***

“Don't talk like you're one of them! You're not, even if you'd like to be. To them you're just a freak, like me. They need you right now, but when they don't, they'll cast you out - like a leper. See, their morals, their 'code'… it's a bad joke, dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you, when the chips are down, these - ah - 'civilised people'? They'll eat each other. See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve.”
The Joker, The Dark Knight.

“I've been up in the air, out of my head,
Stuck in a moment of emotion I destroyed.
Is this the end I feel?”
30 Seconds To Mars, Up In The Air.

***

Kukle, Poland, June 12th, 2020.

Blood-slicked boots crunched along hard ground as the Devil approached Paul Taylor, the dark-haired soldier trying desperately to inch away from the figure as he strode closer and closer. The Devil was surprisingly… normal looking, when you got down to it. He wore a blue suit, crumpled and worn with holes burned through parts of it, a shirt unbuttoned to the nth degree and a long black overcoat that flapped in the wind.

All around Taylor, the village he and his squad had been assigned to protect burned. There were dozens of PER militia soldiers running around, lightly armed and armoured but dangerous nonetheless, all of them shooting or potioning at will. In a way, the Devil was the one who was most calm about all this. He had a look of amusement in his eyes as he merrily side-stepped his way over to Taylor, whistling a ditty as he did so.

He had been calm as he sidestepped swipes from desperate civilians, as he dodged gunfire and retaliated with a small machine-pistol he had since discarded. He had been calm when he brought his knife out and, somehow, killed men with more training and experience than Taylor would now ever have. He had been calm as he fought Taylor, blocking his blows with surprising ease for a civilian, before stabbing him in the leg, forcing him to the ground. He had been calm as he watched Taylor try to crawl away from him, a look of barely restrained glee on his face.

Taylor knew he had to do… something. The soldier tried to go for his sidearm, but the Devil kicked out and sent it flying across the burning street. He knelt down beside Taylor, a grin on his face.

"Hi there, pal," he said. "How're things?"

Taylor tried to spit, but he didn't even have the strength anymore - he was reasonably sure this bastard had hit an artery.

"Just do what you were gonna do you bastard!" he growled, coughing slightly from his injuries.

"What I was going to do?" the Devil repeated. "Why, that's an intriguing question. What was I going to do?"

One gloved hand came up, and in it, Taylor could see a small purple vial. The Devil smiled.

"#Purple pony potion in a purple pony pot," the man sing-songed. "#If you get it on you I'm afraid that that's your lot."

"Do it," Taylor growled. "Come on you bastard. Do it! Or don't you have the balls, you rat bast -"

The Devil's other hand shot out, and suddenly grabbed Taylor's jaw, forcing his mouth to stay open and preventing him from speaking.

"Do you know one fun thing about the potion, kiddo?" the Devil asked. "I could do whatever I wanted to you before I gave you it, and you'd still be happy to see me after. It's instinctive. You'd also be in one piece, albeit one pony piece. So let's not talk about not having balls." The Devil grinned. "Or I might find the time, before your permanent makeover, to make you lose yours."

"Cain!" a new voice called out, interrupting the Devil.

The Devil's grin faded and he turned to look at who had yelled for him. Taylor saw a cropped-haired PER man in light armour looking at the Devil with a frown on his face, an SMG held in one hand.

"Whaddya want, Jakey-boy?" the Devil - Cain - asked with a smirk.

"Stop torturing that poor bastard and potion him!" the man called Levy ordered.

Cain looked back at Taylor, an apologetic smile on his face.

"Well, you heard the man!" he said, sounding less annoyed than his eyes were screaming. He uncorked the little potion-vial and jammed its contents in Taylor's still open mouth. He had time to cough and splutter before the change started to take him…

***

Amadeus Cain growled as he watched the ponification get underway. It was a nasty thing to watch, but he had dumped it down his victim’s mouth, preventing it from causing maximum pain.

That was… vexing.

Levy had been increasingly impatient with him as their little convoy had progressed. By and large, the two men and been willing to tolerate one another up until this point: Cain had done what Levy needed, and Levy had given Cain free reign as long as he didn’t jeapordise their operation.

