“Applejack?” the young alicorn called.

“Yeah sugarcube? What’s up?”

“I know that you knew Rainbow was crushing on me. I have to know… how long?” she inquired.

With a defeated sigh, AJ complied. “About the past few weeks. She didn’t tell me until about the day before last.”

“So that explains…” she started before she became lost in thought as she walked.

Her pace began to slow as she thought. Before she knew it, she had fallen behind to the point of being with the Crusaders, and her Number One Assistant.

“You alright Twilight?” came the voice of her dragon friend.

“Huh? Oh yeah… I’m fine Spike.” she tried to lie. “I’m just… thinking.”

“What about?”

“If you can keep it secret.” she warned.

“Promise.”

“Rainbow’s crushing on me.” she sighed.

“Your only now learning this? I saw the looks she was giving you since they started a few weeks ago.” the drake chuckled, receiving an annoyed glare from Twilight. “Okay, tell ya what. Here’s what I think. I think you should acknowledge Rainbow’s affection. Let her be this way towards you, and see how it develops.”

“The kid’s got a point ya know.” a voice came.

Jumping, the princess shrieked. “GAH! Even with all that stuff how do you do that!?”

“Not important. The drake’s right though. You should just let it happen and see what develops.” Logan smiled.

“Thanks Logan.” Spike chuckled.

“HEY Spike! Which of us has the better singin’ voice?” Applebloom asked from the front of the group “Me or Sweetie Belle?”

“Want me to be honest or sugar coat it?” he called.

“Honest!”

“Sugar coat!” they both called out in unison.

“Hmmm… you both have great voices… but… Sweetie Belle would be my choice.” he answered carefully.

“Darn it. Oh well.” Applebloom started as spike ran forward to rejoin the crusaders.

“But seriously. See what happens.”

“I’ll try… I’ve… never considered having a special somepony…” she somberly mumbled “I’ve always been to busy… what with learning magic, my new royal duties, having to listen to locals and nobles bicker all the time…”

“Pfft. Seriously? Heh. Learning? that’s just school. Royal duties? that’s just work. I will say that yes you could be a bit over burdened, but at least Celestia and Luna have never asked you to balance the royal budget, and whatnot. But that’s what camping trips like this are for. To unwind, blow of some steam, and have fun.” he chuckled as he ruffled her mane playfully.

“Applejack, Darling, how much further?”

“Another five miles.” AJ answered.

“At this pace… about two hours.” Logan added snidely.

As they walked, and talked, they came to a new clearing, where Spike let out a loud belch, and another.

“Hey Twi, seems like Royal business.” Rainbow called.

“Yeah yeah, I’m coming.” she said as she levitated the two scrolls. “Hmm… ‘Dear Princess Twilight, it has come to our attention that…” she read quietly. Upon finishing the scroll, she let out a gasp as panic began to spread over her face. “girls… we may want to start heading back to Ponyville…”

“Twi, what about this one? Rainbow asked holding the other scroll in her wing tips.

Levitating the new scroll, She read, silently. As she read, the look of panic started to slowly fade, and become replaced by a look of nervousness. “The princesses have increased the number of undercover guards all over the nation… Daring Do it seems was also attacked, taken hostage, and tortured by some Unicorn… a Changeling of all things saved her…”

“Changeling?” Logan whispered to the young dragon.

“Shape shifting bug pony thing.” he replied.

“Hmm…”

“They’re being held and treated at Canterlot as we speak.” she finished.

“Daring do… was tortured?! How bad is she?!” Rainbow screamed.

“It doesn’t say. But it does say she is recovering well, and that Celestia and Luna have appointed their best doctors on it.” Twilight assured.

“I hope so…” the prismatic Pegasus muttered.

“Shall we continue onward? I’d rather not spend the night here as it’s getting rather cold darlings.” Rarity asked, nervously impatient.

“Hey Sweetie, I was wondering, when we last came out camping, you had to pull a huge cart full of Rarity’s stuff. Where is that thing?” Scootaloo asked, finally noticing the lack of a mountain of bags.

“Oh. She found a spell in the library that makes all her stuff tiny. So all she has to do is pull it out of her saddle bags and reverse the spell.” the young white unicorn explained with a happy smile.

