”What Mercy Gets You”

If someone looked at the garden a few days ago, they would've seen a lot of chocolate milk raining from the sky and statues made of caramel. The garden had been subjected to everything except order and prosperity.But that was in the past and everything had been put back in its proper place. In the now peaceful garden, stood a large white alicorn, a look of disapproval plastered on her face.

Princess Celestia kept staring at the statue with complete and utter contempt. How could I have been so stupid as to let something like this happen again? She berated herself. This had been the second time that Discord had gone on a chaotic rampage throughout Equestria and it was only narrowly averted thanks to Twilight and her friends. She wouldn't make the same mistake again.

While the Princess continued to stare down the immobilized Discord, she was soon joined by another alicorn, Princess Luna. She walked up slowly to her sister and asked, “You wanted to see me, Tia?”

Celestia averted her gaze from the statue and her face brightened slightly. “Oh yes, dear sister. I wanted to talk to you about Discord,” she said, uttering the last word with a bit of anger in her voice.

“What about him?” Luna replied.

“After what just occurred recently, it's come to my attention that we cannot risk Discord getting loose again. We need to take care of him, once, and for all.” The white mare paused, then continued in a more sorrowful tone. “I would hate to see what happened to our subjects just recently, happen for a third time.”

Her sister nodded her head in understanding. “I understand, Tia. What do you plan to do to ensure his imprisonment?”

Celestia's expression changed to one of confidence. ”I have devised a spell that will seal Discord away in another dimension, one almost completely devoid of magic. Even if he should break out, there's very little he can do.”

Luna smiled and nodded. “And I assume you want me to help you in accomplishing that?”

“Yes, sister. If wouldn't mind, I'd like to do this as soon as possible. The less time I have to spend looking at Discord, the better.”

Luna was a little surprised, but understood why her sister wanted to take quick action. “I see. You've thought a lot about this, haven't you?”

“Yes...I have. I want Discord to be gone for good and after having given it some deep thought, I've concluded that this is the best option. You learned the spell beforehand, right?”

“I did and I'm ready to help you cast it.”

“Okay, let us begin.”

The alicorn sisters each trotted over to one side of the statue and took their positions. Their horns began to glow and the statue soon was enveloped by the same energy. The magic soon intensified and glowed brighter, the statue sharing the same brightness.

Soon, the statue began to shake, slowly at first, but it got faster and faster as more magic was applied to it. It wasn't long before the statue was forcefully removed from its spot in the ground, and rose into the air. The light of the spell had reached blinding levels, until finally a blinding flash of light shone throughout the garden for a split second. When the light cleared, the spot where the statue stood lay bare.

Celestia sighed, a bit woozy from the spell she just cast. “There...it's done.” Celestia would no longer need to worry about Discord's chaos harming Equestria again. Little did she know, that her actions would have terrible repercussions.

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“Hrm, that Celestia thinks she’s so smart, dropping my poor, lifeless form in a black void in this other dimension. She doesn’t understand how chaos works; it's unpredictable, uncontrollable...and uncontainable. But there is one thing that seems to make up for all this and that's the company I seem to be keeping.

They call themselves 'humans'. What a peculiar name. But what they lack in creativity, they make up for in needless chaos. They can't go one day with squabbling about something. There are even those that seem to revel in chaos, much like myself. But they're not all like this; many other humans seem devoted to order, truth, and justice. Eugh. With so many different humans, it's much harder to create chaos like I normally do. It’s a pity really.

I wonder, what is a human, anyway? What makes them tick? At first, it seems like I have the answer, but then there's a person that comes along to contradict all the evidence I've gathered! It's a bit frustrating really. Then again, with 7 billion lives out there, it's not surprising that someone is going to be different. That's the predicament I find myself in, no matter what I do, no matter how much trouble I cause, someone, somewhere is going to be completely unaffected by my actions.

Ugh, this would be so much easier if this realm had real magic. However, it seems like all the 'magic' in this realm is artificial in nature. Oh sure, I can cast magic, no problem, but it's severely hampered by how utterly devoid this place is of any form of mystical energy! Of all the places I could end up in, it had to be a boring ball of dirt. Why can't those humans have pony ma-

Wait.

Heh heh.

Oh my, that IS a devilish plan. It'll kill two birds in one stone and I'll be able to mess with the heads of all seven billion of them! Hahaha! And here I though I was losing my touch. Oh me, you never cease to disappoint. Yes, soon these little beings will feel the wrath of my chaos.

Hrm, I really should find someone else to talk to.”

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Date: November 18, 2017 6:12:21 AM (Local Time: GMT+9)
[277 days after the event]
Location: Over the East China Sea ~ International Waters
“The Bleak Dawn”

If any of the pilots of the 1st airborne were to look around them, they would see an endless blanket of navy blue below them, seemingly untouched and undisturbed save for the laws of nature. The sun had not yet risen, but the sky was already lit up with several shades of purple, pink, and orange. If they had the time to look at it, no doubt they would be able to appreciate its beauty.

