Phoenix

Interlude

Back Home

To say Krenl was having a bad day would be an understatement. He had been having a bad couple of weeks.

“Why the fuck does this keep getting rejected?” He muttered, running his hand through his hair as he stared at the file present on his computer screen.

“General Dante T. Jaeger. Vitsigs lost September 8^th, 2025, at 19:32. Declared KIA September 9^th, 2025 at 19:32. Yeah, all of this fits the fucking reports. But the fucking system keeps rejecting it.” He grumbled to himself.

It had been months since the Battle for Earth, something Krenl had thankfully avoided. He’d had enough combat on the outer rim worlds to last him for the rest of his life. In fact, it was one of the main reasons he had transferred to a logistics unit instead of a combat unit. A rare move, usually the Imperium had to force people into the logistics department, which resulted in a lot of unhappy soldiers.

It would explain why the armorers are always so mean to frontline troops, something Krenl knew far too well, with his past history of staring down slave traffickers and warlords on backwater planets that openly defied Imperial law despite taking advantage of the benefits being part of the Imperium granted them.

But now Krenl was facing down a new enemy. Bureaucracy.

After rereading the information for a fourth time to guarantee that there was absolutely no typos present, he sent the status change once more.

He watched the screen in anticipation, hoping it would take this time and he could get his last file done with.

In the office, the screen of the computer changed: “STATUS CHANGE REQUEST:” His breath held in bated anticipation. “REJECTED”. The word flashed red, causing Krenl to roar in anger.

He stood up violently, throwing his chair from behind him. “Son of a Motherfuckin’!” He caught himself as he stared the once bustling cubicle farm, now dead silent and stopped, all staring at him. They understood, of course. Over ninety-five percent of the Imperium’s population had been awarded a combat action ribbon. The only people who avoided combat positions straight out of basic were children or relatives of politicians who had a lot of pull. So for most of the people in this base, they too had taken a while to get used to not violently hitting something if it didn’t go their way.

Such was the life of home-front logistics troops.

“Bitch.” He muttered, finishing his outburst as he quiet sat back down into his chair, looking around the small cubicle he was in. Although it was indeed a welcome change in comparison to the sands of DX-42, where water literally had to be airdropped to troops stationed there, or the ice plains of YU-894567, the giant hostile arachnoids of AR-40000 and especially that insanely disturbing slave-ring that insisted on turning their victims into inanimate but conscious dolls.

Krenl shuddered at the last memory, grateful that his unit only went in after the Legion had done the first sweep and medical evacuations, but he had seen the files and combat footage. He was left to wonder how the general, the one whose file he was looking at right now, had managed to do it.

Any Imperial worth his salt knew the story. Or at least the beginning of it. Due to unknown circumstances, the Imperium contacted a mutt who had lived his entire life on Earth, ignorant of his history, and recruited him into the Legion. From there he rose through the ranks. He finally became public knowledge following the Reclamation of the Citadel and the killing of the Tyrant.

Of course, most of Krenl’s knowledge of the enigmatic general was gleaned through the Occupation movie series and brief readings of his wiki page. And now here he was, trying to change the status of him. What should have been an easy two minute job had now taken weeks.

He had no choice. He had exhausted every option. He flipped the file onto his personal device. He rubbed his tired eyes with his hands.

He removed himself from his chair and stepped out of his cubicle. He would have to go to the only person with the ability to manually edit files.

The walk to the office wasn’t that far, but he hated doing it. Although he infinitely preferred the air conditioned office to the nasty field conditions the army offered, he was still a grunt at heart and hated asking his superiors for help.

He stopped at the solid metal door, the nameplate reading something he did not want to read. Knocking on it, he waited a few seconds.

The door popped open and he entered. Extending his right arm out, his palm flat out and pointing down, an action that would have resulted in him getting beat out on the front lines, but something he had to relearn on the home-front.

“General Krelnash, permission to enter, sir.” He stated, resolutely, at a parade rest, as he heard the chuckling from the desk.

