Target Acquired
Three suspiciously nondescript pegasi flew over the Equestrian heartland, keeping such a low profile that they occasionally had to dodge the odd tree.
"Target in sight!" Tibia announced as we spotted the small farming village on the horizon. Her language was kurt and militaristic as usual. Well we were soldiers, but she took protocol way more serious than most.
"Finally!" Tarsus panted. "This trip sucked, but at least we get some in the end, eh newbie?"
He gave me a slap with his wing which nearly sent me tumbling out of control. I wasn't used to having feathers.
I didn't get the joke, so of course he saw fit to elaborate, the blowhole. "I mean all the horse pussy!" Seeing as I was still recovering our course he bapped his other comrade, or at least tried to. Tibia easily dodged, which in turn sent
tumbling as he woshed past her.
"Fucking cunt!" He yelled as he plummeted to the ground.
She just kept on course as if he was a dispatched enemy rather than a comrade. If a rather unlikable one.
"Eh, should we not help him?" I asked.
She ignored that too and soon we heard the crash. If the swearing was anything to go by he seemed to have survived the impact.
"Well I'm helping him." I declared, and was pleased that my voice managed to keep steady. Sergeant Tibia was my commanding officer after all.
She only sighed so I took that as a yes and circled back. She did a sweep of the area while I landed next to the crater of Tarsus.
"Are you okay brother?" I called out.
"The fuck do you think newbie!" Was the answering call. Not too bad then.
"I'm not sure what to think, seeing as I have never crashed,
." Who says passive aggression isn't the better part of valour?
"Very funny, newbie." Tarsus mumbled as he crawled out of the hole in the ground. He seemed to be in one piece at least. Testing all four legs and then giving out a shout as he tried his wings.
"Fuck that hurts!" He yelled.
I could see why: his wing seemed to be bent almost double. A crippling injury to a pegasus. Luckily us changelings were made of sterner stuff.
I was just about to ask him if we needed to call off the mission to bring him back to the hive when Tibia landed next to us. She did another three-sixty swirl, but detecting no hostiles she eventually turned to face Tarsus.
"Soldier, report!" She demanded.
"Broken wing." He winced, waving the ruined appendage.
Tibia seemed more annoyed than anything. "Can you fly?"
He gave a snort, and just to demonstrate, grabbed the wing in his hoof and with a wince righted it. It hung limply. "Does it look like I can fly?"
Tibia seemed to genuinely study his wing before replying. "Negative." She then turned to me. "Rookie, we're continuing on hoof."
Great, thanks to Tarsus-arsus we were walking. My first mission to harvest love energy for The Queen was off to a good start.
***
Eventually we reached the town. It looked… well like a pony town is meant to look like, I guess. It's not like I had much to compare it with. It was much smaller than the hive, and far less dense. Ponies built their own miniature hives it seemed, only one to at most a dozen individuals behind each door.
"So… how do we do this?" I asked, hidden as we were in the bush.
"Did you not get training, Rookie?" Tibia said, not taking her eyes off the ponies she was watching through her binoculars.
"Well yes." I replied, mildly offended. "I was just thinking you two might have some advice to offer."
With a sigh Tibia lowered her binoculars and turned to look at me, her pith helmet literally throwing shade my way as I stood in her shadow. I did not look intimidated, I hope.
"Listen here Rookie, the first thing we do is…"
"I call dibs on Cloud Kicker!" Tarsus interrupted her. He had taken on the disguise of a muscular Earth Pony stallion, and yep, his cutie mark was a stud. Why wasn't I surprised? Because I knew him, that’s why.
"See you later, virgins!" He shoved past us and headed straight for a pegasus mare. I didn't really get why he was so eager. She wasn't unattractive, with her toned build and blonde mane, but she didn't particularly stand out either.
I shot a questioning look at Tibia who was rubbing a hoof against her forehead. She saw me looking and explained.
"Cloud Kicker is the most promiscuous mare in Equestria. It's a low risk, low reward target. She spreads her love as easy as her legs, so the love you get is diluted, shared with too many ponies. Not to mention she kicks you out in the morning like you're some kind of… err not that I'd know." She straightened up. So, pick your target Rookie." She handed me her binoculars and watched me like a hawk as I watched the ponies going about their daily business.
