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0800 HOURS
UNCDI-RUN NEWFOAL COLONY, NEWFOAL POPULATION: ~12,000
DUSSELDORF, NORTH RHINE-WESTPHALIA, GERMANY
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Francis stepped out of the Humvee into the brisk, morning air, letting out a contented sigh. ”{Home sweet home,}” he muttered in his native tongue, delighting in the hard-packed dirt crunching beneath his shoes and knowing that for once, it was German dirt, with a German driver that he had been chatting amiably with during the drive into the compound. He was no frothing nationalist as some foreigners like to think of his people, his ongoing relationship with his coworker was a testament to that, but when one was away from home for so long, one yearned for certain things one took for granted before.

By contrast, Andre immediately clambered out and squinted in the sun, donning a set of designer shades and sighing. “{Let’s get this over with,}” he whispered. “{I do not wish to stay in this place for longer than we have to.}”

“{Oh, come now, Andy! I would be more supportive if this was a trip to your homeland!}”

At that, Andre smiled, took a quick look behind to make sure nobody was watching, then gave the German a quick peck on the cheek. “{It’s not that,}” he whispered harshly. “{It’s where we are, what we’re surrounded by.}”

The German’s face fell. He did a quick scan of their surroundings and drank in the rows of tiny apartment complexes surrounding the concrete UN compound. If this were anywhere else, it would be easy to think this was just another low-income part of the Dusseldorf suburbs, if one ignored the eerie quiet and the heavily-guarded concrete fortress at its center. One would have to know that this was, in fact, the largest Newfoal colony in Europe to understand the sheer scale of it, and to understand why the only vehicles on the streets were APC’s and Humvee’s piloted by men in blue helmets.

Far more than usual, I would imagine, Francis guessed, spotting the numerous dust trails rising over the city, his eyes eventually falling on the scorch marks at the gate they had just passed through, the concrete blackened in the pattern of an explosion. But can you blame them?

Making one more pass to make sure they weren’t being watched, Francis put an arm around the Frenchman’s shoulders. “{How about we get in, check for any magical pony princesses, and get out, ja}?” He asked. “{And then, you and I can partake in some of the finest bratwurst Germany has to offer. I know just the place!}”

“{German cooking,]” Andre scoffed. “{You certainly know how to make a guy feel special.}”

Francis just laughed and kissed him on the cheek. “{Come now, it’s not so bad. In and out, real quick, promise.}”

“{Don’t jinx it, sweetheart,}” Andre said, though a thin smile crossed his lips as they approached the double-doors leading in to a two-story building at the heart of the fortress. Francis gave him a final squeeze before they passed through into a towering lobby obviously designed to intimidate any visitors with its sheer size, their heels echoing off the vaulted ceiling while they walked up to the only person in the room, manning an oak desk which dominated an entire side of the lobby. Standing shoulder to shoulder, the pair pasted on their best smiles and walked right up to the man in the camo uniform, clicking away at his desktop with the apparent interest of a football player in a museum for tabletop gaming.

“{Pardon me,]” Andre said, leading off with his warmest smile while pulling his identification badge out of his pocket.

The receptionist took one look, and immediately stood at attention. “{Sir!}” He gasped, though notably without saluting. He took a quick scan of the badge and nodded. “{I take it you are the personnel here for the inspection?}”

“{Yes, of course,}” Andre replied, still with the warm smile and sparkling, blue eyes that Francis had fallen in love with. “{We are terribly sorry to inconvenience you, good sir, but after Detroit…}”

“{Say no more, sir,}” the soldier nodded before jamming his finger into a button at his side, allowing a small, waist-high gate built into the desk to open. “{We understand the security council’s concerns, but I think you’ll find we run a very tight ship here.}”

“{We’ll be the judge of that,}” Francis said darkly, sliding into the role of the bad cop as naturally as he slid into his dress coat every day.

The soldier just nodded to them both as they passed by, standing ramrod straight until they walked past and entered through a white, metal door, and immediately paused just inside.

