***

St Paul’s Cathedral, London. January 25th, 2030.

Throughout the battered, dusty old cathedral, there was a sense of desperate, relieved jubilation. Maybe it was deserved, maybe it wasn’t, but right now, everyone and everypony there was just happy to be alive - especially after the hellish battle they had just endured. Hell, especially after the hellish six years most of them had endured.

Vinyl Scratch had been feeling tense all day - her nerves had never quite recovered from her time as a prisoner of Amadeus Cain, much as she wished they could, and what’s more, the entire damn city was under attack. She had figured - having lived in London for years - that the place would eventually fall under the radar of some big plan on the Solaminan Empire’s part, but damn, they’d come in force today.

Still - it was over now, ostensibly. The final big attack had been defeated by the Avatar of Albion himself - and Vinyl still couldn’t believe that was even a thing - tell her humans had magic? Fine. Tell her a human could defeat an entire Imperial attack, and she was… no, there were no words.

As a morale officer for the combined BDF/Resistance army, it was her job, following battles like this, to help organise parties like this that lifted everyone and everypony’s spirits. She enjoyed doing that - say something for her ordeal, it had given her a new lease of life after… well, after stuff.

Her eyes couldn’t help but be drawn to a pink figure running around amongst the various partygoers, and her expression - neutral, usually, while she was concentrating - turned a tad sour.

Pinkie bucking Pie, she thought to herself. Now, there’s a kicker.

She kept her eye on the pony-who-should-have-been-dead as best she could while still concentrating on the music. Sure, that entire group had been vouched for by Albion…

… but Albion was unconscious. And frankly, Vinyl could take or leave that parallel universe bullplop.

Better safe than locked in a cellar, Vinyl thought as she watched the parallel-alternate-fake-voodoo-zombie Pinkie dance and party eagerly. She scowled. Lucky bucker looks like she’s never had a day’s hardship in her life…

***

Major Alexander Redmond didn’t drink on duty, and as far as he was concerned, he was always on duty. This party, though he understood the need for it, felt to him like one big distraction from the important business of fighting the war, of rebuilding their defences, taking stock of their losses… carrying on.

He scowled. Personally, he still thought that Elliot should have brought more than just nine ponies. His reasoning made sense - though Redmond hated admitting it more than anything, this was a losing war, one that they had no chance of ever winning by force of arms - they had never had a chance.

The only chance we had was before the Barrier - pre-emptive. And no one would have ever kicked off a war with goddamn pastel ponies.

He sighed. Losing war or not, he was certain there had to be better choices than those nine. He had respected True Grit and Lyra Heartstrings, and Ditzy Doo was of course famous, but for the sake of Mother Gaia’s earthen panties, to bring back the fucking Element bearers of all ponies… it beggared belief how any sensible man could possibly think that had been a good idea.

Well, Redmond thought to himself, it could have been worse. And who knows? Elliot might have a point - these ponies might hold the key to changing this war’s outcome.

Personally though, Redmond doubted it. In the end, it was weapons and the soldiers wielding them that won wars. Even the vaunted Avatar of fucking Albion would be nothing without the army backing him up, holding the line in the hundred-odd battles the supposed superman couldn’t be at. Redmond comforted himself (in the loosest sense of the word comforted) with that knowledge.

Nine ponies couldn’t change the world.

***

“I’m still not sure about them,” Sir Kathryn said.

Sir Jason Sans le Argonauts sighed. He’d been hearing this all night from various people - knights like him, a few BDF regulars, even a Dead Man or two.

“Albion vouched for them,” he said, as though this explained everything - which, for him, it did. “If Albion vouched for them, I believe in them.”

“I trust Albion to the ends of the Earth,” Kathryn said. “But these ponies… you know who they are, what they’ve done.”

“Of course I do,” Jason said. “Which is why I trust Albion in this. Because he knows,better than you or I could ever know - he’s faced every one of them in battle, and killed most of them. And he vouched for them.”

Kathryn sighed. “Yes, you’re right. Look, it just makes me uneasy, alright? I have faith, but faith doesn’t mean they don’t look like the ponies who…”

She trailed off, and Jason nodded understandingly.

“They did a lot of things to us,” he said simply. “But they’re dead and these ponies have nothing to do with them apart from looking like them. They’re new allies, and as new allies, they’re worth giving the benefit of the doubt.”

Kathryn nodded. “Alright.” She sighed. “I suppose it’s unlikely we’ll be fighting alongside them anyway.”

Jason smiled. “Very unlikely.”

***

On the other side of the room sat the Dead Men - dark uniforms with that flayed skull symbol set them apart, as did their generally dour manner. Of all the cults militant, they were at once the most proliferant and the most grim. Two members of their number were walking up to the bar.

“Look,” one of the men said, “we ask Joe, Joe’ll tell us what to make of this.”

“I dunno,” the other man replied. “I mean, I’m still not sure.”

“Which is why we’re asking Joe,” the first man said.

