIT is short for the Unicorn Intelligence Team, a big group that started back in the '50s during the Shadow War. It was founded by the Old Brigadier Lethbridge-Stiffhoof and his associates including someone very incredibly top secret hush-hush pack mentality RUN kind of thing. The only other major group we have right now is Torchwood, run by none other than Jack Harksaddles but we'll get you clearance for that."
"I see. And the Hydra you mentioned. Is that codeword for something weird and unexplained too?"
Blaster laughed as he clapped Flash on the side. "No way, that's an actual Hydra! I think Princess Luna's planning on beating that thing down herself."
Flash looked at his squadmates. And then at the Princess. Who then drank coffee right from the thermos. Flash was certain now: his Princesses were lunatics. All of them. Even the cute one, Sparkle.
=====
Fixing binoculars, Storm adjusted them before handing them over to his squadmates. Luna was already on her second thermos of coffee and was almost visibly shaking now. "Take a look down there; what do you see?" said Midnight as Flash took a glance.
Focusing on them, his eyes widened. "Those... aren't Bugbears at all."
Tall, almost un-pony-like so, each one of them stood at the size of a small Ursa Minor with thin arms and legs, a single angry red eye from their heads. They were covered in what appeared to be fur, but as Flash observed them, patches of fur were falling off their bodies, as if it was a rush job of disguising them. They were moving some kind of crystal in and out of the mine that had been hastily constructed from the depths of the canyon wall. "Smoke, how many can you sense?"
Smokescreen pulled out a small device, and Flash had to admit he had never seen it before. It looked way beyond normal Equestrian tech as it made a ding noise. "The Box that goes Ding is saying there's 12 Bugbears in there. Just enough for a skeletal workforce. No Mama Bears in sight."
"Twelve? Where's the backup when you need them," inquired Blaster, looking over his shoulder. "We shouldn't be engaging no less than three Bugbears without at least one Big behind us."
"This isn't looking good, they're late. What's keeping them? Midnight, give us a number crunch on us taking out a Bugbear real fast and quiet?" inquired the Commander.
"Yeah, but it's the same number as always, 33.33% chance repeating of course. Success. Chances are the Bugbears will start firing on us once we get too close." replied Midnight.
"Firing?" asked Flash faintly.
"Well that's better than we usually do," said the Commander. "Let's just wai--"
More terminology that Flash didn't understand swept through his head as Luna suddenly stood up, vibrating as if she would rattle through the moon. Taking one last swig of liquid courage, her eyes wide and bloodshot, she proclaimed, "Time's up, chums, let's do this! FOR THE GLORY OF THE ROYALTY!"
And off she charged like a shot down the road, horn ablaze with magic.
"SLAG!" exclaimed the Commander, using a curse word that Flash was certain wasn't normal pony slang. "Back the Princess up!"
"Oh my Celestia, she just ran in. We're all gonna die," whimpered Blaster as they followed.
What followed next was a measure of absolute chaos. As Luna's headlong screaming Rainbow Dash-like charge certainly drew attention, the Bugbears weren't prepared for a torrent of destructive magic ripping one of them in half, and leaving him to flop over in a pile of mangled circuitry. Shortly afterwards they dropped all pretexts of being animals and opened fire, their skins bursting off from crudely made disguises into almost black creatures firing energy from their wrists.
"What are these things?!" cried Flash as he swooped in, stabbing one with his spear, but it bounced off. The Bugbear swiped at him and he would have gotten hit if it weren't for Midnight grabbing him around the underarms and hauling him away.
"Spear's not going to help you this time, don't even bother with melee. You're a pegasus, right? Whip up some clouds and electrify it!"
The other two guardsmen were doing better, more solid kicks and bolts from their guard armor searing the closest Bugbear. "Aim for the joints if you want to live!" yelled Commander Stormbolt as he kicked out at a arm which splintered under the force of his kick. "Keep it up, keep fighting, ponies!"
The Princess teleported around in a hyperactive state, moving from target to target in a rapid fire teleport as enemies tried to catch her in the crossfire. Two of them found them tracking Luna carefully and lined up the shot when she reappeared and fired, only for her to have her wink out and blow each other's heads off.
"Yeaaaaaaah, come get some!" Hissing into smoke, Smokescreen was doing what he did best, generating a thick fogbank around him and confusing their sensors as he bucked one hard in the back of the knee joint, causing it to fall in on itself.
"That's another one down," proclaimed Midnight as she felled her target, seconds before a thunderclap echoed in the sky and a Bugbear sneaking up on her was electrocuted, his head smoking from the direct impact. Flash grinned at her from above a cloud. "Thanks, rookie!"
"The name's Flash!" replied Flash as he continued to rain controlled lightning down on the target.
Within minutes, the Bugbears were whittled down to several less than they had been, and the ponies were cornering the remaining few who were still firing from them from behind cover. Luna was preparing to fire a massive beam when suddenly, a crackling green portal erupted to life across the battlefield. "Is it one of ours?" Commander Stormbolt yelled.
"I can't tell, sir!" proclaimed Smokescreen, slapping the Box That Goes Ding. "Too much static on the air! Must be the Princess's doing and Flash's lightning."
"Well, we'll find out in a moment," said Stormbolt grimly as four more Bugbears exited, surprised to see their base under attack. "Incoming Bugbears! No Mama in the field, repeat no Mama in the field!"