When one walked into a UN head office, one expected rows of cubicles with phones and desks and people, some in uniform and some not, ducking and weaving around with stacks of paper. Instead, they found a row of hospital beds setup across a narrow aisle from enough computers, printers, beakers, and assorted science equipment to make Twilight Sparkle collapse from sheer euphoria.

“Huh,” Andre said intelligently.

“{You were expecting a bunch of guys behind desks too, right?}” Francis whispered to him. The blonde nodded. “{Oh, good, glad I wasn’t the only one.}”

“{Sirs!}” A squat, balding, powerfully-built man in a white labcoat strode up to the pair, his shoulders relaxed, but his spine still perfectly straight. This was probably his relaxed stance, from what Francis gathered. Or, as close to relaxed as he probably ever got, anyway.

“{Commander,}” Francis said, just barely keeping himself from saluting. “{Thank you for having us.}”

“{Oh please, this is the UNCDI’s main base in Europe! You two probably have more right to be here than half the people in this room!}” The squat man chuckled, and Francis and Andre feigned little snickers themselves. “{You’re both probably wondering about…all this…}”

Andre peeked around the man’s shoulders at the rows of hospital beds and the vacant-eyed Newfoals surrounded by enough lab technicians to discover the Tachyon Inhibitor all over again. “{Oh, we had gotten a bit curious about that, yeah,}” he said almost absentmindedly, his mind falling away as it usually did when people stared into those blank eyes for too long.

“{I trust you gentlemen have been updated on the events in London?}” The man asked.

Instantly, a cold fist clenched tight in Francis’s guts, though he didn’t show even a modicum of discomfort at the thought of the Sikh Indian and the American popping up on CNN. “{I-I’m sorry commander, it took us a while to catch a flight out of Norway, what happened in London}?”

The man paused, taking a deep breath, apparently picking up on the concern despite the pair’s best efforts. “{Nothing dangerous, if it’s friends and family you’re worried about,}” he said, and this time Francis allowed himself an actual sigh of relief. “{However, it is no less groundbreaking. Sometime in the last twelve hours, a Newfoal recovered its memories.}”

Andre blinked. Francis blinked. Andre’s mouth opened as if he were about to say something, then apparently thought better and closed it. Finally, ever the efficient German, Francis summarized their feelings in a single breath: “{Holy shit.}”

“{Our feelings exactly, but see for yourself,}” he reached up to a flatscreen TV mounted on the wall, powering it up. It was already tuned to CNN, showing a Newfoal sitting up in his bed, his hoof clenched firmly in the hands of an elderly woman, as if she were afraid he would simply up and float away like a loose balloon.

“Look, I haven’t the foggiest clue for what happened to me,” he said clearly behind the German translator. “I just know that I’m back with my wife, and after five years of soiling myself, I’m quite happy to be back to…”

“{Wow,}” Andre rasped, both men tuning out the long biography of the Englishman kidnapped by Equestrian commandos late one British night and who, up until yesterday, had been quite happy staring off into space with a blank little smile on his face.

“{Exactly,}” the smaller man said with a smile beaming across his face. “{We’ve gathered an assortment of Newfoals from the major races out of our colony here for closer monitoring. If it happens again, we might have a trigger to bring them back!}”

“{Holy shit,}” Francis said. The man before them might as well have told them he’d just found the cure for death while somebody crawled out of their grave on national TV. For so long, the Newfoals had just been a burden, a reminder of some of the darkest days humanity had faced. For so long, they were just corpses that breathed and unsettled visitors. Now, to think they might be brought back…

“{Commander!}” All three looked up at a male nurse jogging up to them, sweat pouring down his face despite the mild temperature. “{We’ve got something! Increased brain activity on Number 23!}”

Francis and Andre blinked as the Commander grinned ear to ear. “{It’s happening,}” he gasped, turning to the newcomers. “{You see!? It’s happening! They’re coming back to us all on their own!}”

He galloped away without another word, Francis and Andre trailing close behind. They approached a bed with a purple unicorn mare resting in it, swaying upright. Men and women in labcoats clustered close, a few standing ready with respirators and defibrillators as the EKG raced.

