***

"Who dares wins."
- SAS motto.

"They will not force us,
They will stop degrading us,
They will not control us,
We will be victorious."
Muse, Uprising.

***

Stanley, Falklands Islands. June 7th, 2020.

King William reread the note in his hand with a slight tear developing in his eye.

The envelope had reached him at the temporary base of UK Armed Forces operations, delivered by a slightly disheveled looking woman "on behalf of an important official in the British Government", which had certainly caught William's attention. When William had opened it, a smaller note had been attached to another envelope by a single paperclip.

Your father instructed myself to hand over the contents of this envelope to you, in the event of your coronation and his premature abdication or demise. I apologize for the inability to deliver this personally. - MH

William didn't quite know who "MH" was - though he had some ideas, based on a few conversations he had overheard over the years - but "MH"'s identity was nothing compared to the actual letter itself. He had read it with shaking hands, and then again, more composed, trying his best to comprehend what the letter was saying, to feel every word resonate as he knew it should.

"Your majesty?" an aid's voice said quietly. He looked up, to see the aid, a young blonde man, motioning him out into the press conference room that had been hastily arranged. He smiled, not moving.

"Tell me something, Daniel," he asked softly. "Do you believe those we've lost stay with us, somehow?"

The aid, Daniel, blinked, clearly surprised by the question. "I… wouldn't know, your majesty."

"It was a rhetorical question, Daniel," William said with a kind smile. "No one has an answer really, I expect."

"If you say so sir," Daniel said softly, still looking confused. God bless the aids - they were never prepared for a philosophical chat. "They're ready for you now."

William nodded once. "I'll be out in a moment."

Daniel left, and William briefly looked himself in the mirror. His suit was a little dishevelled itself - understandable really. He'd left a lot of worldly possessions behind… and a lot more than worldly possessions. Still, he's managed to escape with his life, and his wife and children were safe.

He sighed, straightened his tie, and then changed his mind and took it off, leaving his shirt unbuttoned. He smiled slightly. He didn't look like anyone's idea of a king now.

"Right then," he said.

He turned and walked out of the room, onto the stage where everyone - and more than a few ponies - were waiting. He didn't recognise any of the people or ponies in the audience, and he found himself wishing that Lyra or Harry were here. Either of them would be able to support him. He also found himself wishing that Kate was here as well, but his beloved wife and family had been moved to a secure location in Canada for the time being, and would be going to Australia - projected to be one of the last places to fall - soon enough.

"People of Britain and the Commonwealth," he said softly. "Thank you for attending. I realise that this is not a time for celebration, nor is it a time to embellish necessities with needless ceremony, which is why I have forgone a more extravagant coronation in favour of a small ceremony that the assembled press will be attending later today." He paused. "I have words here to say to you, words written by my father for precisely this eventuality. I believe they will speak most adequately for this moment - and I believe in this time, he deserves for them to be heard."

He opened the letter, glanced down at the writing and the signature that he knew he would never see again, and he began to speak.

***

PHL Compound, Secure Location.

Far away from the Falklands, Lyra Heartstrings had turned the radio on to listen to King William's inaugural address. It was with mixed feelings that she listened - she would have wanted to be there, but her work prevented her. Ideally of course, she would have preferred it if Charles had survived. She knew he would have faced these days with poise, dignity and courage.

Then again, William was facing it the exact same way, so that was something, she supposed.

She steeled herself. She could mourn her lost friends… already so many… another time. Right now, she needed to be strong. She sat back and closed her eyes as what were effectively the last words of King Charles III began drifting from the radio.

"To the people of Britain, whom, if this letter is being read, I have left behind, I give my sincerest thanks for your acceptance as monarch and your support during what may have been the most trying time of our country's long existence.

"I will not shun the truth, not hide it from the people of Britain. These are dark days, and they will only get darker still."