Logan sadly found out that pony miles were about twice as long as human miles. By the time they had reached campsite number two, a large but dark cave, it was sundown, and he was exhausted. But years of running from his own, and foreign governments had taught him, really quickly how much the body can truly take.

Looking around inside the cave, he felt forced to turn on the upside down L shaped flashlight on his left shoulder. He looked and eyed the cave, but after not finding anywhere to set up his hammock, he settled with the floor, like everypony else.

As he walked outside, he opted to show them another method he had to use for starting fires.

“You gonna use another one of those thermo-thingies?” Rainbow asked excitedly.

“Nah. Not gonna be as good a show. I may have a couple dozen cans, but that’s it. It’s finite.” he answered, receiving a depressed ‘aww’ from the group.

As he reached into his pocket, he pulled out a small grey block of metal along with a multi tool from a pouch on his waist. On one side of the block, was a small metal rod imbedded into the block. He carefully scraped shavings of the block with the knife on his multi tool onto a small pile of kindling, then flipped the block over so the rod was facing up. He then proceeded to scrape along the rob, causing sparks to fall all over the mess of metal and wood shavings.

After about 5 strikes, he had started a small fire. Carefully and gently, he blew on the tiny flame, careful to not blow it out. Before long, there was a fair sized fire roaring as the group roasted marshmallows, told jokes, and stories. From the Crusaders antics around town, to the old adventures Twilight and the gang had gone on. While instead of the war, Logan told of the antics he had gotten into during high school.

As Applejack had begun to dig out the liquor, the young fillies and dragon all decided to crash from the long hike. However, much to her surprise, Logan had stopped her.

“Not needed. Nothing of really great importance happened in the next two years of the war. Sure a few foreign countries who supported my government swung by to provide aid but nothing really major happened.” he started.

“But darling, last night you said you had lost your lover, and found out that your militia had suffered terrible losses.” Rarity scoffed, calling his bluff.

With a sigh of defeat, Logan took the drink offered to him. “Fine. So anyway, we had gone from over 300 down to 72. Most of us were civilians. Families of the fighters, that sort of thing. Well… when they told me the story, they said someone had willingly betrayed them, giving away our hiding spots.”

“They pointed out where they were hiding at the time, and at midnight, foreign warships off the coast line unleashed a barrage of artillery strikes.” he started.

“Artillery?” Rainbow asked curiously, speaking what was on her love interest’s mind.

“uhm… Artillery is… like a gun but… super sized. Heavy firepower like that was never a strong suit of mine. Well anyways, they then told me that once the shells started landing-”

_________________

“RUN! GO!”

“GET OUTA HERE!”

The screams and shouts of panic were constant, only to be temporarily drowned out by the sounds of whistles, and explosions. Screams of agony and sorrow filled the air.

“GET A DOCTOR! WHERE’S A FUCKING DOCTOR!?” one voice cried out

“THE DOCTOR’S ARE ALL DEAD!” another shouted.

The chaos lasted for what felt like an eternity, but in all reality, it was just a mere 2 minutes. Once the artillery had stopped, the rumble of helicopters wasn’t far behind.

What started as an artillery attack, quickly turned into an aerial duel as helicopters each shot rockets, and machine guns at each other. Before long the jets arrived and a massive dogfight took place over the refugee camp.

“How many did we loose?!” Savannah shouted.

“We don’t know ma’am! Its too soon to tell.” answered another.

________________________

“They called that night ‘The Redwood Massacre’. those who weren’t killed, were lost.” Logan said with a sigh. “That was a month before the Reno bombing took my girlfriend from me…”

The six mares each were shocked. Each trying to picture, huge flying machines overhead, all shooting at each other, and falling out of the sky in flames.

“Who won?” Rainbow asked quietly

“Stalemate. Nobody won.”

“Whoa…”

“Yeah… anyway… so, we had lost 270 of our comrades, I lost the love of my life, may all of their souls rest in peace, and now we’re pretty much running from county to county. We held a few skirmishes here and there, most of which we won. That was pretty much year two.” Logan explained simply. “That’s just the nutshell version.”

“Year three was… not as rocky. It had pretty much stabilized by then. The entire east coast, save for the south, was gripped by the Federation, as well as most of the west coast. what few guerillas there were attacked relentlessly. Myself included. But that was also the year I met who became my best friend… even a brother figure” Logan said with a smile.