Now though…

Now he's spoiling my fun, Cain thought to himself, clucking his tongue. I do his dirty work for him, maybe better than any of these lackies, and he still doesn’t let me have my fun properly. No, I do not appreciate that. Not at all.

If his dear brother Armando had taught him anything, it was that one must be flexible to new situations. One could ride the current status quo that one was part of only so long as the current status quo fulfilled what you desired of it, and then - once the status quo outlived its usefulness - one had to find a new status quo, and ride that the same way. Ride the road to the road’s end, but then get off the road and find a new one.

Not that that went so well for him, Amadeus thought with a slightly rueful smile. He looked down at the ponifying figure as it started to finish up. But how was he to know what awaited him? Ah, dear Quickblade - where are you now I wonder…?

The new pseudo-pony stirred and opened its eyes, looking up at Amadeus with fake gratitude.

"Oh!" he said, sounding chirpy. "Hello!”

“Hello,” Amadeus said coldly.

“My name’s Resilient Shield! Thank you for freeing me from that ape body!” the Newfoal said. “Thank you so very -!"

With a sudden, vicious growl, Cain brought his boot down on the Newfoal's head, again and again, the thing barely having time to react before its brain started firing off nervous twitches to the entire body as its skull caved in on the soft matter, turning it to pulp.

One stomp, two stomp, smashy, smashy, smushy, squishy, crunch.

Cain looked at his blood covered suit and sighed. He'd been needing a new suit anyway.

He had nearly reached the end of this road, and there were others worth following that led, hopefully, to better spoils. The HLF might want a psychopath, or the new PHL might want to know the secrets that Cain had.

Still, he mused as he walked away - the status quo wasn't quite done yet. Maybe he could get one more thing from it first…

***

SAS Emergency Training Camp. Falklands Islands. June 2020.

The SAS ran a simple policy: if you failed, in any way, you'd be RTU'd (Returned To Unit). If you bragged, or acted like an arsehole, you'd be RTU'd. If you died in action, you'd be RTU'd retroactively the second before your death. The SAS were the best, and the SAS never died in action, no matter what.

SAS training was a hard trial. No, scratch that. "Hard" was a word that was so far below what SAS training could be described as that using it was not only horribly inaccurate, it was actually rather laughable and in some respects vaguely insulting. There were a number of soldiers attempting to join this elite group (many inspired by the death of Britain to do something different with their lives), but half of them were RTU'd in the first week for various reasons, leaving only a cadre of dedicated soldiers in their wake. By the end of the second week, half of these soldiers had been RTU'd as well. The remaining troops were strong, hardy, free thinking men who without a shadow of a doubt were some of the best fighters ever trained. Harry was proud to be part of that number - though he was absolutely exhausted by the training, he knew he was one step closer to making a difference.

What surprised Harry was the presence of a former PHL pony among the various new recruits to the SAS. The stallion's name was Ever Stern: he had a dark grey coat, black mane and a cutie mark displaying a hammer and anvil. He had been the subject of some unfortunate ribbing in the initial weeks of training, but the soldiers responsible for that had all been RTU'd, while he remained, facing every challenge with the same grim expression and stoic manner. He was strong, hardy and true to his name, stern and uncompromising.

Harry had made it his business to get to know the pony. Their initial conversations had been terse - Ever Stern seemed inclined to believe that he was here to train and no more - but Harry persevered.

Eventually, it was conversations about their families that convinced Stern to open up. One night during an all-nighter walk, Harry found himself talking to the pony about their respective lives and what had led them to this point. He found Stern surprisingly open.

"My entire family were guards," Stern had said, almost matter-of-factly. "But me? I made things. Metalwork, mainly. My Dad wasn't exactly supportive but your destiny's just that, you know?"

"I can understand what you mean," Harry had replied. For him, while his destiny had never been spelled out by a magical mark on his arse, he had still had a life of duty and service as part of his birthright, and very little chance to ever be anything else. Those few occasions where he had forgotten that - youthful indiscretions, mainly, though the time he wore a Nazi costume at a fancy-dress party seemed to stick in his memory - he had been sharply reminded that his duty was to be more than just "Harry": his duty was to be Prince Harry, with all the title represented, even in his supposed free time.