“{Status!}” The commander barked.

“{Marie Wouters,}” the nurse said quickly, flipping through a stack of papers cradled to his chest. “{Age 23, taken November of 2019 and converted by commandoes of the Equestrian Royal…}”

“{I said status, not life’s story!}” The commander screamed, watching as a nurse leaned in to shine a light in the mare’s eyes, her massive pupils dilating.

“{High-level Alpha Wave activity spiking in the pre-frontal lobe},” an elderly doctor barked right back. “{We’re not sure what it is, but something is happening in that weird, little head!}”

A couple of the nurses stepped forward with respirators, only to be waved back. “{No, you fools! Let it come on its own time!}”

“{Something’s happening, something’s happening!}” Somebody cried out, impossible to tell who. On the bed, the Newfoal’s ears folded down. Her spine slumped as she looked around, confused. The group held its collective breath. Nobody dared to even breathe.

“{Ms. Wouters?}” The Commander asked. “{Ms. Wouters, are you in there?}”

The Newfoal turned her massive, round eyes on the man, and she smiled thinly, a spark of life dancing back into her eyes. The group gasped and oohed and ahhed, gathering themselves, all leaning forward. Only the veterans from the Collision Wars recognized the look in the unicorn’s eyes. They had seen it before, that gleeful smile right when a Newfoal was about to tear out a human’s throat. Francis was among these unlucky few, and so was one of the few to notice the hint of magic sparking up the unicorn’s horn, and to follow it to the scalpel dancing out of the elderly doctor’s pocket.

“Jesus look out…” he started, defaulting to English as he reached for the blade. Too late. All too late. A flash of silver darted across the bed, slicing through the palm of his hand. A sudden burst of pain stung, but did nothing to dull the horror of watching the scalpel slice right through the Commander’s throat.

“Bullseye,” the mare giggled as the Commander’s curious, child-like delight faded, his body slumping backwards while blood gushed down the front of his labcoat.

Francis clenched his palm as time slowed around him. A hand wrapped his shoulder. Reacting on instinct, he ducked and curled up into a ball on the tiled floor, tumbling away as a shot ran out. He spun in time to see Andre fire the last in a trio of shots into the mare’s forehead, his free hand still on the German’s shoulder, his other hand clenching a Sig Sauer Pro.

The mare died with that smile on her face, the last of her giggles on her lips, and her brains coating the headboard. The nurse standing closest to the Commander was the first to scream, the front of his smock covered in the man’s blood. It was as if the scream were a trigger, as if the sound of human suffering was enough to awaken something horrible in the Newfoals around them. The Earth pony to the left jumped on the back of the closest soldier, snapping his spine with a powerful buck before attacking his carotid with his teeth, grinning all the while. The pegasus to the right rose from her bed, swooping over the group’s heads to come down as hard as she could on a stunned nurse’s face.

Francis was first to react, grabbing Andre’s shoulder. That was all he needed to stir the Frenchman into action, the pair slipping over the tiled floor in their leather-soled shoes as ponies darted out of their beds and attacked. Their jackets billowed behind them, Francis ditching his in the mad scramble to get away, not knowing where the door at the end of the aisleway led but knowing it had to be better than the pure chaos exploding in the makeshift ward.

He paused, narrowly dodging a bed that had just been bucked into his path by an Earth pony stallion the size of a VW Beetle, and finally drew his H&K and pumped a pair of .45 ACP rounds into the stallion’s chest. Not even pausing to make sure the stallion stayed down, he vaulted the bed, glad for the blonde curl of hair in his peripheral, though less so for the Sig Sauer firing wildly next to him, like a group of American rednecks during some celebration they might partake in, like a NASCAR win. Whatever. They could discuss it later, when they weren’t squeezed between battling guards and ravenous ponies.