But they couldn't do that; they were too busy avoiding gunfire from a swarm of Pegasi.

Four jets soared through the air in a cross formation, cutting through the sky northward toward their target. However, these were no ordinary jets. Rather than a pair of delta wings that formed a simplistic triangle, these wings were shaped more like a crescent, the top half of each of the wings swooping downward while the bottom half shot outward. While the wings were a strange sight in and of themselves, the real eye catcher was the feather like objects attached to the back end of the wings. There were four of metallic feathers attached to each wing, give the vehicle a birdlike appearance.

The wings were not the only unusual feature of the aircraft though. The material used in constructing the vehicle looked unlike anything ever seen on a conventional plane. A ceramic hull made up the outer layer of the armor, while the inner most layer was made of standard metallic armor. But the truly unique feature was that in-between those two layers was a polarizing field of unicorn energy, enhancing the toughness of the fighter. This also had the side effect of making the armor glow when exposed to direct sunlight, making it shine across the skies.

These glowing, “feathered” jets were avoiding gunfire from the enemy Pegasi that had them out hopelessly numbered. The Pegasi rode the jet's tails firing their saddle mounted guns, attempting to break the jets current course. There were at least a couple dozen of them flying around. Bullets flew through the air, buzzing past, most merely skimming the wings of the jets, due the group's evasive actions.

The Captain had ordered the squad not to break formation to fire at the enemy, even though the Pegasi had no such qualms about firing at the jets. They couldn't even if they wanted to; they were short on time and every second counted. Of course, the Pegasi weren't making things any easier. However, the 1st Airborne were far from defenseless.

“Prepare for Feather launch!” the Captain ordered.

The wingmen acknowledged their leader and prepped themselves as the Captain had asked. After a brief silence, he yelled out his command, “Launch, Feather 2 away!”

In near unison, they each pressed the same button, causing a feather from each of the jets to break away, spiraling behind them as they lost speed. Suddenly, the feathers lit up and fire erupted from the backs of the feathers, giving them their own source of thrust and momentum. These now mobile feathers turned around flying toward the enemy group and revealed the small turrets hidden on their undersides and began providing cover fire.

The pursuing ponies were caught off guard by this and broke away to deal with the attacking feathers. The feathers were fast, but the pursuing Pegasi were undeterred by them. After a minor scuffle, the ponies regrouped and synchronized their movements to take down the threat that opposed them. One by one, the feathers were shot down and the ponies proceeded to chase down the jets.

As the ponies caught up, the Captain ordered his wingmen to fire off another set of feathers to keep their enemies occupied. However, their pursuers were ready for this gambit. This time only a few of the ponies broke away to deal with the feathers while the majority of the group stayed on their tails, continuing to lay down gunfire. The Captain continued to order the group to launch feathers at the ponies, and every time the ponies were slowed down, but in the end they still caught up to them. One by one, the feathers were launched, attacked, and then destroyed. It wasn't long before the last group of feathers were destroyed, leaving the jets with no form of attack without breaking away, and time was not on their side.

Despite the situation, the left wing pilot couldn't be silent about her frustration and fear any longer. “Damnit! They're just toying with us. Why don't they just shoot us down?” the young woman shouted, betraying her normally cool demeanor.

“Alexis, it's not about them stopping us,” the wingman to her right interjected “it's about slowing us down long enough. They just have to run down the clock so we...can't reach our target in time.” The wingman stumbled over the last few words, imagining the consequences of failure.

The young woman felt a similar, grim feeling upon hearing that. “If that missile hits then-” she began but was off by their flight leader.

“Then you can kiss Seoul goodbye. I know the stakes are high, but that's why we need to focus on our mission. We'll make it through this!” the Captain roared. He was using his role as leader to keep his team calm and focused. His approach was blunt and direct, but it was a honest effort to appeal to his fellow pilots. Judging from their reactions, it seemed like it had moderate success.

“You're right, Captain. Still, I shouldn't have brought it up,” Alexis murmured aloud.

The rear wingman interjected with his own bit of wisdom. “'When something has been said, a team of four horses cannot overtake it.' You can't take back what's already been said, you just have to own up to it.”

“You should take your own advice Mickey, considering that your proverb matches this situation in a very eerie way,” the right wingman retorted.

“Oh...well shit. Yeah Jin, I suppose you're right,” Mickey conceded.

“Focus!” the Captain proclaimed, attempting to cut down the idle chit chat. The jets continued on their course toward their target.

“Captain! A lone bogey at 12 O'clock!” Alexis proclaimed to her leader.