"Well, when the war started my family started being... different," Stern had continued, a soft frown developing on his face. "That's when I knew I had to get the hell out. I couldn't be in the same place as those... things wearing my family's faces and talking in their voices.”

Harry had heard this said of some ponies who had remained in Equestria, especially some of the PHL members' families: that they hadn't really been themselves anymore. He vaguely wondered how similar it was to ponification - maybe there was more in common between him and these ponies than he had thought.

"When I joined the PHL I thought I'd be able to make a difference," Ever Stern had finished, interrupting Harry's musing.

"But you didn't?" Harry had asked. Most ponies who joined the PHL were more than satisfied with what it had accomplished.

"Don't get me wrong," Stern had said, holding up a hoof. "They do good. Heartstrings does good. Better than I could do, than anypony could have done. She pulled a bunch of ragtag misfits together and turned them into an army, and that means those of us who stayed sane can actually help you.”

Harry had smirked at that. Stern clearly hadn't seen some of the stuff on the drawing boards. Harry had - he had, after all, paid for the things, and indeed the boards they'd been drawn on. As one of the financial benefactors of the organisation, he still - to his own surprise - got more than a few update emails concerning the progress the PHL was making. It was nice, really, if somewhat superfluous. Even so, Harry remembered when the PHL had been like that, and so he could well understand what Stern was talking about.

“I'm all for that,” Stern had continued. “But when your entire family's been guards, you can't really settle for an army of ragtag misfits - hell, not even an army of ragtag misfits with a budget and guts. It... wasn't enough for me. I needed something with history"

Harry had nodded. The PHL were good - but they didn’t have the history that the SAS did.

"Maybe they’ll be better one day," the pony continued, "but you've got to challenge yourself. When I heard about the SAS, the stuff they’ve done - how hard being one of them is..."

"You had to be the first pony to join," Harry had finished for him, a knowing expression on his face.

"More than that," Stern had said, a hard grin forming on his grim features. "I'm gonna be the first pony to kick this course squarely in its flank and show it who's the bucking boss."

After that, Harry had been certain he would find himself friends with this pony, a certainty that was proven correct. It was also a certainty he would find himself incredibly grateful for later on.

***

The Barrierfall Front, June 24th, 2020.

"I hate this," True Grit groused.

David Elliot glanced up at him, looking up from the book he had been reading. The green Unicorn was leaning against the wall of the trench, looking fairly annoyed. Near him, his grey Earth Pony friend Steady Hoof was having an impromptu nap - not that anyone blamed him. They had been in this trench for about two weeks, holding the line between the land that was being evacuated and the land where the evacuees were running to, but it was wearing on them.

David didn't say anything, instead looking back to his book with a sigh. The edict that human and pony troops would begin working with each other might have been met initially with contention amongst some quarters, but they had mostly acquitted themselves well. It helped that the PHL’s Resistance P220a, the weapon Hoof wielded, was a... competent weapon for the use of the pony troopers, though there were more than a few complaints.

"We all hate this," Sam said, looking bored. He was playing solitaire on his iPhone. "You're not exactly unique there, Grit."

“Yeah, but this is stupid,” Grit said softly. “What are we doing here?!”

That was an interesting question, David mused with a wry smirk, though he didn’t say anything aloud. Truth be told, he was often more than a little concerned about the line they were holding here. It was, in theory, their stopgap defensive point, a point beyond which there would be safety for those fleeing the Barrier. In practice, no one believed it would be able to do a damn thing against the Barrier and few believed it would be much of a defensive line either.

The PER might have been easy enough to put down when you had the men to do it (though small patrols of men tended to vanish when they went into hotspots, and rumours of villages simply vanishing didn’t help), but the Empire were a different matter. Unicorn shields were almost impenetrable by normal means unless you concentrated enough firepower to punch through, and that was difficult to do when you were being potion-bombed.

“And we’ve been in this field for how long?!” True Grit added.

“About three weeks,” Sam said with a sigh. “For the fifth time.”

“Is that green shit whining again?” a new voice asked, and the pony turned to look as Alderman walked up to the group from further in the trench, Sergeant Moffett, Ernie Sambold and Bright Wonder with him. The mare looked tired - she tended to operate as the squad’s scout.