It had felt like a good time to start working on her journal again. It sat, unfinished, lying on a nearby table. She'd been a little bit stuck on the last entry from July 6th:

"I don't… Am I angry? Sad? Betrayed? I don't even know how to feel. I'm in shock. It's like everything good's gone, and the rest's been turned upside down. And now, the portal… It's expanding. CERN is gone, and most of the people on the campus are dead. There's riots all over Switzerland, that crazy bastard Viktor Kraber blew up the Graz Conversion Bureau and the Ganz Conversion Bureau, and the world's just falling apart.

Guess this is how the world ends. Ponies like me and the PHL are the closest, and humans are gonna run scared. We're gonna get hurt, and people like Kraber are gonna do a lot of the hurting. I'm scared, more than I've ever been, even more than I was when the Crystal Empire's siege golems invaded Manehattan. I think I'll be alright - I've got a bodyguard - a big, stocky human marine. He used to be an embassy guard in Seems like he has a marefriend… While he had every reason to kill her, he didn't. He's a good soldier, but he's a kind man too"

It was almost too much for her. The pressure was mounting, but she knew she couldn't - wouldn't - back down.

I have to do this, she thought. Backing down, giving up - that wasn't even on the level of an abstract concept.

After all, if she didn't find a way to end this war, if she didn't succeed in ending the threat Celestia now posed… no one would.

***

Somewhere in Southern Israel...

"The world is changing. And change, as anyone knows, is painful, especially when that change leads us through so much heartache and sorrow.

"It would be easy in such times to give in to fear, to surrender hope and to embrace despair. Despair is a comfort in some ways - it gives us the space to do things we know are wrong, because there is no tomorrow, and thus there are no consequences for today."

The ponies, all part of Queen Celestia's Solar Empire, fled across the desert, towards towns to use for more converts or maybe just for refuge. A tall, lanky man on a motorcycle followed.

The lanky man had been reduced to two impulses. Maybe three.

Kill. Survive. Revenge.

Though something seemed to awaken in him as he listened to this inaugural speech over the radio. God only knew how he was hearing it out here.

There wasn't anything the lanky man was wearing that wasn't stolen or scavenged. His Galil and FAL had been taken from a poor ponified kontgesig who was now rotting in the desert with a bullethole in his head, his shotgun the same. His clothes had been stolen from the dead. His .45 pistol had been scavenged from a dead man. His beaten-up touring motorcycle belonged to a survivor who'd been ponified, and lay on the ground on a highway, dead. Suicide had been preferable to being little more than a fokkin zombie.

And maybe, just maybe, this poor dusty scrap of a life.

He carried a bag of sparse remnants of his previous life. He was the last of the HLF unit there, and he was reasonably sure he'd pissed off most of the IDF. Apparently, someone had been well and truly woedend at him for shooting that purple-pink pegasus. Bliksem, he'd missed the wings!

He listened to the radio quizzically. Seriously, how the fok am I hearing this out here?

Viktor Kraber continued on, heading further south, toward the gunfire. He'd heard a rumor that Pinkie Pie would be around there, that she'd left France by now, but he doubted it.

Things usually didn't seem to go right for him.

***

Paused PER Convoy, Somewhere in Poland.

"I cannot say whether there will be a tomorrow. For me, if you are hearing this, I know my tomorrow's are no more, save perhaps - I fear, though I pray I am spared this - as a puppet of the Tyrant who threatens our world. But I will not despair, even though I know my end may be near - the end of my tomorrow is not the end of yours."

"Aw, isn't that sweet?"

Jacob Levy threw the other man a scowl. Levy was a cropped-haired man, lean and muscular, with hard eyes. He wore a simple Kevlar vest over a tank top, with hard wearing combat pants and boots. He had a pistol in a holster on one side, and a combat knife in a sheath on the other.

"I mean," the other man continued, "listen to that - that's grade A bittersweet bull there. Brings a tear to the old eyes - of amusement, in my case, but still."