“Copy that, I see it! It's a Pegasus and...he's...” the flight leader paused as if not wanting to finish his statement. He reluctantly continued, “...he's unarmed.”

A wave of silence swept over the flight group briefly, until Alexis spoke up again. “He's heading directly toward us and he's picking up speed...Captain, I think he's trying to ram us.” Alexis commented, not entirely believing what she was seeing.

She tossed around different reasons why this lone pony would be flying into what was essentially a suicide run. Even without firing at the Pegasus, the sheer size and mass of the jet would tear him apart. She theorized that he needed a massive amount of speed to beat a jet's force. The only way he could do that was to execute, “...a Sonic Rainboom.” Alexis muttered, realizing the implications.

“CAPTAIN! HE'S TRYING TO EXECUTE A SONIC RAINBOOM! WE NEED TO BREAK-” Alexis started to shout out to her leader but it was cut off.

The Pegasus in front of them had finally gained enough speed to execute the infamous maneuver. Suddenly, a circular wave of light erupted off of him in a spectrum of color. The rainboom's light was such a contrast to the dawn sky that it was blinding anyone who gazed upon it. Yet, Alexis couldn't help but gaze on as the pegasus rocketed toward them at inhuman speeds, the light of the sunrise contrasting the rainbow trail the pony left behind.

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Date: January 20, 2017 11:39:31 PM (Local Time: GMT-5)
[25 days before the event]
Location: Alexandria, Virginia
“Hunger Sauce”

The aroma of fresh meats and vegetables wafted out the kitchen of the Majestic Cafe. The freshly washed and cut lettuce was being tossed into the air, small beads of water flying off. Many other vegetables we lined up, ready to be put into a bowl and arranged into a salad for an eager, hungry customer. There was only one problem; there was almost no one there to enjoy it.

Currently, business was slower than usual at the cafe. Besides the staff, there were only two customers seated at one table in the center. At one end sat Mickey Lambert, a rather large individual towering at six feet, four inches. His face was a bit of a sight to see as he had several small, but noticeable scars adorning his mocha colored skin. He decided to wear a brightly colored hat on his shaved head to draw attention away from them. It didn't always work, but then again no one really seemed to pay him any mind aside from the occasional question.

Sitting across from him was a man named Jin-ho, who was drastically different from Mickey, at least in physical appearance. Mickey had a full nine inches on him and had a much smaller build. That was not to say he was physically weak though, as he made clear several times during basic training. His fair complexion accented his auburn hair and brown eyes very well.

The two of them were just waiting for the newest member of their flight crew, whom they had yet to meet. They would be meeting on base eventually, but Mickey thought the gesture would allow for some team bonding before she officially joined. Mickey was perfectly content with waiting for her and was in no hurry to order lunch, opting to wait until she arrived to show good manners. Jin-ho on the other hand, was not in such a great mood. Waiting was something that he didn't enjoy, nor did he enjoy not getting to eat when he wanted to. Combining the two together was a recipe for torture.

“Jesus Mickey! C'mon, let's just order already! Look, all we have to do is call on that nice looking brunette waitress to get our orders. We order. They cook. Done. So what if the new girl has to wait? She's making us wait!” Jin-ho said while staring up at Mickey with an almost pleading look on his face. Mickey however didn't give in to Jin's pleading.

“She's only ten minutes late, Jin. And besides, 'Hunger is a good sauce' so some waiting will probably do you some good.” Mickey confidently stated.

“Says the man built like a truck...” Jin muttered.

“Mind saying that again, Jin?” Mickey growled knowing full well what Jin had said. Jin quickly pulled up the menu and attempted to change Mickey's focus to something else...by bringing up food again.

“We could at the very least order an appetizer man. I swear I will leave some for the newbie. I mean it's not like the kitchen staff is swamped with orders or anything. C'mon, please?!” Jin begged. Mickey rolled his eyes as he saw that Jin was giving him “The Kicked Puppy” look.

Mickey sighed and conceded to Jin's demand. “Okay, fine, we'll get an appetizer. Still, that's not fair using that face against me.”

Jin simply chuckled and proclaimed, “Well, it worked, didn't it? Besides, you are too damn polite for your own good.”

Mickey simply shook his head and flagged the waitress down, which was easy considering they were the only ones there. After a bit of discussion, they agreed on an order of the House-Cut Fries. With his demands finally satisfied, Jin leaned back in his chair, letting out a pleased sigh. However, it didn't take long for Jin to begin complaining about something else.

“I swear they've been playing this song for hours now,” Jin observed.

“We've been here for twenty minutes,” Mickey retorted.

His friend didn't seem at all phased by that statement and simply replied, “Eh, I stand by my statement. Hell, for all you know it's been playing for years and the kitchen staff have all become desensitized to it and can't even hear the song anymore,” He laughed.