"Thou send more of your endless waves against us? We will not be pushed back!" proclaimed Luna, in that sort of cute, if unhinged sort of way when hopped up on too much caffeine and far too little sleep. As she reared back, she lost cohesion of her massive spell she was generating and fired it into the rock face of the canyon.
"AVALANCHE!" yelled Blaster as the whole place started to crumble down upon them, and the Bugbears decided it was high time to cut their losses and run for it, carrying with them as many of the blue crystals as they could carry.
"Princess Luna, we must retreat!" exclaimed the Commander at the maniacally laughing Princess. "PRINCESS!"
"Oh boy, she's gone cuckoo again," muttered Smokescreen.
"Less talk, more dragging!" yelled Midnight. "This place is coming apart! Put her on Flash's cloud and let's get out of here!"
And quickly loading the crazy princess onto the cloud, the ponies sped away as a good chunk of the canyon collapsed in on itself, burying the hastily hewn mine in the process.
As the dust settled and they got enough space between them, Flash looked over at Luna who was muttering nursery rhymes and his battered companions. "Is this normal for you guys?"
"Naw, that was tip of the iceberg," replied Blaster. "I think we'd better get the Princess back home. Commander?"
"I think all of us can skip the Hydra tonight. Our Princess is no shape to wrestle with it," replied the Commander dryly.
"There's a lot of things you can eat that aren't food," giggled Luna as she took one last sip of cold coffee.
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Morning dawned on Equestria, just like it always does, with the exception of the Moon still hanging in orbit, plain to see. As the battered and tired team landed with a faintly grinning Luna, they were met by Celestia in a bathrobe and a worried expression on her face. Flash bowed, and the others nodded in reply. "Princess," said Commander Stormbolt as they lowered the widely grinning princess off the cloud.
"Luna? How are you feeling?" inquired Celestia, worried.
"We feel like we can do anything!" proclaimed Luna, eyes wide, bloodshot, wings all the way open. "We'll bet we could fly!"
Silence. And the Princess of the Sun facehoofed. "I'm switching you to decaf. Take my sister to bed. I will assume her duties for a full twenty-four hours. It is the least I can do."
"Yes, madam," replied her aide as they helped the giggling princess up and away. Celestia returned to the ponies and smiled at them.
"I hear you cleared a Bugbear nest tonight. Your report?"
"Energon mine, hastily carved out of the side of the Canyon," replied the Commander in clipped tones. "Our allies apparently didn't catch wind of it but I'll be expecting a call from them to the main team at UNIT."
"Very good. And did you all learn how to work together as a team?"
"Yes, Princess," replied the ponies as one. "Even the rookie," added Midnight with a grin, nudging Flash. "Er, Flash Sentry, ma'am."
"That's quite all right. Well I must go, I have a busy schedule, and I just crawled out of bed. I should really lower the moon but it kind of looks nice up there this morning, partially faded out doesn't it?" inquired Celestia, looking up at the sky. "Yes, I'll keep it that way. Less work for me tonight."
"Princess, your muffin," said Kiblitz, holding out a bran muffin for her.
"Thank you Kiblitz." Taking a bite, she nodded to the others. "Dismissed."
=====
Flash shucked his armor, placing it into his locker as he ran his hooves through his matted blue mane. "Hey," said Midnight from behind him and he jumped. "Whoa, jumpy."
"Sorry, I just forget that the guard locker rooms are unipony," replied Flash with a weak grin.
Midnight chuckled as Blaster doffed his helmet, revealing wild punk-rock bubblegum pink hair. "You did good out there, Flash," said Blaster. "Who knows, you might make it into the Dusk Guard if you try."
"He's already part of Shiny's unit, he doesn't need more encouragement," deadpanned Smokescreen as he placed his armor into his locker. "But... if you need to fill in for Ralph, then go right ahead."
"What these two dumb louts of ponies are trying to say is that we'd be happy to have you on our team on a more regular basis. Not that we're replacing Ralph it's just that he, well..." Midnight fumbled for words.
"He gets stomach aches. A lot, and migraines," stated Blaster. "Not that we blame him, he has a lot of stress. But we have to replace him every few days and it's not good for team cohesion."
"So what you're saying is that you want a semi-permanent team member," said Flash. "Will there be more Bugbears out there?"
"More than those, and a lot scarier than simple Bugbears," replied Smokescreen with a grin.
Flash pondered about it. True it wasn't his... preferred Princess but it was a step up. And those things, those Bugbears. If they were out there, what else was out there on Equestrian soil, just waiting to be discovered? What other wonders and chances he might find?
"I'm in," replied Flash finally. He then noticed their grins. "What?"
"You had that same look we had when we were asked to join," replied Midnight. "Well then, Flash Sentry, allow me to introduce you formally to your teammates. 1st Lt. Smokescreen, Master Sergeant Moody--"
"It's BLASTER," emphasized Blaster.
"MOODY Blues," continued Midnight.
"Get you for this Midnight. Swear to Primus."
"Myself, Captain Midnight Deary, our Commanding officer Commander Stormbolt. We'd like you to formally join Princess Luna's Maximum Action XenoInternal Military Action Line."
"That's a mouthful," said Flash, dazed. "And here I thought someone really wanted our initials to spell MAXIMAL."
"It's a brave world out there. We're the night. The stuff ponies don't see in the day. Get some rest, and we'll introduce you to the Bigs tomorrow." said Blaster.
Flash nodded. "Count on it. And thanks, for letting me come along."