“Fuck off,” True Grit replied in a surprisingly amiable tone. “I’m pointing out how stupid us being here is.”

“Well you don’t have to worry about that much longer,” Moffett said with a tired smile. “We’ll be pulling out in two days.”

Sam, David and Grit all groaned as one.

“It's the fucking Barrier, isn’t it?” the blonde man asked quietly.

“One week,” Moffett said quietly. “According to command, there’s now ‘an intolerably low chance of friendly survivors being retrieved’ from anywhere beyond this position. They’re saying it’ll pass through Russia in the next month - there’s already whispers about St Petersburg being the next to go.”

“Bollocks,” David swore, and he put his book back in his pack. “At least we’ve not seen much PER.”

“That would be further down the line,” Ernie, a surprisingly cheerful fella when you got to know him, said quietly. “We’ve just come from down there… Jesus, the things we’ve seen…”

“Stow it,” Moffett said. “Let’s not focus on the bad yet.”

“And when are we supposed to focus on the bad?” Sam asked, looking annoyed. “This is the third line we’ve pulled back from since this operation started, and it’s only been two weeks! There’s gonna come a point where we can’t pull back anymore!”

“But,” Moffett said softly, “that day is not today. Today, we can pull back and hold a new line, and we’ll keep doing that until the boffins give us better equipment for the job. Clear?”

There was a soft, dejected chorus of affirmatives from the squad. David and Sam exchanged glances, both men feeling the same thing: this war was a long defeat, and they were the unfortunate sods on the front line of it.

“I hope to God that the boffins come up with whatever they’re coming up with soon,” Sam said quietly to David as they packed up. “Because if they don’t, we’re dead.”

***

HLS Purity, June 24th, 2020.

The Human Liberation Ship Purity.

It was a pretty fucking grandiose name for an old, repurposed cruise liner turned battleship, and likely soon to turn floating tomb. The name was liberally scrawled in spray-paint across one side, alongside similar graffiti - the work of men and women who didn't care what happened to them. The whole thing seemed the same.

Despite the guns lined up along both sides, despite the fact that there were more armed men and women on this boat than any other non-military vessel around, John Idle couldn't help but think of himself as doomed. The dark-haired man was stood on the deck of the ship, staring out.

The HLF had stolen this liner from port, gathered up the crews from any little ships or boats that they could, and were busy zooming along at top speed anywhere they could - anywhere the Barrier and the fucking little geldo bastards weren't. The Captain and crew were all HLF, most of them ex-navy, and Idle felt reasonably confident that they could steer the ship.

Idle had been Army, once, but the Army were working with the PHL and - much as Lyra Heartstrings seemed sincere - Idle didn't trust anything on four hooves that talked. Not since Balmoral. He'd taken leave of the army (in an admittedly over-violent fashion, considering he’d broken a combination of three arms, four ribs and two noses in his exit) and joined the HLF, eventually hooking up with the crowd boarding the Purity. At the time it seemed like escape was possible.

Now, though, he could feel tension in the air - the fear of pony assault was immense, terrifying, like the Potioneer ships might descend at any moment. What if they did? What if this was the end? The Purity was fast but it couldn't outrun the bloody ponies, and they had nothing against those bollocksing shields. And once the potion was onboard, nothing was protecting the people…

As if in answer to the fear in his mind, he saw something in the sky, heading towards them. He frowned. He turned to look at the observation nests nearby, and to his horror, soldiers were jumping to positions, aiming their big guns up.

Then the cry went out - "Potioneer ship!"

Idle cursed, pulling on a gas mask and sealing his hazmat suit double quick. The Captain's policy was that the civvies were downstairs in sealed chambers - but the ponies would likely be landing in force. If they got past the defenders, if even one fucking guard with a potion bandolier got through…

Mayhem.

Well. That wasn’t going to happen on John Idle’s fucking watch.

"Brace for boarders!" someone yelled.

The ship got closer, and suddenly guns lanced out, impacting uselessly on a shield. As they fired, they could see the chariots and Potioneer chariots flying out.

"Fuck," Idle swore.

And then they were among them.