The exchange between the two friends was interrupted by the sound of a bell ringing behind them, directing their attention to a young woman who seemed to be in her mid twenties. The young Korean smiled and waved her over to their table. She gave a small smile in return and briskly sauntered over to the table. She whipped her auburn hair back and looked at the two men with a warm smile, her blue eyes filled with excitement. Jin decided to greet her first. “So, this is the fabled Alexis we've heard so much about. Thanks to you, I was considering eating my own chair.” Jin said jokingly.

“That's not entirely a joke either, you haven't seen this guy eat. ” Mickey smirked.

Jin suddenly got very apprehensive and his tone became one of worry. “Ahahaha! Oh Mickey, you're such a joker sometimes. Heh heh. Heh.” Jin then cleared his throat and asked another question.

“So, uh, how was your trip over here?”

Alexis groaned slightly. “Ugh, it was traffic nightmare. It's all because of the inauguration ceremony blocking off all the roads. It was like a maze of secret service agents and road blocks just to get here. That's why it took me so long, you know?”

Mickey nodded in understanding. “Yeah, they've got it going on the TV back there, although we really haven't been paying attention beca-”

Jin's head jerked around toward the direction of the kitchen. His face lit up and his eyes almost seemed to be shining with glee as one of the waitresses came by and delivered the appetizer that he had been pining for. His eyes were locked on the dish, ignoring the rest of the world. “Fooooooood~”

Mickey could do nothing more than bring his hand to his face and rub his temples. “One track mind, I swear.”

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Date: January 20, 2017 11:59:22 PM (Local Time: GMT-5)
[25 days before the event]
Location: United States Capital Building, Washington, D.C
“The Mundane Events of the World Stage”

The mass of people gathered seemed to extend out to the horizon as they waited in anticipation for their newly elected leader to take the mantle as the 45th president. The cold January weather did little to discourage the American people from witnessing the passage of power. All eyes were fixated on the stage where the president elect stood up, ready to take the oath.

The well dressed women walked slowly, but gracefully, up to where the Chief Justice stood. She looked briefly into the Chief Justice's eyes, gave a small nod and placed her hand on the bible the Chief Justice had before him. The Justice cleared his throat and proceeded to give the oath he had practiced numerous times before.

“Are you ready to take the oath, Senator?” he asked.

“I am ready.” the woman replied.

“I, Angela Heather Rosalyn, do solemnly swear,” the Chief Justice began.

“I, Angela Heather Rosalyn, do solemnly swear,” the woman repeated.

“...that I will execute the Office of President of the United States in good faith,”

“...that I will execute the Office of President of the United States in good faith,”

“...and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. ”

“...and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. ”

“So help you god?”

“So help me god.”

“Congratulations, Madame President.”

President Rosalyn gave a broad smile as the Marine Band lit up with activity, performing the traditional piece, “Hail to the Chief” barely audible over the roar of applause. After shaking hands with the Justice, she took the time to savor this moment. She knew that the people may enjoy her presence and company now, but the public's opinion tends to sour whenever any form of hardship or difficulty hits the country. As of late, the presidency seemed to be the scapegoat for which anyone and everyone could place blame for when something goes awry.

Her introspection on the issue was soon interrupted, leaving her to think about her future situation later. “It is my great personal honor and privilege to present to you, the 45th president of these United States, Angela Rosalyn!”

The applause intensified as Rosalyn approached the platform and stepped up in front of the microphone. She looked at the crowd before her, letting them cheer for a little while longer. Finally, she raised her hand and the noise level started to subside. “My fellow Americans,” she began.

“I stand before you today, grateful; for the trust you have bestowed upon me. Appreciative; of the sacrifices made by those that came before...to put me where I am today. Committed; to the tasks that have been put before me. This country has seen 44 other people take this oath to lead the country to the best of their abilities and now it is my turn to do the same. It is no secret that America has been on hard times. Jobs have been lost, homes have been seized and to some, the future seems bleak. But it is a future not set in stone. We can prevent it. It will not be an easy feat, by any stretch. It will take time, and it won't be accomplished by continuing the practices we've recently committed ourselves too.” She then paused, letting the fact sink in for the crowd. She wanted to drive the point home that she was determined on this issue, even if others thought it to be futile.

“But, if we can really commit to a better future, if we really work for it and make the sacrifices, we'll leave a much brighter place for our children.” The crowd gave a thunderous applause. The speech continued on but Rosalyn had already gotten what she wanted out of the speech; the respect and commitment of the American people. Sure, she knew a lot of this speech would seem like a show to many to appeal to the masses, but her intentions rang true. Starting today she knew she was in for a heck of a ride, one that would have unforeseeable dangers ahead.