London. March 12th, 2031.

“Ok, keep ‘em moving!” somepony was yelling. A group of Converted were shifting rubble: Earth Ponies using brute strength, teams of Pegasi hoisting using ropes and Unicorns using magic. Watching this display was no fun, but Jan Lockett - now Sergeant Major and head of a UDF (United Defence Force) group - was determined to do the job right. Much as the Convies - the Converted, she reminded herself - weren’t supposed to be a threat anymore, there were always those troublemakers who still went by the old Solaminan rules. The ones which, according to Kraber and Vinyl, probably didn’t know how to do anything else.

“For in labour we are validated for our sins!” one of them, a very familiar stallion covered in dirt, cuts and bruises, was yelling as he coordinated a work team. “Repentance is not enough, not for our betrayal! Only in work can we wash away the sins of our inaction, in blood and sweat!”

“Blood and sweat!” the work party repeated, sounding as fanatical as him.

“Oi!” Lockett yelled over to him. “All the blood and sweat in the world won’t do shit if you drop dead before doing anythin’ useful!”

“We will not die yet, Sergeant Major,” the stallion replied, giving her a haunted look from broken, empty eyes. “We have too much to atone for.”

Lockett sighed.

“Long day?” she heard a voice ask. she turned to find herself facing Sir Eleanor of the Holy Order of Albion. The young woman was no more than sixteen years old, and yet her eyes were cold and hard, and somehow she had been elected the next head of the knights. She was clad in a full set of plate armour - one of the concessions the Knights of Albion had requested was the use of some metal to make full armour suits.

“Something like that,” Lockett sighed, sitting down. “Dutch, keep ‘em on track!”

“Will do!” her old squadmate called.

Lockett sighed. “God, they're almost as bad as Dead Men. So - what can I do for you?”

“I was just curious as to how the reconstruction was going in this end of town,” Eleanor said, folding her arms as she watched the Converted work. “Did someone make them decide to do that?”

“If I was uncharitable? Mr Declamation over there,” Lockett said, jabbing a finger in the golden stallion’s direction.

“Isn’t that…?” Eleanor said, narrowing her eyes.

“Yes, but don’t say that name,” Lockett said. “Sends him and his entire lot off into a praying fit. Last time someone said it, he wasn’t done saying hail Mary’s for five hours.”

“Ah,” Eleanor said, eyes wide, before looking at her. “Is there anything we can do?”

“Don’t you knight-types have enough to do?” Lockett smirked.

“Some of us are a little restless,” Eleanor admitted. “Though many of us believe wholeheartedly in the duty of guarding Albion’s body… there are some of us who are… more restless.”

“Yourself included?” Lockett asked knowingly.

Eleanor shrugged. “There is much to do. Perhaps a more active role would befit us. Unfortunately, General Redmond - while willing to continue our status as tomb guard for Albion - is unwilling to give us a battlefield role again. He believes we are… archaic.”

“Well, you do run around in armour with swords,” Lockett said with a grin. Eleanor frowned slightly, and Lockett held up a hand. “Hey, I saw you guys outside St Paul’s with Albion - you’re worth the time and effort to keep equipped if you ask me. All the same, maybe it’s best left to others for the moment.”

Eleanor looked unimpressed. “Perhaps. In any case, I shall leave you be for the moment.”

Lockett nodded. “Ok then.”

It was perhaps a little dismissive, but she only knew Sir Eleanor in passing. The armoured woman walked away, leaving Lockett to sigh and get on with guarding what she saw.

***

Eleanor scowled as she walked back through the streets of London - the Knights of Albion were precisely that: Knights, not glorified guards. Their duty was to defend the weak, to impart justice in Albion’s name, not to stand watch over an (admittedly revered) body and do nothing.

She sighed as she walked past a shop, watching as the inhabitants spoke: there were a few ponies there, and some humans, including a tall red-headed man in a green tweed coat, and an aged shopkeeper with white hair and moustache who waved to Eleanor as she passed.

“Hello there!” he called cheerily. “Lovely day!”

Eleanor waved back, smiling. It was strange how life was starting to return to some semblance of ‘normality’ - people had returned to routines that had not been the norm since the war began, and they were engaged in simple things like talking, shopping… life.

People always go back to what they knew, she remembered her father telling her once. And people are often a lot stronger than you think they would be.

She smiled at the memory - she missed her father. He had never allowed her to call him a ‘good man’ - “I’ll settle for ‘good enough’” he would say - but he had given her everything he could.

She walked over to the shopkeeper. “Much for sale?”

“Few carrots,” the man replied casually. “Some bread - actually quite a bit - we’re in a bit of a ‘bread glut’ at the moment, lots of imported Colonial stuff from the Convies. Turns out Equestrians make bread almost the same as humans did…”

“Well of course we do,” one of the ponies, an older mare with a grey mane and wrinkles, said. “Bread’s one of those things that everypony makes the same way.”

“Were you wantin’ some, Sir Knight?” the shopkeeper asked.

“I didn’t bring any coupons,” the knight replied, but the shopkeeper waved a hand.

“Not a problem,” he said with a smile. “My son was in Canterlot - he remembers the Knights of Albion being at the landing zone, boldest group you ever did see. you ‘elped save the world, ma’am.”

“It was what was expected of us,” Eleanor said softly, smiling back. “But thank you.”

“What’ll it be?” the man asked.

“A few bread-rolls if you don’t mind,” Eleanor asked. “I’ve always been partial to bread.”