The lucky bastards, the ones like Idle who were clever enough to remember to wear hazmat and other potion-proof gear, were able to shrug off the vile liquid as it hit them, retaliate and open fire on the boarders. The unlucky bastards started screaming - some threw themselves over the edge to die in the water, and some shot themselves. Still more were put down by their own colleagues.

Idle growled as he dodged a potion vial, shooting the little shit that had thrown it and taking down another a moment later. His SMG ratted and tatted as he fired short, controlled bursts, a scowl on his face beneath his mask.

Ponies were landing, here, there and everywhere. Grapples and spears and spells and gunfire became a blur of motion. HLF died or were ponified, ponies exploded or broke beneath fists and knives, Newfoals were born and died in seconds… Idle dodged a spear thrown from one hapless looking pony, and replied by shooting his face off. Another charged right at him, and he grappled with the thing before punching it in the face, knocking it to the floor. He whipped out his combat knife and stabbed it in the neck, listening to the gurgling for a moment before returning to the fray.

More ponies landed, and Idle, breathing hard, charged at a group of them, ramming one to the floor and stomping on his throat before unleashing the remainder of his clip on full auto, shredding more of the bastards as they struggled to get away, bullets tearing through limbs and throats and torsos. Nearby, he saw a Unicorn land with a group of Royal Guard, their chariot making a crash landing as one of the Pegasus pullers was blown in half by HLF anti-air fire.

“Find the civilians!” one of the ponies yelled. “Ponify them, quickly!”

Idle smirked, and opened fire, taking out two of the Unicorn’s compatriots. A moment later, however, the Unicorn had raised a shield and the bullets started bouncing off of it. Idle cursed, wondering how he’d be able to get through that shield, even as the Unicorn smirked at him with the promise of death or worse…

And then suddenly, a hail of bullets rang out, impacting the shield. Impossibly, amazingly, the thing began cracking visibly - and a moment later it imploded, and the bullets continued on course for the Unicorn’s face.

“The hell?” Idle muttered. He turned to look for the source of the bullets, and saw - to his amazement - a squad of hazmat suited troops with a variety of weapons moving out of cover, advancing while firing on the attackers, their movements calm and deliberate. At their head was an older man in a long green military coat, underneath which was a kevlar vest and bodysuit. He had a lever-action shotgun that he used to devastating effect, blowing away any Newfoal or Guard who rushed him, but more importantly was the directions he was giving other troops.

“Concentrate on one spot, right near the head!” he yelled to his men, aiming at another shielded Unicorn. “Collapse it!”

His entourage opened fire, and after about a minute, the shield collapsed under the concentrated firepower, the Unicorn being shredded.

Idle blinked, shocked. He’d rarely seen a shield collapsed like that - normally people were too overwhelmed to be able to concentrate fire on it. He added his own firepower to the group’s, shredding more ponies, and suddenly found himself standing amongst them.

“Stop gaping, lad,” the older man said. “Here!”

The older man passed Idle an assault rifle, and Idle accepted it dumbly, before bringing it up and firing on more ponies.

“Get more people on the big guns!” the older man yelled. “And don’t forget to concentrate your fucking fire!”

“Yes sir!” one of the men yelled, and he and two others started jogging up some stairs, firing on ponies as they did so. Idle jogged up to the older man.

“We can kill as many of these fucks as we like,” he said, “but that goddamn zep is gonna be a problem!”

“Of course it is,” the older man said. But we’ve got heavy weapons below - I’ve got two squads getting that stuff together now.”

“Nothing we have’ll go through that thing’s shields!” Idle said.

The older man gave him a look, before pushing him aside as a Pegasus flew overhead, dodging a potion bomb that impacted nearby, spraying some men in hazmat suits. They shared glances with each other, their expressions unreadable. The older man looked around.

“Everyone human?”

He seemed satisfied by what he saw, and looked up, looking to see where the potioneer-ship was. The zeppelin was getting closer, almost right on top of the Purity.

“Right!” the older man said, spitting. “Thompson and Darrell, get your arses into sniping positions and take out any Pegasi that gets close!”

“Sir!” one man yelled, and he and another man jogged off into position.

The older man turned to Idle. “The missile launchers can get through that shielding, if we weaken it first!”

“And how are we meant to that?!” Idle asked.