Finally, Francis grabbed the doorknob, wrenching it open. For a second, he turned to make sure Andre was right behind him. In that second, he wanted to wretch. Men in military camouflage had joined the battle playing out behind him, firing wildly. Bulletholes riddled the far wall and the windows, along with at least a couple dozen Newfoal bodies on the floor. Even in death, they still looked at him, still watching him with those wretched eyes, their fur matted with blood, those smiles somehow even wider. A handful of humans laid next to them, their eyes wide in shock, bodies covered in burns and bruises. One man had his throat crushed; the adam’s apple caved in to an unnatural crater. A Newfoal laid nearby with a smile on his face despite the blood and missing teeth. Francis gagged, then paused, his breath catching in his throat at the Newfoal unicorn gleefully galloping his way.

Hauling Andre in with one hand, Francis threw the door shut, though not in time to keep the creature from jamming its muzzle into the doorjamb with a sickening crunch.

“For Celestia!” The cursed thing chanted despite a shattered jaw. “For Eque…”

Francis bought the butt of his pistol down on its muzzle, feeling a shudder pass through his body as another gut-wrenching squish rippled through the thing’s snout and forced it back. He yanked the door shut and slammed the deadbolt home, breathing heavily.

He turned, slumping to the floor with the continuing cries and near-continuous stream of automatic gunfire from the other side. The pistol hung loosely in his hand. Andre grimaced across from him, still gasping. “{In and out, real quick, promise,}” He scoffed, propping himself up on his hands. “{You had to go and jinx it, didn’t you?}”

“{Don’t blame this on me,}” Francis grimaced, and the Frenchman winced.

“{Honey, I didn’t…}” Andre trailed off at the look on his boyfriend’s face, the sudden look of overwhelming horror that filled his eyes, and turned around. His jaw dropped. The room they had stumbled into opened up with a series of bay windows, partially blocked by dust-covered equipment and long-dead monitors, but not enough to cover the war outside. And that was what it was: a battle reminiscent of the darkest days of the Collision Wars, before the Tachyon Inhibitor was even a thought in some scientist’s head. Smoke columns reached into the sky as the sounds of more automatic gunfire echoed back to them, only partially blocked out by the gunfire in the other room. Another explosion rocked the little village, an entire row of houses bursting into violet, orange, and purple flames from another magical attack, to be answered with an artillery shell pulverizing an empty playground slide just at the head of a cul-de-sac, sending it flying in a gray plume of dust and smoke, adding to the gray and black scorch marks that marred every building in sight.

“{D-dearest,}” Andre said, his voice quivering uncharacteristically. “{P-please tell me I’m not looking at an outbreak of the s-second Collision Wars, because I barely survived the first one with my sanity intact.}”

“{I-I’m sorry, sweetheart,}” Francis whimpered, a faint smile crossing his face. “{Do me a favor though: reload your sidearm. I saw you shooting like an American hillbilly out there.}”

Andre snorted at the German’s dry attempt at humor, but reached for a fresh magazine anyway. “{It’s called covering fire, dearest.}”

“{No, it’s called a repulsive waste of ammunition, don’t do it again.}”

“{Had to make sure we could both made it through okay. I knew I could make it to the door, but you…}”

Suddenly, Francis rounded on the Frenchman, clambering atop him in a sudden roll. Blonde curls touched short-cropped stubble as their foreheads met, their lips touching tenderly, gently, then parting. They sat there, breathing heavily. “{I know, and that’s what scares me,}” Francis whispered. “{Don’t do it again. Like I said, it’s a repulsive waste of ammo.}”

Andre’s eyes widened, drinking in the German’s baby blues, and then he scowled. “{How noble,}” he scoffed. “{You know I’m not gonna change a damn thing, right? Just you asking me isn’t going to do it.}”

“{I know,}” Francis cradled Andre’s chin in one, powerful hand. “{Thought it couldn’t hurt to ask, even if it would be like trying to stop a tsunami with a drinking straw.}”