There sat Lytkn Krelnash. Krenl knew his story well, an accomplished war hero, but from his understanding his last taste of combat was during the Second Intergalactic War, which is where he earned his four stars. Following that, though, he dropped out of the war game and took his position as head of the logistics division.

“At ease, Sergeant, told ya when I met ya! No need with formalities.”

The Krelnash family was well known for their informality. Krenl had always only been able to chalk it up to their father, who despite having been the founding father of the Imperium, was well known for his hatred of authority in general. Deeming it in one quote to be a “necessary evil, so long as some men see fit to deny their brothers and sisters their freedoms.”

“Sir.” Krenl replied, dropping the salute and causing the general to roll his eyes, gesturing to the seat in front of his desk.

“Go on, have a seat. What can I do for you?” Krenl quickly moved to the seat, sitting down.

He tapped on the flat front desk, as it came to life, displaying a computer screen. Krenl transferred the file from his device to the desk, a screen popped up.

“Administrator approval needed for file transfer.” A disembodied, robotic female voice sounded.

“Olivia, this is General Lytkn Krelnash approving the transfer of files from Sergeant Krenl’s device to my personal terminal.”

A moment went by.

“Administrator approval accepted, transferring file now.” The two men watched as the file of a certain General Dante T. Jaeger popped up on the desk top.

“So… what am I looking at, Sergeant?”

“Sir.” Krenl began. “This is General Dante T. Jaeger of the Phoenix Legion Marine Corps” Krenl stared at the upside down photo of the late general. His face a tan color, no smile. His two eyes, one green, one blue. His face bore the marks of years of combat and Krenl felt a bit anxious even looking at the photo of the dead man.

“I am fully well aware of who Dante is, Sergeant. But why do you have his file and what is the relevance?”

The battle hardened sergeant unwillingly fidgeted in the seat under the gaze of the general, swearing that his eyes bore almost the same qualities of the photo of the dead man.

“Sir, I received this automated request two weeks ago, despite his death being months ago. I assume it was a system glitch. I have filled out Form 345687 and requested a change of status from active duty to KIA, as indicated on the request. The KIA status was sent following the standard twenty-four hours from his final vitsig. I have sent a request multiple times and every time the status change has been rejected. The AI refuses to give me the reason why it’s been rejected and I’ve gone over the file multiple times and have found no errors. I am unable to continue with the next batch of files I have so long as I still have this one on file.”

There was a pause, as the two men continued to look at each other… until Krelnash broke the contact and began laughing.

Krenl could only stare in confusion as the general continued to howl at something he apparently considered funny.

It was a good minute before the general managed to calm his laughing down controllable levels.

“Oh, I’m sorry Sergeant. Did no one tell you?” He chuckled out.

Krenl cocked his eyebrow in confusion.

“Uh, no sir. I’m not entirely sure what you’re speaking of.”

The general stood up from his desk walking to the wall behind him.

“Olivia, please bring up all approved status change requests for General Dante T. Jaeger.” The wall came to life, as row upon on row of green text appeared.”

“Sergeant the simple reason why you’re unable to change Jaeger’s status is because we aren’t allowed to.”

The only made Krenl more confused. “I’m… sorry, sir?”

Krelnash gestured to the wall behind him, waving his arms to cover it. “What you’re looking at is over four thousand status change requests. For one person. There’s a reason, Sergeant, why Jaeger earned the nickname of “Unkillable Legionnaire”. We would lose contact with his vitsigs, change his status to KIA and then a few days later he’d pop back up. Sometimes it was in the nick of time. One of his most dramatic returns from the dead was when he dropped a bridge on one particularly errant trafficking ring that was about to wipe out a surrounded IFAF division. The colonel of that division was certain Jaeger had been killed in a massive dam explosion a day earlier on the first day of the battle.”

Krenl just stared as Krelnash laughed.