“You saw those Unicorns!” the older man said. “Those shields might be tough, but a projectile slamming into it weakens it, even if only by a fraction! We fire enough, it goes crashing down!”

“There’s no way we have enough bullets,” Idle muttered.

The older man grinned. “Hope you’re wrong, boy.”

He looked up, drawing a pistol, and started firing at the zep. The thing was so close that one could almost see the little, fading ripples where the bullets impacted. Grimacing, Idle looked up and leant his own rifle’s bullets to the effort, and a moment later everyone in their little group opened fire on the zeppelin. Pegasi tried moving in on them, but Thompson and Darrell seemed to have the group covered.

The older man emptied the last of his pistol, grimacing at it before dropping it and bringing out a radio.

“You guys done yet?!” he yelled.

Whatever reply he got wasn’t heard over the sudden roar of an explosion. A man had tried throwing a grenade at the zeppelin, but it had fallen, exploding in the air and shredding half a dozen ponies and HLF alike with the shrapnel, as well as buckling the deck itself.

“Bollocks!” Idle swore. “Don’t throw a fucking grenade on a FUCKING SHIP, YOU WANKERS!”

“Great,” the older man grumbled. “Like we needed that.”

“You get an ETA on those blokes with the rockets?” Idle asked.

“They should be here…” the older man began, and then he grinned. “Now!

As he said that, a group of soldiers with missile launchers appeared, dashing out of a door. One of them had a pistol out in his other hand, and shot a pony that was trying to get close to them.

Idle’s joy at seeing the men quickly died, however, when he realised some of them had failed to wear hazmat suits…

Suddenly another Pegasus group flew over the men, and though several of the Pegasi were hit by the snipers, there were still a good half dozen men hit by potion. They began changing, and there was sudden chaos as the new Newfoals began grappling with the missile launcher men.

The older man cursed, and began jogging towards the melee, aiming his shotgun up and catching a Newfoal with a spray. Idle followed, bringing his own gun to bear and putting down more Newfoals.

"This is getting ridiculous!" the older man yelled, but he sounded surprisingly chipper. "Come on!"

He put down the last Newfoal, then picked up a discarded missile launcher, tossing it to Idle, who fumbled with it for a moment.

"You know how to use one of those?!" the older man asked.

"Er, yeah," Idle said hesitantly. "Think so!"

"Just remember!" someone else said. "They're 'rocket launchers', not 'missile launchers' - they can't miss if they don't have the word 'miss' in 'em!"

Idle chuckled bemusedly, before aiming his 'rocket' launcher up at the Potioneer ship.

"On my mark!" the older man yelled. Everyone checked their aim. "Mark!"

About a dozen rocket launchers fired at once, the rockets shooting off at the Zeppelin like the proverbial bats out of hell. One impacted on a shield, then another, then another…

And then one got through, blasting through a wood and steel deck. Another impacted right next to it, blasting through balloon and air and causing the gas to explode in a fiery conflagration. A third missile blew the bridge of the Potioneer ship apart, and you could see ponies scrambling to escape the ship as it burnt.

"We did it!" someone yelled. "We brought it down!"

"Hoo-yah!" someone else bellowed. "Take that, you geldo fuckers!"

Idle grinned too - at the beginning of this fight, he had thought he was doomed, but impossibly, incredibly, they were alive, and they were still human. He laughed - a sound he never thought he'd make again.

"Here!" Idle heard the older man yell. "Get men to the bridge, make sure we're still steering to dodge that fuck!"

"Yes sir!" one of the HLF men said, jogging off. Suddenly there was a silence - ponies were trying to escape and being shot from the air, but the fighting had died down almost immediately, as the Zeppelin slowly sank through the air and headed for the sea.

"What's your name, son?" the older man asked Idle. Idle turned to him, frowning in confusion.

"Me?" he asked.

"Yeah, you," the man said, smiling slightly.

"Idle," Idle said. "My name's John Idle."

"You did good today Idle," the older man congratulated. "Real good."

“Thanks,” Idle said, and he meant it. “Who are…?”

“Yarrow,” the older man said at once. “My name’s Maxi Yarrow.” He looked around, frowning slightly. “‘Scuse me - I’d best go see if I can’t this mess back to some level of fucking organisation.”