"How about that pink one?" I said after a while, pointing at a garishly pink mare who was apparently so brimming with energy that she bounced across the village square. "She seems perfect, I can feel her love from here."
Looking up at my Sergeant, I expected to be praised for my analytic expertise. What I instead got was a slap to the face.
I blinked up at my commanding officer who waved an admonishing hoof in his face.
"Do not under any circumstances attempt to drain the pink one!"
I opened my mouth to ask why, but she cut me off. "Her name is Pinkie Pie, and she is off limits."
When I asked why, Tibia shivered. The iron lady actually shivered. "I don't know, Rookie. Her exact abilities are unknown, but she has so far thwarted any attempt to feed on her. Nine Drones went MIA after trying to infiltrate her, seven were driven mad. They keep one of them in the hive as a warning not to take on ponies more powerful than ourselves."
I swallowed. "How bad is…?"
She shook her head. "On a good day he is able to feed himself. Provided you serve him nothing but cake."
Now it was my turn to shiver. "So no pink ponies?" I asked.
"No pink ponies." She confirmed.
After a few awkward moments I decided to spy for a new target, and spotted a promising candidate.
"What about the two of them?" I asked, pointing at a couple of mares sitting at one of the cafeterias. A mint green Unicorn and a white coated Earth Mare. They seemed to be in the honeymoon phase of their relationship. They positively saturated the air around them with sweet young love, fresh from the heart.
This time Tibia gave me the response I was hoping for. "They'll do." she agreed."We'll wait until they split up, then hit them both simultaneously."
Perfect! My first mission was off to a great start!
***
My first mission was off to a boring start! For three hours we did nothing but watch a couple of ponies Make gooey eyes at each other.
Tibia wasn’t much for company either. She stayed perfectly still and watched the couple like a hawk the entire time.
I did not. I fell asleep and was once more slapped by Tibia.
"Ow, what? Did they order a sixth cup of tea!" I whined, rubbing my cheek.
She silenced me with a wave of her hoof. "Shut up Rookie, the targets are moving."
Sure enough, the two mares seemed to be about to leave. They shared a passionate kiss that I felt all the way over in our spy bush, and walked off in different directions.
"Which one do we follow?" I asked.
Tibia made a tactical decision. She was good at those, it's how she got promoted. "Both, you idiot. You follow the green one, find out where they live, then report back to me. I'll find a good spot to ambush the white one."
I looked at her. "How do you know where they are going?"
She slapped me again, I was starting to think she liked hurting me.
"If you were paying attention,
, you would have heard them talk about it." She glared at me.
"But they were way over there, how did you…"
She cut me off. "Learn how to read lips Rookie, every good infiltrator does." She pointed at the pony who had almost disappeared out of sight. "Now stay on her tail, or so help me I will rip off yours by the root."
You don't argue with an order like that, so I took to my wings and followed the green unicorn mare.
Luckily for me, it was a rather short trip. Well not so much luck maybe, I mean this town was the size of a hoofball field.
I watched the mare walk into one of the nearly identical white houses. To remember which one I flew up to the roof and looked around for something to mark it with.
Thinking creatively, like the genius I was, I stuck my hoof in the chimney. When I pulled it back out it was covered in soot, bingo. After that it was a simple task to draw a big black
in the thatch.
Feeling like one clever ling I was just about to leap off the roof when I looked down and noticed that one of my legs were black.
While I had solved the problem of the house being nondescript, I now had the opposite problem with myself. I was wearing a light blue disguise, and the sooty discoloration of my hoof looked odd. I needed to blend in; how to solve this?
Well, turns out trying to rub the soot off against my chest only exacerbated the problem. Still, this was nothing that a clever changeling like me couldn't solve.
After some consideration, I simply changed my coat colour to black. Problem solved, and I looked absolutely badass in red and black. Why had nopony ever thought of that before?
Brimming with confidence I flew around until I spotted Tibia. It is rather easy to spot a moving bush wearing a pith helmet and a pair of binoculars. Yet it is a known fact that it is nearly impossible for the actual pony being spied on to notice, which was why the practice was still in use.
"Hello Tibia!" I called out, landing next to her sneaking bush. It earned me yet another slap, and then I was swiftly pulled into the bush with her.
"Have you learned nothing about keeping a low profile Rookie!?" She hissed.
"Hay, I am trying!" I hissed back.