“Coming right up,” the man said with a smile. As he went to go get the rolls, Eleanor turned to the ponies and the green-coated man.

“So,” she began conversationally. “How are you finding things?”

“Better than Equestria,” the mare said, scowling. Her cutie mark was a hoe, which presumably symbolised farming as her special talent. “Even now that the Empress is gone… you know, I might never go back there.”

“Oh, there could be worse things,” the green-coated man said idly. “The Solaminan Empire never did some of the things that…” He trailed off, before shrugging. “Some of the things it could have done.”

“Such as?” the mare asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, I dunno,” the man said. “At least the Crystal Empire wasn’t a prison camp and slave-state this time, but a nominally equal vassal. And the Converted were…”

“This time?” the mare said, both eyebrows disappearing into her hairline. “What’s that supposed to mean.”

The man smirked. “Long story. Forget I said anything.”

“What about you?” Eleanor asked him. “How are you finding things?”

“Not from ‘round here,” the man said with a shrug. He held out a hand. “Dr Bowman - ostensibly a scientific advisor to the military. Not that they need much advice these days. Well, not anymore, anyway.”

“Sir Eleanor of the Holy Order,” Eleanor replied, shaking his hand. She frowned. “Have we met?”

Dr Bowman shook his head. “Not that I remember - and trust me, my memory’s pretty on the nose most days.” He shrugged. “I might have one of those faces. Again.”

Before Eleanor could ask what he meant, there was a noise from further up the street - the sound of something banging. The mare turned around, frowning, to see a group of ponies bolting down the street past startled civilians, altogether familiar looking vials of liquid in bandoliers slung around their bodies. Several of them fell to gunfire from pursuing soldiers, but more of them managed to stay ahead of the soldiers.

“Potion bombers!” Bowman yelled. “Take cover!”

As he yelled it, the bombers threw some of their loads, the vile liquid impacting a woman who had been near another shop. She screamed in agony as her flesh started sloughing off. Another woman narrowly dodged one bomb, and it hit a man instead, who screamed as the purple liquid began its macabre work.

“Fiends,” Eleanor growled. She drew her sword and marched towards them, moving directly to intercept them. Foolishly, they did not even slow down, instead running right at her, throwing more potion bombs as they did so. The foul concoction boiled on her skin, steaming off as she raised her sword.

The first blow took the charging pony’s head off. The second, a Unicorn, tried firing a spell of at her, but it was only a minor concussive - clearly he hadn’t been military trained, and his aim was off enough to only send a shower of dirt over her. Scowling, she barreled at him, knocking him over and to the ground, before stomping on his throat, breaking his neck. The final pony was a Pegasus, and she tried taking off, but by now a group of soldiers had arrived, and were already firing, killing the Pegasus and any others that had yet to reach Eleanor. She breathed out, leaning on her sword somewhat.

Bowman ran over to one of the new Converted, taking a small silver device from one pocket and waving it over, before leaning down and talking to the shaken mare. She was babbling - though potion couldn’t make you a ‘Converted’ in the old sense of a somewhat mellow, loyal servant of Solamina, nor could it destroy your identity, but it could damage your soul (at least, that was the consensus of any magicians who had been tasked with dealing with the aftermath of various Solaminan messes).

“Is everyone alright?” Eleanor yelled commandingly. “Is anyone hurt, beyond the Converted?”

“No injuries,” one of the soldiers called back to her, waving an arm. “Damn lucky you were here.”

“Agreed,” Bowman said, walking over to her, frowning slightly. “Good thing you were here - no telling what kind of damage these idiots could have done.”

He held up a vial of potion, and Eleanor frowned at the liquid within when she realised that it wasn’t the normal purple liquid - it was a vivid orange.

“What is that?” she asked, frowning.

“Something that should never have left Equestrian soil,” Bowman replied seriously. “And something that should never have existed in this or any time. A vile abomination even by the standards of any conversion.” He put the vial in one of his pockets. “I need to take this to command in Scotland. They’ll want to see it. Looks like my happy retirement is over.”

He said this with such world-weariness that Eleanor was forced for a moment to wonder what the vial meant beyond his dark words.

“You’ll have to take charge,” he added as she contemplated his words. “This might not be the last time they try this.”

“It will be the last time they convert a single soul while I breathe,” she promised. He nodded.

“Good,” he said. “Good luck, Sir Eleanor.”

He walked off, leaving Eleanor to contemplate what needed to be done. There was one thing that was certain.

“Soldier!” she called to one of the soldiers, and the man turned to look at her. “Go to St Paul’s and find Sir Heinrich and Sir Robert - tell them to mobilise the knights we have here and summon more from their leave.”

“I… yes, ma’am,” the soldier said, apparently taken aback at being ordered about by a sixteen-year old in armour. “And what will you be doing?”

“Praying,” Eleanor said. “our troubles are not over yet - we will need all the help we can get.”

“Jesus,” the old man who she had been talking to said from his shop door.

“Good suggestion,” the mare near him said numbly, “but I’d be hoping for anyone that'll listen.”

"Isn’t this shit meant to be done with? Isn’t the war over?!” the old man yelled.

Eleanor couldn’t help but think he was right. Home was meant to be peaceful - home was meant to be safe. The war was meant to be over. It seemed that the dream of peace was just that - a dream. The reality was, as usual, far less hopeful.

Still - she was a knight. Her duty was the defence of the realm and its people.

Be careful what you wish for, she thought grimly.

Author's Notes:

Thanks to The Void, DoctorFluffy and RoyalPsycho for their help as always :-)