The other man was quite a different figure to Levy. He wore a dusty blue suit over a white shirt unbuttoned halfway down, exposing a pale chest with a scar diagonally across, coming down from right to left. He had green eyes and hair that he'd bleached blonde, and he was smiling, almost chuckling.

"Have some respect," Levy said with a growl.

"Respect?" the other man said, his eyebrows twisting into a frown, the ends of his mouth quirking into a quizzical smile.

"He's delivering a eulogy," Levy pointed out, scowling. "You can at least be silent for it."

"Aw, come on," the other man said, chuckling sadistically. "You know as well as I do that Charley's not dead: right now, he's probably prancing around praising Queenie and living it up in Equestria, a permanent grin on his face."

Levy restrained the urge to punch the other man.

"Can't you take anything seriously?" he asked.

"In case you hadn't noticed, buckaroo," the other man said with a slight, malicious snigger, "you and I are fighting in a war of pastel toy horses vs humankind, and - real newsflash for you, here - we're on the horsey side of the spectrum. Heck, half a dozen of our guys have potioned themselves in the last week. This ain't a serious situation, not in the least, so forgive me for trying to see the amusing side." He paused, giving Levy a quizzical look. "What's got your goat, anyhow? You're about twenty percent dour-er than you usually are."

Levy sighed morosely. "My home's gone. Tends to bring you down."

The other man scoffed. "And you helped make it gone, pal, only a year after helping plan the most audacious bit of high treason I ever did see."

"I know I helped end my home," Levy said with a scowl. "That doesn't mean I won't miss it. I grew up there - everything I am comes from what I experienced, good and bad." He paused, then smiled mirthlessly. "And you're the one who murdered almost the entire House of Commons. Was there any real reason to kill them all?"

"Yeah, I was sparing 'em from having to learn how to actually work," the other man chuckled. "Can't imagine Queenie's got much need of career politicians." He leered at Levy. "Seriously though. I loved Balmoral. Sure, the end result was a little more explosive than you'd planned on, but damn, Lizzie was riled up by that one and no mistake. And then she was atomised, but hey, you win some, you lose some."

"You make it sound like I enjoy the pain I cause," Levy said softly, looking away from the man.

"If you're so cut up, take the purple pastel pony potion," the other man said. "I hear tell that makes it all better."

Levy scowled. "No."

"No?" the other man repeated, leaning forward. "And why not?"

Levy growled for a moment, and then, quicker than the other man could react, he grabbed him by his lapels and lifted him up. The other man looked shocked for a moment, before chuckling almost insanely.

"Listen to me and listen well, you slimy piece of filth," Levy growled. "I don't care what good you think you've done for us. The only reason you're alive is that I can't afford to be picky anymore!"

"Oh, you don't think I deserve a place in magic-pastel-ponyland?" the man asked in a mock-upset voice.

"Psychopaths like you don't deserve to go to a better world!" Levy snapped. "You don't deserve happiness!"

The other man snickered. "Oh, Jakey, Jakey, Jakey… what makes you think I want it? I'm helping you for my own reasons, and none of them involve giving a shit about 'happiness' as you define it. Certainly, none of them involve being a pastel pony in pastel ponyland"

"Oh yeah?" Levy said. "And what might those reasons be?"

"My own," the man said with a slight frown. "You don't like me poking my nose in your business, Jakey boy, so don't you poke your nose in mine. Unlike you, I'm perfectly happy tearing noses off with my teeth, and that isn't exaggeration. Wouldn't be artistic, but I've salvaged great work from worse."

Levy narrowed his eyes at the man.

"One day Cain, I'm going to kill you," he said simply, dropping the man.

If anything, this gave the man - Cain - an even wider grin on his face. He dusted off his suit, looking humorously affronted at the dust on it.

"One day, Jakey, I think you're gonna try," he admitted, grinning viciously. "That should be fun."

***

Stanley, Falklands Islands. June 7th, 2020.