"Could have fooled me." She said, rolling her eyes.
Our bickering was cut short by a scream of rage, which naturally caused us both to jump in fear, and then peel back enough bush to see what was happening.
Our target was standing on a bridge, so was a pale red mare. They both had carts strapped to themselves. By the smell of it they had been transporting trash.
Tibia and I watched as a crazed pegasus attacked them. The yellow mare bellowed with rage and flipped the carts over, covering our targets with garbage before zooming off. Odd, why hadn’t she just flown over them in the first place?
"Perfect." Tibia hissed, I wondered why and was treated to the most delicious and well thought out plan I'd ever heard in my life. I nodded and took my position.
***
I waited under the bridge, and as Tibia had predicted, the white mare walked down to wash herself off, I didn't understand why, but a good soldier never questions orders.
The mare was too far away for me to make my move, and I could not be sure there weren't ponies watching, so I bided my time until Tibia made her move.
As the white mare finished cleaning the garbage off her a familiar mare walked up, and started chatting with her. It was the green mare from earlier, her lover.
Only it was not, it was Tibia in disguise.
I watched hungrily as Tibia led the mare to my hiding place under the bridge.
"Lyra, you're so naughty. Under the bridge of all places." The white mare blushed, turning her into a pink mare. Luckily not
pink mare.
"Oh you have no idea love." The disguised Tibia gave a wicked grin. Moving to block the mare's escape. "What's your name, pony?" She hissed.
"Lyra, this isn't funny." The mare seemed to realize something was wrong and backed away from 'Lyra'.
She was right, as she backed close to my hiding place I sprang out and went for her throat. The white mare barely had time to scream before my fangs sunk into her neck. I covered her mouth with a hoof, silencing her scream as warm blood filled my mouth.
The last thing the white mare saw, as she struggled against me was her lover walking up, a smirk on her muzzle.
I felt the white mare's pain of shock and betrayal as Tibia, with a vicious right hook knocked her out. She fell limp against me and I felt my fangs rip chunks out of her neck as I lost my grip.
I let go,and the mare dropped to my hooves, her white coat smeared with red
Looking up at Tibia I was surprised to see she was still rearing up for another punch. Why would she do that? The mare was already out cold, and most likely dea-
The next punch hit me square in the face, knocking me flat on my plot.
"Ow, what was that for?" I whined, blinking up at the furious sergeant.
"You idiot!" She hissed, towering over me. "You were supposed to capture her. How the fuck are we supposed to extract love from a corpse?!"
"But the green mare…" I began, but Tibia silenced me by aiming a kick at me.
"Yes, we still have half the target, but that's still a major fuckup Rookie. You can be sure I'll report this to Queen Chrysalis when we return."
I lowered my head in shame. No ling would ever want to disappoint The Queen.
"I'm sorry." I said, knowing it wasn't enough. I had messed up my first mission, I would be lucky if I was ever sent on another.
"I don't need you to be sorry Rookie, you're nearly as useless as her." She gave the pony corpse a kick. Taking a few deep breaths before looking up, a plan forming in her mind. Tibia was the best.
"Ok, here's what we do. We'll foalnap the green mare, and bury this one. With any luck the ponies of this town will assume they eloped." She seemed to brighten up as the plan formed in her head. "Yes, that will open up for further infiltration attempts since we can pose as them coming back."
She looked down at the corpse again and an idea struck her. "Actually… bring the body. The corpse of her lover might just be enough trauma to brainwash the green one. You know The Queen requires hostages for the Wedding Coup… if we show up with one, lobotomized and ready, she won’t care about the failure here. This might actually turn out to be a boon for us after all, Rookie."
I flinched as she reached up to hit me again, but it was just a light punch on the arm.
"It's okay Rookie, you fucked up, but we'll salvage this."
"Thanks." Maybe my first mission would be a success after all. I thanked the Queen for giving me such a smart sergeant.
Tibia was back in her usual manner, barking orders at me. "Rookie, go to the green mare's house and lure her here as soon as it gets dark. I'll prepare the brainwash spell."
With a flash of fire, I turned into an exact copy of the white mare. Well, without the blood and the hole in her neck, naturally.
"Yes ma'am." I saluted, and went off to find a 'bridesmaid' for the Queen's next master plan.
That day was going to be perfect.