“Oh, shit man. And there was this other incident where the motherfucker took a bullet straight to the heart during a diplomatic envoy mission, the other guards took off as they were being pursued but the ship was captured and boarded and right at the last second, the crazy sum’bitch cut his way through the ceiling an-”

“Sir, with all due respect...”

“Er… yes, in any case. The “Unkillable Legionnaire” was “killed” too many times. The paper-jockeys eventually started complaining about all the corrections forms they had to submit to change his status from “KIA” to active. The changes used to be automatic, but we had to change them because Jaeger was spamming the system and it was taking the jockeys forever to change his status. So we made the system require manual input and just hardlocked Jaeger’s file. I literally can not change it, we threw away the key to the file quite a while ago. You probably got the request this late because someone else got it and didn’t deal with it properly.”

Krenls’ eye twitched, as he sighed.

“Okay, so I’m just stuck with his file forever.”

“Sergeant.” Krelnash scratched his eyebrow.”

“Sir.”

The general sighed. “You could always use the comments box.”

Krenl gathered all of his sternness and looked the general in the eye.

“Did you all implement this comments box because of Jaeger?”

“… Yes.”

“Thank you for coming today, Mrs. Jaeger.” The well-dressed, suited man stated, as he stood up from his desk, moving from the back of his desk to the front, to shake the woman’s hand. His complexion pale and stature gaunt. The woman stood tall, her skin tan. She was neither thin nor fat, in the middle.Her stomach swollen, but due to proporions of the rest of her body, it was obvious she was pregnant. She shivered slightly in the cold of the office, her summer dress not doing much to keep her warm.

“Thank you for having me.” She responded.

She returned the gesture, as the man pulled a chair out for her to sit in front of the desk, she gently lowered herself into it. He returned to his position at the desk and sat down, folding his hands together.

“I am Daniel Goldstein, Mr. Jaeger’s estate lawyer. First I would like to express my sincerest condolences for your loss, Mrs. Jaeger. My family has worked with Mr. Jaeger for a very long time and owes quite a bit to him. He was a very good man.”

“You were… aware of his… secret. Mr. Goldstein?” Mrs. Jaeger questioned.

“Please, Mrs. Jaeger, Daniel is just fine,” Daniel waved his hands. “Especially for an esteemed client such as you. And yes, I was fully aware of his activities and superhuman abilities. Second, I would also like to apologize for the wait. Due to the… extent of your husband’s estate, it took me a good while to get everything sorted, although his instructions were very simple and straight-forward, as expected from Mr. Jaeger.” The lawyer chuckled as Mrs. Jaeger joined in.

“Yeah… Dante’s not one to beat around the bush. He wanted something done, and he would sooner do it himself then get someone else to do it, I swear he was worse then a bull in a china shop.” Mrs. Jaeger gently shook her head. “Please, Daniel, Lakia is just fine. And the wait was no problem, I’ve been staying with parents as the PLMC… have been clearing out our old house of technology that they want back.”

The lawyer frowned. “Hmmm… yes, I have heard stories from colleagues in that neighborhood how hundreds of armored men have been going in and out of your house at all hours of the day.” The woman nodded.

“Yeah, Admiral Krelnash insisted the house be left as is, but the Senatorium and Joint Command overrode his objections. They want every piece of Imperial technology out of the house.”

“Knowing Dante,” Daniel gave Lakia a knowing look. “They haven’t even gotten half-way through his armory yet, have they?”

The woman snorted. “You have no idea. It’s going to take them several more months just to finish the armory, and then there’s the garage.” Daniel nodded.

“In any case, Lakia I asked you to come in so we could talk about your husband’s will. I realize this can be hard, so at any time feel free to sto-”

He was cut off.

“Why would it be hard?” Lakia asked, as Daniel searched her eyes, looking for anything that would indicate a joke or trying to protect herself from trauma.

“Well, Lakia, Dante has… He’s…”

“Dead?” Lakia shook her head. “No, Dante’s not dead. There’s no way, that explosion didn’t kill him.”