William looked up at his audience. They were watching with wet eyes and soft smiles, and he knew - he knew - that he had made the right choice in giving this speech. He looked down and finished his father's letter.

"'To you who hear this, know this. There will be a tomorrow - it is not a tomorrow we will reach easily. There will be blood, tears, sweat, toil and fear, more fear than any of us have ever known. But the darkest night will lead to a brighter day, if we stay true to our ideals and remain strong in the face of adversity. Just as despair will lead us to defeat, I know that hope will lead us to victory.'"

William looked up at the audience again, his resolve strengthened by his father’s words.

"'I remain yours, in service until my dying day, Charles III of the House of Windsor'." He paused. "My father was a good man. And I will forever be in his shadow. These years are his years, years he deserved. I swear I will not squander them. I will serve the people of Britain until the end."

He smiled slightly, thinking of his father. He would always remember him - he had been a good man, better than a lot of people had given him credit for in some ways. His death (better to think of it that way) was another tragic loss in a string of tragic losses.

But William would not let it keep him from his duty.

***

HMS Queen Elizabeth, the Atlantic Ocean. June 8th, 2020.

Sat in a briefing room with the entirety of their company, David Elliot felt… uneasy. His squad, consisting of himself, Sam, a dark-haired man called Alderman, a redhead named Sambold, the three ponies - True Grit, his friend Steady Hoof, a grey Earth Pony stallion, and a pale, brown-maned Pegasus mare named Bright Wonder - as well as their Sergeant, an easy-going man called John Moffett, were sat waiting for a rundown of their next deployment.

David threw the ponies in his squad another quick glance. He still wasn't sure he entirely trusted Wonder, Hoof or even True Grit, who'd been remarkably friendly. He'd never been HLF (though he'd known a few people who'd joined the organisation's ranks) but he had lost his entire home to ponies. Ponies - fine, not these ponies, but ponies all the same - had taken everything from him.

Was it wrong to not trust them?

"Alright," the stern, RP-accented voice of their company commander, Captain Harcourt, said, cutting off David's train of thought. The man - a tall, thin man with a pencil thin moustache, every inch the image of a model British officer - was stood in front of a projector, swagger stick in hand. "Settle down."

The room quieted down, and Harcourt sighed, his eyes scanning the room.

"Ladies, gentlemen, mares, stallions and whatever 'orrible little buggers lay in-between," he said. "You're here because, as of now, what's left of Europe is undergoing a massive evacuation. Projected estimates show that the Barrier will expand and obliterate the entire continent within the year."

The entire room was filled with hushed murmurs. David looked to Sam, who had his eyes closed, as though trying to calculate the sheer number of people they were about to lose. Alderman and Sambold both looked tired, and - perhaps not entirely surprisingly - the ponies looked horrified.

"These estimates are, of course, not perfect," Harcourt continued grimly. "But we'll run with them for the moment." He took a breath. "That being the case, our obvious priority must be combating attempts by the enemy to sabotage refugee columns…"

"Sir," someone interrupted, "shouldn't our priority be kicking the fucking sun-bitch's arse?!"

A cheer went up from the the assembled soldiers, human and pony alike.

Harcourt gave a thin smile. "Much as I admire the spirit in which that remark was intended, no - that is not our priority at present. R&D are the ones in charge of investigating means past the Barrier, and as of yet I've heard nothing about their progress. In any case, soldier - even with Queen Celestia's death a priority, there are still millions of refugees to save."

"And how are we going to do that, sir?" someone else called out. "The weapons we have aren't worth shit against Guard shields, they have potion bombs -"

"If you'll shut up and let me finish," Harcourt said, cutting the speaker off, "I'll tell you how. And from here on, I don't want any more interruptions - I know we've lost a lot, and I know having to integrate ponies into your units has left some people feeling irritated, but button it. We're soldiers, and what's more, we're His Majesty's army, and some of the best damn soldiers on the planet. Let's remember that and start acting like it, lads and lasses."