An older man, grey haired and tired eyed, looked at the two men from his seat at the bar, a drink in hand.

“Lads,” he said simply. “Can I help you?”

“Uh,” the first man said hesitantly.

“Yeah, Joe,” the second guy said with a sheepish smile. “We were… uh…”

“Wondering what you made of the… newcomers,” the first man finished. “You know… them.”

Joe looked in the direction of the ponies that David Elliot had brought in and frowned.

“What makes you think I know any better?” he asked turning back to them.

“Just a thought,” the first man replied. “Y’know, you normally make a good point whenever this kind of stuff comes up.”

Joe smirked in response. “I just do what I’m told. If the Avatar says they’re okay and the government says they’re okay then I have to accept it.”

“Uh… yeah. Good point,” the two men responded in an uneasy manner, neither of them particularly placated.

Turning away from the two men Joe picked himself up and looked around, his drink still in hand. Over by Vinyl Scratch’s stage was a young girl of about fourteen or fifteen in a downsized uniform. She was dancing rather poorly in front of one of the speakers, her head bobbing as she flailed her arms around and hopped from one foot to the other, twisting her waist as she did so.

“How are you doing kid?” he shouted over the speakers. The girl turned to look at him, smiling widely and snapping a salute.

“Oh I’m fine, Joe,” she replied, “just waiting my turn.”

Joe smiled. He had never learned her name, she never spoke about it. After taking her off the street over five years ago now, he thought of her as his own daughter. Kidman, he’d named her, mostly because the only thing she had ever responded to was ‘kid’.

“I missed you in the battle,” he then said, his expression turning stern. Kidman laughed nervously as a somewhat cheeky smile appeared on her face.

“Oh I was just about. Y’know, keeping morale up, doing my duty.” She continued to chuckle, refusing to look him in the eye as she did so.

Folding his arms he fixed her with a more stern expression. “So the story of the little girl crouching behind the frontal barricades with a guitar wasn’t about you?”

“I’m not a little girl Joe,” she shot back indignantly. “I know how to fight. You gave me this right?”

She produced a Beretta from her coat and waved it at him, her fingers off the trigger. Joe smirked, despite the horrendous lack of proper gun safety she was displaying.

“Well then,” he casually replied, “if you’re a big girl now there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you?”

Kidman’s face lit up in expectation. “Yeah. What is it?”

“What do you think of them?” Joe asked, throwing his thumb in the direction of the nine ponies clustered around a table with a Resistance Pegasus.

“They’re ponies,” Kidman replied with a shrug, somewhat disappointed that he wasn’t asking her to actually fight. “No different from the others.”

“Hmmm,” Joe replied in a somewhat agreeing tone.

***

Jan Lockett, for her part, was sat near the newcomers, keeping her own eye on them, though her eye was more to make sure nobody did anything stupid. More than once she’d stopped an angry looking partygoer from going up to the group as they sat talking, or else she’d nodded at Dutch, the taciturn man sat near her, to do the same.

“Still not sure?” Dutch asked her.

“It’ll be a long while before I’m sure,” Lockett admitted. “I trust Commander Albion, but…”

“But they’re still them,” Dutch finished. “Yeah. They seem alright though.”

“Yeah,” Lockett said noncommittally. She took a drink of her beer. “Pinkie Pie’s kinda annoying.”

“Hey, at least they weren’t throwing fireballs at your face this time,” Dutch said with a wry grin. Lockett smacked his arm with a smirk of her own.

“Watch it, you berk,” she said, “or I’ll smack you upside the head so far you’ll be sucking your own dick.”

Dutch laughed, then took a swig of his own beer. “There are better places for my head to end up.”

Lockett raised an eyebrow. “That… was terrible.”

“Yup,” Dutch said. “It was.”

***

Storm Front looked down into the party below him. He’d found a somewhat snug position in the rafters where he could lie back, relax and hide the beer he’d been hoarding since the party began.

He hadn’t really wanted to attend when he found out who the technical guests of honour were.

Glancing down bitterly at the nine new arrivals, and glaring at the six very distinct ponies amongst them, he cracked open one of the cans he had placed beside him and began to fiddle with it. He sipped from it occasionally but spent more time swaying it back and forth in his hoof. He didn’t really feel like drinking now.

Apparently they had been inducted into the Resistance, sworn Prince Ponce’s oath and all. He had never really cared for the ‘government in exile’ preferring the fact that it let him fight the Empire. Now however? Well he just didn’t like the idea of fighting with six of the ponies responsible for the bucking war and the bucking state the world was in at the moment.

Mulling over his thoughts he took a large swig and felt a little bit of numbness in his head. Liking where the feeling was going he took another swig, and another. When that can was finished he opened another and drank deeply.

Everything went dark and fuzzy after that.

***

Author's Notes:

And here we have one of the first "additional" chapters of the rewrite: with thanks to RoyalPsycho for his help on this one. Thanks, as always, for reading folks. :-)