Daniel was worried about this. “Lakia, I know you heard the same reports I did. There’s no way he could have survived the explosion. There wasn’t even a debris field. The only reason they were able to find the site was because of the unusually high radiation levels.

Lakia merely shook her head. “No, Daniel.” She emphasized his name. “You don’t know Dante like I do. An explosion like that doesn’t even come close to many other things that he’s survived.”

“Lakia, I realize it’s hard to lose a spouse, especially when you’re pregnant with his child. But denial is just a stage of gr-”

Lakia growled. “Don’t give me that bullshit, Mr. Goldstein, Dante’s alive! I know he is. He can’t be dead, from a mere bomb! I’ve watched him face off with literal gods and beat them to a stand-still, spit in the face of a messenger of death. He’s survived millions of wars and some of the most dangerous criminals known to the Imperium trying to kill him. Spare me this crap about stages of denial!” At this point, Daniel could see tears forming at the edges of her eyes, but she continued to keep her seat. “I know Dante’s alive, I know he’s out there somewhere and I know the Imperium is making a mistake treating him as though he’s dead. He’s out there somewhere, trying to get home. He will get home. It may not be today and it may not be tomorrow. It may not be in a year, or a decade or a century or a millennia. It could be eons before he ever makes it back. But I know he will be back. He would do anything to get home.”

Lakia looked down, as Daniel was silent, not sure what to say.

“He made me a promise. And to him, to Dante, promises are sacred. He would never break one without a fight. If he promised to keep a chicken egg safe from damage then he would wade through the deepest pits of hell if that was what he had to do to keep it safe. And I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that he will do the same to make it home. Because he made a promise to me.”

She had begun to sob halfway through her rant, as she took a few choking breaths as Daniel handed her a box of tissues. She took a few and began to rub her eyes.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Daniel. That was uncalled for.”

The lawyer raised his hands. “No, Lakia, I pushed the boundaries. I am here to advise you on your husband’s estate, not lecture you on grief.”

Lakia smiled.

“So there is absolutely no way he could have survived?” The officer rolled his eyes as once again Admiral Krelnash was looking over the reports of the destruction of the Celeste. The two had been over this many times.

“As I said before, sir, the Celeste was equipped with an emergency teleport drive. That is the only way General Jaeger would have been able to survive the explosion.” The officer answered.

“So he could have survived it?” The President turned Admiral had taken the news of Jaeger’s death the worst out of all the Krelnash family, something the officer was paying for in the form of these daily investigations that had been dragging on for months. The officer had no idea why he seemed to be taking it so personally.

“Again, maybe, sir. There’s too many variables to say for sure. We don’t know if General Jaeger was aware of this fact and even if he was, the NPR could very well have turned the drive off when they captured the ship.”

“Is there any way to tell for sure?” The Admiral questioned as he paced the room the investigations had been taking place in. The officer sighed.

“The only way we could tell is if we were able to examine the wreckage.” The officer gestured to a wall containing an interactive diagram of the ship known as the Celeste. Circling a rough area of the front of the massive ship. “If this area was missing from the debris field, then we could reasonably conclude General Jaeger escaped. The issue is, there is no debris field. The explosion literally vaporized everything. So the only thing we can conclude is that General Jaeger was, unfortunately, killed due to his heroic actions in protecting Earth from an NPR WMD.”

The Admiral rubbed his eyes. “Fuck.”

He looked up and then moved to a desk. “Fuck!” He yelled, kicking the desk over at the same time. The officer was unfazed at his superior’s outburst.

“Assuming General Jaeger survived, which is doubtful, he would be trapped in a husk incapable of FTL travel. Furthermore, our engineers failed to install a redundant long range communications system in the ship. So the only way for him to contact us, if he even survived would be for the NPR to have conveniently left a larcom in the portion of the ship affected by the drive.”

The Admiral perked up a bit. “Do we have any reports of any missing larcoms?”

“Unfortunately we do, sir. Phoenix Rising has reported a total of five missing, all believed to have been stolen by the NPR. They would make up the back-bone of the NPR’s communications network.”