________________________________

The fog outside had just dissipated, much to the great appreciation of my sniper sister. Myself however, I was pissed.

“Ghost, you copy?” she called over the radio

“Yeah, I copy Guardian. Comms check?” I asked.

“Negative. But I got you on target. Your target is about, 4 buildings to your right. He should be in the bar.”

“Great. A bar assassination…” I grumble.

“It’s the best Intel we got. If you like we can always leave this to the mercenaries…” she harassed.

“Fine, fine. Fuck me…”

“Ew. You’re my brother. I cant do that.” yeah, my sister was a wise crack.

“Keep that up and this op is over.” I growled.

She then replied through the radio with a light chuckle. “Yeah, yeah. Always so serious. You need to lighten up. I mean come-”

I had had enough so I just turned my radio off, and proceeded to meander my way into the bar/diner. As I walked inside, I sat down and ordered pancakes. It was still breakfast hour so I could order breakfast. And I hadn’t eaten yet.

As I ate, I noticed a group of locals walk in. Little did I know that these guys would be nearly the death of me. They sat, ordered their food, chatted, joked, and told stories. Then I noticed one of them start to eye me suspiciously. Trying to look as casual as possible, I pulled out my Ipod, and saw that the guy eyeballing me was my target. Quickly typing a text on my phone, I told Sav that our target had guards, and that I was deathly outnumbered.

Just as I sent the text, he had recognized me from photos he had seen taken of my militia. Turns out I was one of the top ten on the Federation’s most wanted.

He jumped up and yelled “ANARCHIST!” sadly that was the Federation’s name for us patriots.

His buddies all jumped up and pulled out their guns. I dove over the counter to try and find sufficient cover as bullets of various kinds whizzed past me. I had faced worse than this, but those times I was armed with almost everything I needed. This time, all I had was a handgun. At least, until a stranger hiding in the back room slid a Micro Galil to me.

I poke out, occasionally firing a shot or two, and before I know it, the whole place is surrounded. The stranger who had slid the gun to me, had called me over saying he had a way out. Turns out this guy was also a patriot, but kept it secret, claiming neutrality. But I digress. He led me to a hidden tunnel behind a fridge, where in we then walked. After about 2 minutes we came to the end of the tunnel leading up and into a different building.

Turns out this guy had been watching me since the start of my op. I saw cameras, photos, maps, computers, even radios. He then told me that it wouldn’t be long before they started a search of the town. So he pressed a key on his laptop.

The sound of an explosion just a few buildings away shook the tiny neighborhood.

“That wont hold them off for long.” he explained grabbing a Vector carbine. “We should get to a safe spot. C’mon.” he urged.

Raising my Galil at him, I barked “Hold on. I don’t know you, I’ve never seen your face before, and yet you expect me to just listen and trust you!?”

“Look, without you I never would have been sure that the guys who attacked you were Federation.” he explained hastily.

“I WAS BAIT!?” I practically shout.

“Yes. Look, you and your sister are essential to this town’s eradication of the Federation. I’m a member of the Ferndale resistance. Keegan MacWelch is the name.” he chuckled holding out a hand.

I looked down at it unsure if he was telling the truth. Waving it off, he pressed a few more keys and we descended down into another tunnel. This one leading off the east. Before long, two more explosions rocked us. As I turned on my radio, I got fuzzy chatter.

“Gho- ghost!? Do you cop-” it said as static over took it from time to time.

“Yeah I copy Guardian.” I replied

“Oh thank go- your ok I was so- ied about you! What happened?!” she shouted.

“Mission successful” I said simply. “Heading east.”

“Mission incomplete. You two are helping my Resistance. By that time, we will have pushed the Federation, and the Chinese off our west coast soil.

________________________________________________

“Within a week, the three of us pushed the Federation and those Chinese off our nation’s soil.” Logan said.

“Whoa…” Rainbow said astonished.

“Didn’t take much. Couple car bombs here, bridge bombing there, shootout in an alley, or two, etc.” he shrugged. “To be honest, he saved my life more times than I dare to count. After a few weeks, the three of us were back on the California/Nevada border. Our militia pushing from the east, other militias, even military were pushing from the north, others from the south pushing north, eventually they had only one place left to go. The California state capitol city of Sacramento.”

“Then came a final blow in year four. I had gotten word that Federation, and Soviets had put together a MASSIVE fuel depot. My militia was the closest, so we we’re charged with taking it out.”