This seemed to raise the room's spirits a little, and even David found himself smiling slightly.

"Right then," Harcourt said. "This is how this is going to go down…"

***

HMS Illustrious, the Atlantic Ocean. June 8th, 2020.

They still hadn't made land, even after weeks at sea. The general plan seemed to be to take on survivors from smaller boats that were escaping from the Barrier and to haul them aboard, vet them for PER membership and potion vials, then stow them wherever there was room. It was the best anyone, and anypony, could do.

Chalcedony found herself looking out at the horizon, feeling the foreboding coming from it. True, the Barrier wouldn't kill her the same way it would atomise these humans, but it represented something… worse.

It represented Equestria. Equestria, the looming giant of a tyrannical state that she, like so many others, had disavowed. Equestria the once-kind, the once-beautiful, now destined to be neither forevermore.

Part of her, it had to be admitted, wanted to hope that the PHL and whatever Resistance was in Equestria were able to somehow salvage… something. But what was that something likely to be?

She sighed. Equestria the beautiful was dead. Equestria the monster was the present. At best, all they would have in the future would be Equestria the grey, the twilight of a grand old world, forever silenced, always destined to look back at the glorious old times with nostalgia and longing.

"The past," she said aloud to herself, "is another country."

"You're right there," a new voice said quietly.

Chalcedony turned, to find a man sitting slightly behind her, looking out on the sky with a soft smile. He wore a green tweed coat with a suede collar over a shirt, waistcoat and some sort of cravat, topped off with brown corduroy trousers.

"Sorry," Chalcedony said with a sheepish smile. "Just thinking aloud."

"Best kind sometimes," the man replied evenly. "Which is to say, I do a lot of that kind of thinking. Saying something aloud often makes it sound different."

"Well, it makes a sound…" Chalcedony pointed out. "Plain old thinking doesn't do that."

The man gave her a look - with those oddly intense brown eyes - that suggested that he'd never once considered that.

"Blimey," he said. "Maybe that's it. Been wanting to crack that one. I've been meaning to write a thesis…"

He trailed off at Chalcedony's expression, somewhere between amusement and tiredness.

"Sorry," she said. "The charmer routine doesn't really work on me."

"'Charmer routine'?" the man repeated, raising an eyebrow. "This isn't a charmer routine. This is called 'connecting'. It's that thing people do when they're not brooding by themselves." He shrugged. "Not that a bit of brooding can't be helpful, but…"

"I was not brooding," Chalcedony said with a scowl. "I was…"

"Oh, you were," the man said with a smirk. "I doubt Bruce Wayne himself could top your brooding levels." He made an expansive gesture with his arms. "Maximum brooding power!" He paused, looking thoughtful. "I wonder if one could make a generator that ran on brooding…"

"Wouldn't you 'brood' if you'd seen your home descend into madness?" she asked, ignoring his aside. "If everything you thought you knew about ponies - people - you thought were benevolent and wise suddenly got tossed into the garbage chute, and you were left with… nothing?"

The man's amused expression went away. "I know how that feels."

"Ha," Chalcedony snorted.

"No," the man insisted, his voice soft and sad, "I do - better than you think I do."

Chalcedony snorted. "I don't see how."

"There are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy," the man said simply.

"Shouldn't that be 'our' philosophy?" Chalcedony asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, you're a Shakespeare buff!" the man said approvingly, an almost childishly excited grin on his face. "Actually, old Billy did write 'our' but the copy given to the first actor to play Hamlet was a little bit badly written out - over enthusiastic copyboy, I think…"

Chalcedony sighed. Clearly this man was just a bit crazy. Understandable, really - this entire situation was not one that sanity tended to remain around for. Still - she didn't find herself in the mood to deal with insane people.

"Tell me," the man said suddenly. "Do you suppose second chances are important?"