Andre smiled, then his eyes darted past the German to the bay window and widened. Francis didn’t even have time to react before Andre threw him aside, a wordless scream catching in his throat as he bought the Sig up to bear. Francis only had time to twist in mid-air before his shoulder collided with the tile, drinking in the view of the teal-colored pegasus barreling towards the window, hooves stretched out, that maniacal grin slicing its face right in half. He went for his P9, but already knew he would be too late. In the split-second it took him to draw his weapon, the pony would smash through the window, cross the room, and break Andre’s perfect teeth right down his neck. Worse yet, when the Frenchman levelled his own weapon and squeezed the trigger, the only response was an empty little click, reminding them both of the fresh magazine still in his hand. Not even a bullet had been left in the chamber, meaning he’d shot himself empty back in the medical ward, oh the fool, oh the poor beautiful wonderful fool who wouldn’t have done that if Francis had just been quicker on his feet or maybe…

A shot rang out. The glass broke as predicted, but instead of crossing the room and destroying the only reason Francis had for getting up in the morning, the pegasus crashed into the tile, smearing a trail of blood behind its body before coming to a stop with its grin frozen permanently in Andre’s direction, just a few feet from his leather soles, blood streaming through its mane. Francis had to double-check to make sure smoke wasn’t drifting off the barrel of his own pistol, but it wasn’t. He most assuredly had not squeezed off a round in a final, adrenaline-fuelled attempt to save his lover. So what was that, then!? Just what in the fuck had they-

Francis’s pocket vibrated. His hand reflexively pressed against it, giving him enough time to question what in the fuck he was doing. Even if it was that American phenomenon, the Publisher’s Clearing House David had told him about, telling him that he’d just won $5000 a week for life, was he honestly in any sort of position to answer it?

In the space between the second and third buzz, it hit him: this was his work phone. This was not the personal cell phone he’d left charging in his room on the Illustrious. This was an urgent message. His hand darted into his pocket, returned with the phone, raised it to his ear, and swiped to answer.

Andre looked at him as if he’d gone crazy, and why not? The Newfoals were raising hell, a ton of people had died on this exact spot, and his boyfriend had almost had his skull smashed in by a colorful flying pony. If ever there was time for a German to allow a bit of craziness into his thoughts, this was it.

“Hello?” He asked.

“Good Afternoon, Feldwebel,” a highly-distorted, warbling voice on the other side of the line said in English. “I trust you and your companion are well? All things considered, of course.”

“Of course,” he parroted. It was the only thing he could do, such was the shock of being referred to by such a title for the first time in nearly five years. “Things have been better, but…”

“I’m afraid our time is short, Feldwebel, and while I would normally enjoy an exchange of pleasantries, I must be brief,” the voice worked quickly now, lighting off a rapid-fire bombardment of information that the few, intact thinking processes in Francis’s mind reeled beneath. “As you might have noticed, we have just saved the life of both you and your companion.”

The pool of blood from the broken body at Andre’s feet crept towards his soles, and he quickly bent his knees, earning some extra space. “Yes, thank you,” Francis said.

“Don’t thank us yet, ol’ chum,” and yes, there was most definitely a British accent in that voice. “We can cover your escape, but you two will still have a lot of legwork to do, savvy?”

Arching an eyebrow, Francis slunk over to the nearest bit of cover, a wheeled monstrosity of an EKG machine that would have looked more at home on the set of a black-and-white Frankenstein rip-off than in any hospital. “Pardon me for not trusting mysterious voices on phones, but who is ‘we’ exactly?”

A long pause followed, and then the voice said: “Brickwork building to your southwest.” Francis pushed himself to his feet, scanning the squat, five-story structure the voice had indicated, eyes narrowed. It was a simple thing, with sloped German roofs to allow snow to slide off in the winters and shuttered windows, maybe 600 – no, 700 yards away. As he watched, one of the fourth floor windows opened. Francis squinted to no avail: it was just too dark inside the room and too far away. All he could see was a featureless, black rectangle. Then the tell-tale spark of a muzzle flash rang out from inside. Francis only had time to flinch in the beginning of a duck before the screen of an ancient desktop monitor exploded a few meters to his right.