“Darling, what pray tell is a ‘fuel depot?” the marshmallow mare interrupted curiously.

“Can your steam locomotives run without coal?” The human replied sarcastically.

“Fair enough dear.”

“So anyway, we got that fuel depot out of the way. And to be honest, that was perhaps one of the biggest fireballs I had ever seen. Then we got word that our president and state governor would be in the same building together in that war zone of a city, ‘Sacramento, but the military needed specialists help.”

______________________________________

“So wait, your telling us that WE are the best qualified for this kind of kidnapping!?” Keegan yelled over the headset.

“This isn’t a kidnapping.” the soldiers voice said. “It’s a kill/capture mission.”

“Great… in short were here to kill the sumbitch arnt we?” I groan irritably.

“Maybe.” he said.

The flight was… not too eventful until we reached the suburbs of Sac-

____________________________________________

Logan found himself interrupted by the arrival of the three other princesses along with approximately 30 royal guards, including Captain Shining Armor, an injured Daring Do, and a disguised Changeling.

Shocked, he jumped back and almost shouted “What the Devil!?”

“Princesses? What’s going on?” Twilight asked as she noticed cuts and bruises all over the princesses and their soldiers.

“We were… betrayed… Canterlot was… invaded…” Celestia panted.

“The city was overrun in a matter of hours” Cadence added. “I don’t know how they did it so fast…”

“Why didn’t you send a letter?” Twilight demanded.

“Because we had to get them out. At first we thought it was a simple store looting, but it quickly erupted into full scale Chaos.-” Shining started.

“Chaos which I had nothing to do with.” Discord interrupted as he appeared from Cadence’s mane.

“Anyway, before we knew it they were burning buildings, and storming the castle.” he finished.

Suddenly, everypony began to hear a hissy, static kind of noise. Digging into his pack, Logan found an old, nearly forgotten radio.

“Ghost! You copy!?” came a female voice.

“Yeah, I copy Red Tail, go ahead.” he replied.

“Ponyville is under attack! We’re outnumbered but fighting back. The invaders seem to be some kind of shape-shifting, bug-pony thing!”

“Changelings… okay, get as many civilians as you can and hide in the Everfree! I’ll meet you on the pathway to Winsome Falls outside the Orchard. Hide as many as you can!” he shouted into the coms.

“YESSIR!” she shouted back.

A stunned group of ponies all stared at Logan in disbelief.

“What?”

“P-ponyville!?” came a small voice

“Under attack?!” came another

“We have to go and help them!” turning to look at the tent, everypony present finally saw the three Cutie Mark Crusaders, and young dragon, all with worry printed on their faces.

With a gentle sigh, Logan knelt down in front of the three young mares and teen drake. “Look, we cant just run back to Ponyville, guns a blazin. That’s a death wish. I’ve seen many try to do that and they all paid the price. We cant risk it.”

“But our friends-” Sweetie belle started

“Will most likely be waiting for us to return while they hide out in the Everfree. They’ll be fine.” he assured.

“You Pinkie Promise?” She begged.

Biting his lip, he agreed. Knowing full well it was a promise he could never completely fulfill. Throwing a curious glance over to Pinkie, the goddess of the pinkie promise, she knowingly nodded.

“The Princesses need their rest. We rest until dawn. We leave for Sweet Apple Acres at sun up.” Logan commanded. “I know it’ll be hard to rest but do your best.”

“Hehe, cool rhyme Logan. We must do our best to get our rest.” Pinkie chuckled.

“That means you too girls.” Applejack added.

______________________________

Canterlot, Equestria.

0:32 hours

Royal Throne Room

“I told you I always deliver on my promises Prince. You are now the Ruler of Equestria.” The silver unicorn Stallion smiled wickedly.

“You have done well sir. Though I do wish I had gotten your name.” The white unicorn prince responded.

With a chuckle, the silver unicorn began to walk out. “My name means nothing. Actions are what matter. What shall be your first act as ruler of Equestria?”

“There is a mare I want found. A unicorn mare. White coat, purple mane and tail. Diamonds for a cutie mark. Goes by the name Rarity. Once she is found arrange a wedding!” he shouted.

“She will be found.” the second unicorn smiled, and in a flash of light, teleported away.