“Why am I only just finding out about this?” The admiral questioned.

“This is the first time you asked, sir. Phoenix Rising handles all these cases, sir.”

Sometimes the officer regretted accepting this position. A foxhole would be preferable to dealing with the “investigations”.

Lakia exited the room and into the lobby, where she saw her ride waiting for her.

“Ashley.” She began, as the woman looked up at her, smiling.

“So, you really believe Dante is alive?” Lakia blushed at the woman’s simple sentence.

“You heard that?” She questioned.

“I’m pretty sure Dante could hear it, wherever he was. You probably just made his resolve grow. I don’t know what he’s doing, but if he’s in the process of killing his way back to Earth, he’s probably doing it a thousand times faster right now… or, you know… he could be sleeping.” Ashley shrugged her shoulders.

They began walking out of the building, Ashley making sure to keep close to the pregnant woman. “Do you believe he’s alive?”

“I don’t think anyone who has spent any amount of time with him believes he’s dead. He didn’t earn the moniker of the ‘Unkillable Legionnaire” for nothing and the NPR most certainly don’t call him the Horseman of Death for giggles.”

They continued to walk out to the car, entering it as they began their short trip back home.

Lakia chuckled and looked to Ashley as he she began to pull out of the parking lot.

“You know, our wedding was done in Dari? Dad just about had a heart attack when he learned Dante spoke fluent Dari.”

Ashley laughed.

“You think that’s funny? Imagine our shock when three days after recruiting Dante into the Legion, he was speaking fluent Phoenician. His penchant for language is probably one of the main factors that allowed him to thrive on Earth.”

“As ponies and gryphons clash for land, and dragons hoard their valuables. As daemons corrupt good. We pray to Dawn-Bringer! He whose hand leads the way. His word is law, the father of the Two Sisters! The merciful god, who seeks to bring us to new ways, who seeks to teach us. He pulled pony-kind from the brink and Dawn-Bringer demands one thing from you from all of us! Your loyalty! He has shown us ascendance, his two daughters! He slumbers now, his daughters are his word!”

The ginger pony looked from the door of the temple, as the unicorn continued his sermon, attempting to keep herself unseen.

The Followers of Dawn-Bringer, they called themselves, worshiping her dear daughters as ascended gods.

The pegasus known as Pansy, once a private and now a Colonel quietly trotted up behind her.

“I didn’t think you bought into this stuff.” She stated, as the ginger mare looked back to her.

“It’s a power grab, they’re using the alien, my daughters and myself to further their own end. It’s been five summers, they can’t even agree on whether or not he’s a pony or something else. Pansy, I’ve seen brawls break out over whether or not the alien is a stallion or a mare.”

“And what do you think?”

The mare snorted. “I think he’s a lost traveler who landed at the wrong place at the right time. This isn’t his home, but these fools drivel on as though he’s a god made flesh, coming down to sacrifice himself for them.”

She backed away from the door and walked away. “Don’t get me wrong, Pansy. I am eternally grateful to Dawn-Bringer. Without him, my dear Solaira would be with her father, and I doubt we would have survived much longer without his intervention. Look at us now.” She gestured with her hoof, waving across the horizon. “We’ve grown so much. Foals are able to roll in the grass, we see the sun and moon once more, there’s rain and there’s sunshine. Thunderstorms and tornadoes. The seas once more slam against the beaches instead of being frozen wastes. The wind blows without biting! We have a town and food! And what do we have to show for it? We’re treating out savior as something he isn’t. They’re treating my foals as objects they must hold onto for power. They’re grooming them, Pansy! Solaira’s barely 7 summers old and she already has potential suitors lined up for her! They treat her word as the word of god and she’s expected to rule as a queen! She survived the wendigoes only to have her foalhood ripped from her. I fear for Luna when she becomes older.” Tears had begun to form in the ginger mare’s eyes as Pansy moved to comfort her.