He never took his eyes off the window, glaring. After a few moments, a figure stepped into the light, clad in all-black camo, a balaclava with matching combat helmet on its head, and an L118 sniper rifle smoking in its gloved hands.

“Tell me, Feldwebel, how big was that target? I cannot tell from here.”

Francis took his eyes off the figure for only a second to glance at the shattered monitor, now lying on the floor amidst a pile of smoking plastic and shattered glass, then returned his gaze as quickly as possible. The figure was still standing there, the rifle resting on its shoulder.

“Old computer monitor,” he replied. “Maybe a foot and a half across.”

“Just slightly smaller than your torso, would you agree?” The voice said. “And don’t give me that bullshit about surviving chest shots, those are NATO 7.62 hollowpoints we’re using, doesn’t matter where you’d get shot and you know it.”

“Yes, I know,” Francis said cautiously.

“Then you understand: if we wanted you and your boyfriend dead, it would be a simple squeeze of a trigger. Or, better yet, we could have let the Newfoal freak pound his skull into the tile, then give you a couple seconds to mourn before ending your life,” the voice grew a cold edge at last, audible even through the audio distortion. “Enough games, Feldwebel. Get moving.”

Andre was already beside him, studying the figure even while Francis hung up the phone. The Frenchman looked over at him with the sort of cold, analytical look one used when one knew they were stepping into possible death. “{So, what happens now?}” He asked in his native French, those piercing eyes turning back the figure in black even as it melted back with the shadows, the glint off the barrel of the rifle the last to disappear before the figure became completely invisible. “{Do we trust them?}”

Francis tried to crack a smile, but his face refused to obey, so he let it remain at simple, numb concern. “{Do we have a choice?}”

Andre regarded the empty black square a while longer, as if the answer to getting out of this place alive was etched into the brickwork around the window. “ {No, we do not,}” he finally admitted.

Finally managing the smile he’d been searching for, Francis pulled out his pistol and used its butt to smash out the glass left by the pony, pulling off his jacket and using it to clear as much of the shattered remains as he could. Then, he stood back and splayed his arms out in a melodramatic fashion. “{Ladies first.}”

“{A gentleman!}” Andre gushed mockingly before accepting Francis’s hand and stepping through the portal, out onto the roof. Francis took note of the utter, crushing silence on the other side of the door to the makeshift infirmary as he also crawled through the shattered glass. For a moment, he had an image of two dozen ponies coated in blood, none of it their own, watching the door with those empty little smiles, waiting for signs of life from the other side to pounce…

Francis shivered, then stepped through, keeping his head low to avoid detection. Andre kept his pistol on the sky the entire time, scanning around. Francis could only hope it would do some good. “There’s a heliport nearby,” Andre hissed. “We can make it, and I can fly us out of here.”

Looking around at the shattered windows, the smoking craters pitting the concrete, the blood-spattered brickwork and bullet-riddled stone, Francis couldn’t say for sure he wanted to make it. Not if it meant this again. Not again.

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Across the courtyard, the sniper watched the pair through her scope, a finger resting on the trigger guard, admiring the way the two moved with precision. The entire time along the rooftops, there was never a moment when either man was without cover, at least one pistol scanning the skies for the telltale flap of wings.

“Had you boys pegged from the beginning,” she whispered, smiling to herself and lowering the rifle only after she was absolutely, 100% certain they were out of sight. “’Course, that was just the gay thing, military thing definitely caught me off-guard. Probably should’ve taken you to the range at some point just to make sure.”

Sighing as she worked the bolt on her weapon to eject the round in the chamber, the sniper reached with one hand into a pocket in her armored vest, pulling out a pack of Mayfairs. She stuck one between her lips and lit it, watching the window the entire time. “Somebody’s got some explaining to do, especially you, Admiral,” Lisa Townshend whispered, puffing a while on the cigarette, exhaling gently to keep the smoke contained in the room.

Author's Notes:

Expect another chapter or two over the next couple of days! :)