With that, the older man walked off, yelling at some men to start fixing the deck while he was at it. Idle watched him go, an odd expression on his face. He didn’t know why, but for the first time since this blasted war had started, he felt… hope.

Maxi Yarrow, huh? he thought to himself. You know, I could get used to listening to a bloke like that. We might actually have a chance after all.

***

Secure office, June 25th, 2020

When a certain smartly-dressed individual sat down at his desk that morning, he had not expected to see an envelope waiting for him. Normally all mail was handled through his assistant. Of course, had this particular mail went through his assistant first, she would have notified him first and foremost.

He had already not been having the best of times. In spite of the numerous precautions in place, both mentally and physically, the United Kingdom's people and political leaders had been scattered in the aftermath of the Barrier’s arrival in every sense of the word. The survival of the Crown was only one part of the greater whole; the destruction of the Parliament, and the presumed demise of the PM during Barrierfall had crippled His Majesty’s Government, leaving a few scattered officials to pick up the pieces.

The European Front was reaching its height, with the remaining states in the Balkans and Eastern Europe holding out for as long as the Barrier permits. Armies in sizes never seen since the height of the Second World War clashed in the battlefields, from the mountains of Greece to the forests of Scandinavia. But the harsh truth of the Conversion War was common knowledge; where the armies fought, the Barrier would follow, and grounds painstakingly fought for would have been left as they were ante bellum.

As such, civilian matters were often brought to the forefront, and the goals of every strategic and tactical decision made shifted to the protection and recovery of the populace. It was an unexpected shift for altruism, One that, for once, became a necessity.

One thing leads to another, and soon enough scores of ships were loaded with as many refugees as they can, no matter the country or race. Tensions remain high on board, though, and the disappearance of the Mamayev Kurgan - along with its top-secret, stolen cargo - proved that the tentative peace between ‘former’ enemy groups were hardly a permanent fixture.

Added to that was the video meeting with Armacham’s Genevieve Aristide he still had to reschedule, and various other problems… well, he supposed it couldn’t be helped. This was a war, after all, and an unfortunately complicated one at that.

Suspecting that the letter was a trap, he scowled at it, wondering what it could be. He could have called someone to dispose of it, but the fact that it was here, past all the various security measures he had ordered put in place to prevent this exact thing from happening, was admittedly… intriguing. First, he took out a small surgical mask and put it over his face, in case there was some sort of anthrax or other biological agent designed to poison him present. Next, he pulled out a waterproof glove from one of his drawers, in case the paper was laced with potion (he’d heard stranger things). With that done, he picked it up and turned it over, to see - of all things - a handwritten note on the envelope.

No, this isn’t a trap. No, it isn’t laced with poison, potion or other unpleasant ‘p’ words. No, I’m not reading your mind - that would be impolite, and frankly it would take too long. Open this.

He raised an eyebrow. Alright - now that was quite unexpected.

He opened the envelope gingerly, still expecting the worst. With that done with, he had a brief glance at letter, his eyes narrowing into a suspicious, yet intrigued expression.

Hello Mikey.

I can call you ‘Mikey’, right? Well, me knowing your name probably A) has you suspicious, and B) has you certain you’re not dealing with anybody ordinary. Right both counts - suspicion is probably a good thing to have on hand regardless of who I am, and I am anything but ordinary.

So, brass tacks. Right now, your engineers on the Thunderchild are having a couple of smidgey problems. I’ve added some notes that they should like.

The suited man glanced in the envelope, and sure enough, there were a couple of pieces of paper with tiny scribblings on them. He looked back at the letter.

I hope you’ll take this as a sign that I mean to help you. I’d do more - really, I wish I could - but I’m technically cheating by even doing this, and I’d have my head if I found out I was here.

The suited man raised an eyebrow. That was an odd comment - but it also provided an… interesting clue.

In any case (the letter continued), you can hopefully expect to hear a little more from me. I’m gonna be working freelance where I can, helping you and a few other folks out where I can. Hopefully you’ll hear more from me soon.

Dr RB.

Well then - that just confirmed what he had already been thinking. His correspondent was many things, clearly, but subtle (or original) wasn’t one of them.

Now, there was just the question of contacting him.

***