“It’s just… that… Pansy… I know Dawn-Bringer intended none of this. He saw a child in need and moved to act. But he’s a lost traveler, he shouldn’t be here. At all. He’s no god, he’s someone who needs to go home. But his actions also ripped my Solaira’s foalhood away from her and sometimes… sometimes I think it would be better had Dawn-Bringer not intervened. If he had just allowed Solaira to die and for the Wendigoes to consume us.” The ginger mare allowed her shoulders to drop.

“Don’t say that.” Pansy stated resolutely as she nuzzled her chin. “Your daughter was spared death for a reason. Even if Dawn-Bringer is not a god, he was put here by one to save your daughter. To save us. Your daughter is destined for something great. She’s destined to be something great. I know you disagree with the Followers, but I need you to play nice with them. They respect and adore you and as such your very word carries a lot of weight with it. Perhaps not as much as Solaira’s or Luna’s, but the way the Followers see it is that Dawn-Bringer chose you as his wife and ascended his daughters. You and I both know that’s silly, but ponies need something to unify around.” Pansy looked the mare in the eyes.

“Look at it like this, ten summers ago, you and I wouldn’t even be speaking, much less friends. And did you see the ponies in the temple? Unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies. Ten summers ago, to even suggest the three races would share a building would have landed you in an asylum, and now look! The three races willingly gather to worship in the same building. They share food and charity and speak with each other. They tell stories and treat each other as though there’s no difference between any of them. That’s the power that you, that your daughters, that Dawn-Bringer possess. Maybe they’re wrong about Dawn-Bringer being a god. But maybe they’re right about Solaira and Luna being ascended. Your daughters have the strength of earth ponies, the magic of the unicorns and the flight of pegasi. Maybe Dawn-Bringer opened their minds, maybe they’re what we ponies originally were. Maybe Solaira and Luna are what we’re supposed to be?”

The mare snorted once more. “That’s a lot of maybes.” She turned away from the pegasi, a frown forming on her face.

Pansy merely sighing. “Look, I know you don’t want Solaira groomed. That’s understandable, it’s reasonable. But this civilization is new-born, and it still needs something… somepony… someponies to rally behind. You, your daughters and Dawn-Bringer are the backbone. I need you to play nice, please.”

The mare didn’t answer, keeping her back turned to pegasi.

“I’ll make sure to keep those who wish to groom them away.” The confident pegasi spoke, weakly, turning and walking away.

“Momma! Momma!” The frown on the mare’s face quickly turned into a smile, as she heard her daughter shouting and galloping. She turned around, watching as the white filly galloped the last few paces to her, her horn aglow with magic. She levitated something in front of her.

“Look momma, I lost two tooths today!” The mare chuckled.

“I see, can I see your mouth?” The filly nodded her head happily and proudly opened her mouth to shower her mother the gap where she was indeed missing the two baby teeth.

“Oh! Wow! Look at that! Did it hurt?” She asked the filly, smiling. Her daughter was always able to bring happiness to her.

“No!” She shook her excitedly. “I was just pushing the tooths with my tongue because they felt all loose and stuff and then they just fell out! But this means I’m big, like you, right?”

The mare chuckled once more, nuzzling the filly under her chin. “Of course, but you still have a lot of growing to do. One day, you’re going to be a great mare.Now, come now little one. Let’s go check up on your sister. Poor Milky’s probably having a heart attack right now over you.” She gently nudged the unicorn moving and the two walked down the road, the ponies who passed them bowing to the two, as the mother and child discussed their days.

“A great mare, indeed.” The mother could not prevent the thought.

Author's Notes:

Yo.

I need to go to bed. I have work at 11 AM and it's 6:18 in the morning.

But I wanted to finish this chapter.

Anyways, enjoy.

Again, as always, if you liked and favorited this story, please tell me why. If you disliked this story, please tell me why you disliked it. Thank you very much. I also enjoy criticism as it helps me to improve. So if you do downvote, please leave a comment letting me know why. Be it grammar, spelling, pacing, or you just fucking hate the character!