"Second chances?" Chalcedony repeated. "It depends who they're for."

"For us," the man said. "You, me, the people on this ship."

"That's a… very vague identification," Chalcedony said, raising an eyebrow. "Some people deserve second chances."

"Ah, I didn't say deserve," the man said with a grin. "If I had said deserve, that would be a different question. I said, 'do you suppose they're important?', which in my mind is an entirely different question."

"Alright," Chalcedony said, nodding slowly. "So, second chances - maybe they are important. Depends on what you did that needs a second chance, maybe in what you're gonna do with it too."

"In what way?" the man asked.

"I'm not sure," Chalcedony admitted with a slight shrug. "I've never been in a position where I needed a second chance."

The man gave a slight, sombre smile, one that suddenly made him seem a lot older than he had a few moments ago. "Well, I suppose you're lucky, then."

Chalcedony found herself frowning thoughtfully at him, as though there was something behind that veneer of cheerfulness. Maybe something that did need a second chance.

"Are you looking for a second chance?" she asked.

"Oh, I'm well past 'second'," he said with a humourless smile. "But I like to think there are always more for those that need them."

"It's a nice thought," Chalcedony agreed. "If a little misplaced in this world."

"Do you think so?" the man asked.

"The world is going to hell," Chalcedony pointed out. "Equestria's already there. There are no more chances for some people."

The man gave a sad smile. "I think, and bear in mind this is just me… I think that second chances are more important than ever."

"Really?" Chalcedony asked.

"Oh yes," the man said, smiling slightly. "For example, I happen to know that there were a few PER on this ship. If I hadn't done anything - quick word to the Captain, that sort of thing - they'd have sabotaged this ship, leaving it dead in the water, just waiting for an attack by the Empire. Most of the people on this ship would have been - that is to say, probably would have been killed or ponified. Now they haven't been."

Chalcedony frowned slightly. "What? What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about making a difference, because of a second chance," the man said with a smile. "And if you like, you can help me make a difference."

"What are you, some sort of secret agent or something?" the mare asked, frowning.

"'Or something'," the man replied with a grin. "I'm going by Doctor Bowman, but you can call me Doctor."

He held out a hand, and Chalcedony - not quite knowing why - took it and shook it.

She didn't know why, but she felt like she'd taken a step towards something big.

***

SAS Emergency Training Camp. Falklands Islands. June 10th, 2020.

"I'm sorry, what?"

SAS Captain Edwin Richards frowned in disbelief at the man who stood opposite him. Of all the men he had anticipated wanting to join the depleted but still active ranks of the SAS, none surprised him as much as the man he was speaking with now.

"You heard me," Prince Harry said with a frown. "I want to join the SAS. If I understand the general military plan, your units are going to be sent into some of the nastiest areas of conflict to help hold the line while the civilians get out, no matter what. I've also heard more than the odd rumour about you going after priority PER targets. I want to be part of all that."

"Your Highness, training for the SAS is not a game," the grizzled looking SAS soldier said, sighing slightly. "We'll be going into some of the most dangerous fronts of this war - I'm expecting a massive mortality rate from all this."

"I've been a soldier, Captain," Harry replied, trying not to sound annoyed at the man's attitude. Plenty of people had treated him like a pampered royal, and he was having none of it. "I served in Afghanistan. I know full well that war, any war, is no game. Especially this war. In fact I highly doubt you'll find many men who've lost more than my family."

Richards sighed, shaking his head. He was clearly reluctant, but he was also a man who knew that he'd need every willing gun he could muster if he was to maintain the SAS as an effective fighting force.

"I won't turn away good, willing fighters," he said slowly. "But it won't be easy for you, Your Highness."

"It's not easy for anyone," Harry said. "But I'll do whatever I have to."

Richards frowned slightly, still feeling uncertain about allowing the Prince to join, but after a moment he reluctantly held out a hand.

"Welcome to the SAS, Your Highness," he said quietly.

***